School name: College of Saint Mary
Type of school: small, private, Catholic, all women’s college
School locale: Omaha, NE, USA
Is your role mostly in-person, hybrid, online (synchronous or asynchronous)? In person
For how many years have you taught psychology? 21 years (plus teaching during graduate school)
Classes you teach: General Psychology, Child Psychology, Human Services Fieldwork, Psychology Capstone, and assorted psychology electives
Specialization: Developmental
What size classes do you teach? 10-30 students per course
What do you know now about teaching that you wish you knew when you were starting?
- Sometimes less is more. That is, sometimes covering fewer chapters/topics/concepts is better than trying to cover everything.
- It is important to keep work-related tasks and pressure in perspective. Very few things (e.g., emails, situations, problems) in higher education are urgent.
Briefly describe a favorite assignment or in-class activity. One of my favorite activities is a fieldtrip that I plan when I teach Psychology of Learning. I take the students to a local police department for a talk about how the officers train the police dogs. The visit also includes some demonstrations with the dogs. This fieldtrip is an engaging way to show students important applications of operant conditioning in the real world.
What’s your dream course if you had the time and resources to teach it? I am teaching a dream course this semester! I am teaching Psychology Applied to Television and Film, but I am basing the entire course on the Apple TV show Severance. Shout out to Jill Swirsky for sharing her wisdom on teaching pop culture themed courses and to my college for allowing me to try something new! I am having so much fun integrating many references to the show in my syllabus and assignments, and I am having a blast incorporating various props and activities related to the show into my class periods. Instead of being macrodata refiners, like the characters in the show, my students are psychological concept refiners. My goal is to use this mysterious and important show to inspire curiosity and learning among the students, and I hope to encourage their appreciation of film and television, too.
What are three words that best describe your teaching style? Enthusiastic, down-to-earth, engaging
What’s your workspace like? My workspace is cozy and has just the right balance of academia and whimsy (and it usually has too many piles of miscellaneous papers and articles).
Tell us about a teaching disaster (or embarrassment) you’ve had and how you dealt with the situation.
A few years ago, I was teaching General Psychology. I had a YouTube video embedded in my Power Point slides. The video was of cats wearing pumpkin hats, and the cats were ringing a bell for treats – a cute and amusing example of positive reinforcement. I have used the same video clip and link for years, and because the video was embedded, we could all see the still shot of the cats in their hats. I clicked on the video once, and it did not play. I clicked on it again and started to lecture. Suddenly, I could hear heavy, inappropriate-sounding breathing. Confused, I glanced around the room and over at the computer screen. I saw that my cat video was NOT playing. I only saw a split second of what was playing, but let’s just say that all I saw was a hand waving a toy in the air. It was not at all appropriate. I immediately and obnoxiously yelled to the students, “AAHH…LOOK AWAY!” I quickly ran to the computer and closed out the video and my slides. I apologized for the horrendous accident and explained that they were supposed to see cats ringing bells. I said that I had no idea what just happened or why it happened, and I made a comment about the importance of double-checking links. Students never said anything about it to me, and I didn’t notice them laughing, looking freaked out, or chatting during the rest of that class period. So, either they were stunned, or they were too busy looking at their phones and missed the whole debacle. Who knows. All I can say is that I learned my lesson to triple check old links in all of my slides.
What are you currently reading for pleasure? Us Against You by Fredrik Backman (the second book in the Beartown series). This series is fantastic; it is all hockey and emotions.
What tech tool could you not live without? Outlook and Google calendars.
