GSTA Blog

By Hallie Jordan, M.A. (Ph.D. Student), The University of Southern Mississippi

At the Society of Teaching Psychology’s (STP’s) 2019 Annual Conference on Teaching (ACT), I had the opportunity to talk with Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D. about her book Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning, co-authored with Patrice Bain, Ed.S., a middle school social studies teacher. We discussed the origins of Pooja & Patrice’s research together, explored the ways Pooja currently uses the book’s featured power tools in her college classrooms, and ended with a conversation about how I can implement these power tools as a graduate student instructor of an introductory statistics course. 

Power Tools: Retrieval, Spacing, Interleaving, and Metacognition

Powerful Teaching highlights four power tools: retrieval, spacing, interleaving, and metacognition. Pooja and I focused our conversation on the first two – retrieval and spacing. Retrieval is simply the practice of recalling previously learned information – what we think of when we think of traditional testing. Pooja describes this process as getting information “out” of one’s head, which counters ideas that learning is all about getting information “in.” Spacing includes retrieval; however, this is the process of recalling older information. This delayed recall, which by nature is more challenging, actually can help strengthen learning because of the challenge associated with recalling information from weeks or months ago.

Powerful Teaching’s Origins

As Pooja became more involved in research and teaching as a graduate student while at Washington University in St. Louis (under the mentorship of memory scholar Henry L. Roediger, III), it became apparent that teachers already use many of the strategies demonstrated to be effective for learning (e.g., retrieval). During the 2006-2007 school year, Pooja observed Patrice’s class full-time and saw just that: Patrice was already implementing retrieval practice using clicker quizzes. As their research collaboration began, they decided to begin manipulating the clicker quizzes.

Pooja reflected on how they started by exploring effects of more vs. fewer clicker quizzes and noted “almost everything we did was a within-subjects design. For example, if Patrice was teaching a lesson on ancient Egypt, 10 of the 20 facts would be on the clicker quizzes, while 10 facts wouldn’t. Over time we played around with what if the quizzes are multiple choice or short answer, should they be online or at home, should they receive immediate or delayed feedback…it was uncharted territory!”

This research started in Patrice’s classroom, but quickly grew to include the entire middle school and ultimately the entire school district in Columbia, Illinois (in the St. Louis area). Overall, they conducted research on the science of learning with more than a thousand students for an entire decade!

Powerful Teaching in Pooja’s Classrooms

The years of research Pooja conducted at Washington University in St. Louis occurred in middle school classrooms. As an instructor of college students, I was curious how these strategies transfer to classrooms in higher education. Pooja has incorporated retrieval practice in her college classrooms from the start (she teaches four psychology courses at the Berklee College of Music in Boston each semester), and this was initially through using clickers. As her teaching has evolved, she has shifted to using paper & pencil as well as GoogleForms, while acknowledging many instructors enjoy using mobile phone apps. For example, in a recent course, she incorporated spacing & retrieval practice using GoogleForms. The GoogleForm included a pre-test of neuroscience mythbusters before beginning a new unit (e.g., We only use 10% of our brain – true/false), but at the top of the form, Pooja asked her students to share one thing they learned about mental health from the last week’s lesson. So, even though they were completing a pre-test, they still had to retrieve – and the retrieval was spaced out.

Since writing Powerful Teaching, Pooja has thought more about incorporating retrieval practice spontaneously during class rather than separately at the beginning or end of class. This highlights a significant benefit of powerful teaching strategies – they do not require significant pre-planning or grading, and they can be implemented spontaneously. If things seem to be dragging in class, the instructor can generate a retrieval question related to course content on the spot. For this purpose, Pooja likes to keep index cards on hand (she will pass them out for students to answer a spontaneous retrieval question), but notes instructors can alternatively have students write these responses on their own paper or have a “QR” code in the slides (with a little pre-planning) that students can scan to submit their response.

When reflecting on retrieval practice using index cards, Pooja stated, “I love when students write something on an index card or piece of paper, and come up after class and give it to me – they’re expecting me to grade it. But it’s for them!” This captures the essence of retrieval practice: it is recalling information for learning’s sake, rather than for evaluative purposes.

Powerful Teaching in My Classroom as a Graduate Student Instructor

Pooja’s passion for helping instructors implement evidence-based practices in the classroom was no more evident than when she shifted the conversation to asking me about my classroom! We discussed strategies I could implement while teaching an “Introduction to Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences” course of 50 students. Again, none of the strategies we discussed required extensive prep time or even significant re-organizing of my class. Instead, it was just re-working a couple ways I approached teaching.

Two Things: Prior to my conversation with Pooja, I was spending 2-3 minutes at the start of each class reviewing the main objectives from the previous class via simply reminding students what we learned. Pooja suggested I instead use spaced retrieval to accomplish this review. So, I started asking students at the start of each class to write down two things they learned last time. After they wrote their two things, they shared their two things with their neighbor, and added one of their neighbor’s two things to their list. This became a daily practice in our classroom and provided students another opportunity to practice getting information out.

Weekly Quizzes: This is a strategy incorporating retrieval and spacing that I tried once and will absolutely implement again! Simply administer a low-stakes (key: low-stakes!) quiz at the start of class on previously learned information. This requires students to get information out at least several days after they initially put the information in. Research tells us this works. I elected to share the answers with the class at the conclusion of the quiz, where students could grade their own work (as it did not count for a course grade) and keep the quiz as a study tool. Although my students seemed initially nervous when I announced this small quiz, they were relieved at the low-stakes nature and noted this provided them an opportunity to practice their learning before a higher-stakes unit exam.

Retrieval During Lessons: Pooja also recommended building retrieval in during the lessons – not just during exams. Throughout my PowerPoints, I added slides with a question relevant to that day’s lecture for students to answer independently. Vast research shows that, again, it is this retrieval of knowledge that is essential for learning to occur and last. When those slides came up, we would pause for students to think about and jot down their answer (in their notes), and then I would ask a student to share their response. I would provide feedback to the provided response and answer any clarifying questions that came up. In future semesters, I plan to incorporate more spacing in this exercise (so, asking a question about content from a previous class period). Additionally, I have considered ways to make this exercise more interactive through having students submit answers through a GoogleForm so we can see in real-time how the class was doing in their understanding.

Conclusion

Pooja & Patrice’s work captures the reciprocal ways in which classroom experience can inform research, and then how research informs classroom experience. Pooja captured the essence of retrieval and spacing when she shared a beautiful metaphor she tells her students (who are all music students at Berklee College of Music): “As music students you have to practice your instrument, so in this class we’re going to be practicing your knowledge. The same reason you can’t cram the night before a gig, we use to approach other learning. You have to space it out, you have to practice in advance, you need feedback to know how well you’re doing; you can’t just watch someone play the piano and then just do it. You have to practice your instrument, just like we have to practice our knowledge.”

Although we may find ourselves searching for fancy teaching strategies, at our core we know what works. When we let science guide our teaching, we can use these powerful strategies to help our students engage in effective, life-long learning.

 

Resources

Check out Pooja & Patrice’s book Powerful Teaching to learn more about the research they conducted on four learning power tools (retrieval, spacing, interleaving, metacognition) as well as specific suggestions for implementing these strategies in a variety of classrooms.

Pooja actively disseminates recommendations for implementing retrieval practice through her Retrieval Practice website and on Twitter @RetrieveLearn. You can even subscribe for a weekly email of retrieval practice suggestions straight to your inbox!

Visit Pooja’s website for more information about her research, keynotes, and workshops.

 

Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D. is a cognitive scientist, conducting research on how students learn since 2005. She is the author of the book Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning and an Assistant Professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, teaching psychological science to exceptional undergraduate musicians. She is also the Founder of RetrievalPractice.org, a source of research-based teaching strategies for more than 15,000 teachers around the world. Pooja’s research has been published in leading journals; highlighted by The New York Times, NPR, Scientific American, and Education Week; and recognized by the National Science Foundation.

Hallie Jordan, M.A. is a fourth-year doctoral student in The University of Southern Mississippi’s counseling psychology program with experiences teaching introductory psychology, statistics, and counseling theories courses. She has been a member of the Graduate Student Teaching Association’s (GSTA) Blog Editorial Team since 2018. As a member of the Behavior and Addiction Research Lab, her research focuses on college student substance use. Clinically, Hallie is interested in behavioral health and providing clinical supervision.

By William S. Altman, Ph.D., SUNY Broome Community College

You’ve probably noticed that as scholars, we tend to do an awful lot of writing.  We write articles, blog posts, and lots of other kinds of documents to communicate our thoughts or research findings.  Sometimes we write to help us understand what we’re trying to learn, or to clarify our own thinking about something.  But quite often, we face the daunting task of knowing HOW to get our thoughts down in some coherent way.  It would be nice to find some method to make this easier and less stressful.

One possible solution is the V-diagram, originally developed by D. Bob Gowin at Cornell University.  Using this format will help us to develop our thoughts, organize our ideas automatically, and see where we might need more information or better connections.

So, let’s see how using a V-diagram might help us.  The sides of the diagram represent conceptual information (on the left) and data-driven information (on the right).  The center of the V contains the focus question that the writer hopes to answer with their work.  The actual event or object that the writer has observed is placed at the bottom of the V.  In other words, once you have your focus question, you work your way down the left side to develop your experiment or observational method, and once the experiment or observation is done, you work your way up the right side to deal with the data and draw your conclusions.  In general, the entries on the left and right sides will tend to mirror one another, as you’ll see in the examples below.

Here’s how the V-diagram is constructed:

Just as an example, let’s use the diagram to write about research on how to be safe when hiking in the forest.

As you can see from the example above, it would be pretty easy to translate this into a finished article or book chapter.  Tackling a typical psychological paper would be very much the same:

In fact, this method has been so helpful over the years, I used it to help write this piece.  Here was my diagram:

So, as you can see, the V-diagram does make writing a lot simpler.  I definitely encourage you to try it!

You can learn more about V-diagrams by reading Learning How to Learn (Novak & Gowin, 1984) or The Art of Educating with V Diagrams (Gowin & Alvarez, 2005), or by visiting the following websites:

• Picture It Solved: https://pictureitsolved.com/resources/practices/vee-diagrams/
• Educating with V Diagrams: http://cosee.umaine.edu/vdiagram/

References

Gowin, D. B. & Alvarez, M. C. (2005) The art of educating with V diagrams. Cambridge University Press.

Novak, J. D. & Gowin, D. B. (1984). Learning how to learn. Cambridge University Press.

 

William S. Altman is a professor in the Psychology and Human Services Department at SUNY Broome Community College, and currently serves as The Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s Vice President for Resources. Dr. Altman holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Educational Psychology and Measurement, and an M.P.S. in Communication Arts from Cornell University, and a B.A. in History from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2018, STP honored him with the Wayne Weiten Teaching Excellence Award.

He spent over a decade sharing information about education and psychological science on local radio, been a professional photographer, and performed in theater and as a standup comic (ostensibly to work on classroom presentation skills, but mostly because it's fun).

Bill Altman is driven by a wide and unpredictable curiosity, an almost pathological and sometimes annoying need to solve problems of nearly any sort, and a sense that it all ought to be fun.

By Yuliana Zaikman¹, Jamie S. Hughes², and Laura Madson³

¹ Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi

² The University of Texas of the Permian Basin

³ New Mexico State University

As a graduate student TA, should you seek training in a specific teaching strategy, like team-based learning (TBL), inter-teaching, or cooperative learning? What are the risks and benefits on the job market and as an early career faculty member of having adopted a specific teaching strategy? Two of us (YZ and JH) tried team-based learning as graduate students while being mentored by LM. YZ and JH continue to use it as early- and mid-career faculty members. Our experiences with TBL have featured unexpected benefits and challenges. We will start by shortly explaining what TBL is and then discuss some of the benefits and challenges we experienced with it.

A typical TBL module takes 2-4 weeks of class time. In TBL, the majority of class time involves students working in permanent teams (5-7 students) on disciplinary tasks that require and reward creative, critical, and collaborative thought (Michaelsen, Knight, & Fink, 2004; Sibley & Ostafichuk, 2014; Sweet & Michaelsen, 2012). For example, the instructor might ask teams to choose a mental illness that disrupts the most of one’s daily routine and have the teams justify their choices. Teams work on the same, significant problem, make a specific choice, and report their choice simultaneously. After within-team discussion, all teams report their choices and the instructor leads the full class in a discussion of different teams’ reasoning for their choices. Because there is no “right” answer, this discussion and students’ understanding of the material is enriched when teams disagree.

TBL is a complete teaching strategy that guides all aspects of course design and assessment and leads to improved learning and student engagement (Madson, Zaikman, & Hughes, in press). In TBL, the instructor’s job is not to lecture about the material, but rather to create learning opportunities for the students to get hands-on experience with the material while working with their team members. Team activities can be graded or ungraded and students can complete typical individual examinations as well.

TBL can be fun and engaging for instructors and students. Instructors can get to know their students better, and students (along with instructors) feel a greater sense of accomplishment after having fully explored and applied subject matter following activities and tests. Within- and between-team discussions expose students to different perspectives and allow students to practice oral communication and critical thinking skills. Further, student attendance, conversations, and course evaluations suggest they are engaged and enjoy the work.

In addition to providing a more engaging and fun way of teaching, YZ believes that TBL may provide a leg up on the job market. It gave her something additional to discuss in her teaching philosophy statement and during interviews. Search committees almost always asked her something about TBL, and it felt amazing to be knowledgeable about such a progressive and fun method of teaching.

There are some challenges with TBL, especially for a beginning graduate student or early career faculty member. One challenge was the necessary mental shift about the role of the instructor. For example, YZ’s original reaction to TBL was, “What do you mean I am not the center of attention, the fountain of knowledge the students ‘have’ to listen to?” YZ resisted at first. Even recently, YZ noticed that she lectured much longer than is normal for a TBL classroom. However, over time one becomes more comfortable with the flow of the TBL classroom and we feel “off” if we lecture for more than 15 or 20 minutes. 

Another challenge with TBL is that creating interesting and productive activities is not easy. It is sometimes very difficult. For example, it is important to create activities that interest and engage students and that require students to make a specific choice. Open-ended questions can be challenging because they can be less conducive to teamwork. It can be incredibly time consuming to develop all course materials before the beginning of the semester. This means that during your first three to six years as an assistant professor, you will spend much of your time developing new courses or revising courses you had taught before. However, the amount of time spent developing courses early on is similar to the amount of time others spend to create engaging courses or lively lectures. We also find that creating activities can sometimes be even more rewarding than writing lectures.

Starting out we created some very interesting, challenging, and engaging activities, as well as many activities that were not stimulating or challenging and were just plain bad. Over time we began to understand, more intuitively, the types of questions and response options that work best for team activities. For example, overtime we discovered the types of answers that might be attractive given a question, but that are nonetheless not correct. Creating questions with really good distractors takes practice. For example, the best activities are those in which teams must debate options that may seem equally attractive. There are workshops available through STP or the TBL collaborative that can help one improve in a number of areas, such as activity or multiple-choice question development.

Another potential challenge of TBL is the amount of support you have surrounding you. It is highly dependent on your institution whether or not you will have teaching assistants or graders. If you have activities for every single class, someone needs to grade those! This is where having a grader can be VERY helpful, particularly if you teach large sections. However, it is not impossible to teach TBL without graders (JH has never used a grader but has had small class sizes (n < 30)). You can have students complete the activities for completion grades, or grade random questions, or you can grade only one or two components of an activity (e.g., tell teams that you’ll collect answers to questions 1 and 3).

The lack of support can also manifest itself in lack of understanding from (or among) faculty members in your department. JH’s first department did not understand why she was using TBL. Her approach to teaching was very different from the normative method and several believed that her non-conformity was troublesome. Fortunately, JH was able to make a move to another university and her new work team encouraged her independence in the classroom.

What can you do even if you don’t have a mentor like LM in your life?

There are a lot(!) of resources about TBL online. We recently published an article about the applicability of TBL in psychology, but there are whole websites (http://www.teambasedlearning.org/; http://www.learntbl.ca) that have very useful tools for TBL. There is also a Facebook group that is primarily dedicated to TBL in psychology (https://www.facebook.com/groups/337832243746295). You can join it and reach out for ideas or tips. Through these domains you can try and find a mentor – someone who already practices TBL and can provide you with support while you embark on this wonderful journey of TBL[sf1] . We have found that students in TBL classrooms are more engaged, have more opportunities to practice applying and evaluating course concepts, and have more opportunities to form bonds with their classmates compared to lecture-based classrooms. As instructors, we have more opportunities to get to know our students, we find teaching TBL more challenging, and in short, we have more fun than we did using lecture methods. We hope you will give TBL a try and experience its benefits.

 

References 

Madson, L. J., Zaikman, Y., & Hughes, J. (in press). Psychology teachers should try Team-Based Learning: Evidence, concerns, and recommendations. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology.

Michaelsen, L. K., Knight, A. B., & Fink, L. D. (Eds.). (2004). Team-based learning: A transformative use of small groups in college teaching (1. Stylus paperback ed.). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Sibley, J., & Ostafichuk, P. (2014). Getting started with team-based learning (1st ed.). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Sweet, M., & Michaelsen, L. K. (Eds.). (2012). Team-based learning in the social sciences and humanities: Group work that works to generate critical thinking and engagement. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing

 

Yuliana Zaikman, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi. She teaches social psychology, human sexuality, experimental psychology and media psychology. Her research interests involve gender inequality such as the sexual double standard.

Jamie Hughes, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas Permian Basin. She teaches courses on social psychology, psychology and law, research methods, and statistics.  She conducts research related to teaching pedagogy, moral psychology, and social justice.

Laura Madson, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Psychology Department at New Mexico State University. She teaches 300-400 Introduction to Psychology students every academic year using team-based learning, has written a textbook specifically for use in her team-based learning Intro Psych classes, and offers regular workshops on team-based learning for the Teaching Academy. She also teaches a graduate course in the Teaching of Psychology. Her scholarship focuses on helping instructors adopt team-based learning.

By Stacie M. Spencer, PhD, MCPHS University, Boston, MA

Now more than ever, students, parents, employers, and the media are questioning the value of the bachelor’s degree. The term “return on investment” (ROI), once used figuratively in higher education to refer to intellectual growth and increased potential for employment, is now used literally as the financial relationship between the cost of education and future earnings. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) recently used U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard data (net price, median debt, median earnings ten years after first attending college) to rank-order 4500 colleges and universities in terms of financial ROI (Carnevale, Chesh, & Van Der Werf, 2019). The Washington Post report of the Georgetown CEW report was titled “Is College Worth It?”

You might be thinking, “Of course college is worth it!” You also might be wondering what ROI has to do with you, one instructor who only teaches a course (or a few) within the curriculum. Although you do not determine college costs or establish wages, you do have the ability to prepare students to succeed in the workforce and to help students make explicit connections between the knowledge and skills gained through coursework and employer expectations. Professional development, one of the five goals for undergraduate psychology majors established in Guidelines 2.0 (APA, 2013), includes career exploration and the development of transferable skills. Career exploration is the iterative and nonlinear process of determining which occupations best fit an individual’s work values, interests, and skills. Transferable skills include the cognitive, communication, personal, social, and technological skills developed through the psychology major that cross employment domains and are valued by employers (Naufel et al., 2018).

Professional development belongs in the curriculum. You do not have to be a career expert or seasoned faculty member to facilitate career exploration and skill development; you just need to create opportunities for students to engage in these processes. Think about the courses that piqued your interests. Perhaps you remember as an undergraduate thinking, “I love this course! I wonder if I could find a job related to this!” For most psychology students, that line of thinking typically ends by adding “psychologist” to the course title. You might have heard students say (or said yourself) “I like social psychology, I want to become a social psychologist” or “I like human development, I want to become a child psychologist.” These course-career connections are perfectly reasonable and are easy to mentor when in alignment with your training; however, only 14% of psychology baccalaureates earn a graduate degree in psychology and only 4% earn doctoral degrees in psychology (APA, 2018). We need to mentor the remaining 86–96%.

The best way you can support career exploration in your courses is to engage students as active participants in the process of connecting course content to real-world applications and job opportunities. Simple and effective ways to engage students in identifying real-world applications are to send them to the Divisions of APA webpage, the APA Monitor, and the APS Observer to look for ways in which course concepts are used in diverse settings. To identify course-related job opportunities, challenge students to locate bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral level job postings using job search engines (e.g., Glassdoor.com, Indeed.com, Monster.com, SimplyHired.com). Prior to sending students on the search mission, establish search terms and criteria (Tip: for maximum search results, avoid using “psychology” as a search term).   

When students share the information they gather, their appreciation of the breadth of applications of course content and the diversity of job opportunities grow exponentially. Working together to organize the applications discovered through the APA and APS websites, students improve their abilities to articulate concepts and examples. Writing job titles on the board and talking about respective roles and responsibilities provides a powerful illustration of the diversity of job titles and helps students see the connections between the major and potential job opportunities. Taking this one step further, identifying additional courses, volunteer, internship, and/or research opportunities that will prepare them for jobs provides the opportunity for students to take control and continue career exploration and skill development after the course ends.

Skill development is just as important as career exploration and is often less intimidating for instructors to infuse into their courses. You can assess how well you are incorporating skill development in your courses by reviewing the five domains (cognitive, communication, personal, social, and technological) and seventeen corresponding skills described in The Skillful Psychology Student: Prepared for Success in the 21^st Century Workplace (Naufel et al., 2018). If you already include activities and assignments that facilitate the development of employer-valued skills, you should make these connections explicitly clear by including skills in course learning objectives, connecting course content to skills (e.g., discuss how group think concepts can be used to improve group projects), and providing opportunities for students to reflect on skill development (Naufel et al., 2019).

Another way you can support professional development is to design assignments that yield portfolio artifacts (i.e., evidence of skills). Artifacts can include traditional course assignments, such as APA-style research papers and slides for oral presentations; however, most employers are interested in products that more closely resemble non-academic tasks. Generating workforce-relevant assignments does not mean eliminating traditional and important assignments. For example, rather than replace the research paper, you can have students use the information submitted in the research report to create an infographic for a specific audience. Whereas the research report demonstrates critical source synthesis and writing, the infographic assignment demonstrates the ability to communicate concisely and visually with non-academic audiences.

When designed well, professional development assignments help students identify interesting career paths, develop and demonstrate employer-valued skills, and assess the value of their investment in the bachelor’s degree as a positive ROI. For you, adding professional development assignments to your courses will result in an incredible set of student-generated examples you can use in mentoring beyond the classroom. As more departments seek ways to incorporate professional development across the curriculum, you will also be a strong candidate for faculty positions.

References

American Psychological Association. (2013). APA guidelines for the undergraduate psychology major: Version 2.0. APA. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/undergrad/index.aspx

American Psychological Association. (2018). Degree pathways in psychology. [Interactive data tool]. APA. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/workforce/data-tools/degrees-pathways

Carnevale, A. P., Chesh, B, & Van Der Werf, M. (2019). A first try at ROI: Ranking 4500 colleges. Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Retrieved from https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/College_ROI.pdf

Naufel, K. Z., Appleby, D. C., Young, J., Van Kirk, J., Spencer, S. M., Rudmann, J., Carducci, B. J., Hettich, P., & Richmond, A. S. (2018). The skillful psychology student: Prepared for success in the 21st century workplace. APA. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/transferable-skills.pdf

Naufel, K. Z., Spencer, S. M., Appleby, D. C., Richmond, A. S., Rudmann, J., Van Kirk, J., Young, J., Carducci, B. J., & Hettich, P. (2019, March). The skillful psychology student: How to empower students with workforce-ready skills by teaching psychology. APA. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/ptn/2019/03/workforce-ready-skills

Additional Resources

Halonen, J. S., & Dunn, D. S. (2018). Embedding career issues in advanced psychology major courses. Teaching of Psychology, 45, 41-49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628317744967

Spencer, S. M. (2019, October). One course, two courses, three courses, more? Providing career support throughout the undergraduate curriculum. APA. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/ptn/2019/10/career-support-undergraduate-curriculum

Strohmetz, D., & Ciarocco, N. J. (2019, December 9). Enhancing skill development: The potential of high impact practices. GSTA Blog. Retrieved from https://teachpsych.org/page-1784686/8225861

Stacie M. Spencer, PhD, is professor of psychology at MCPHS University (formerly known as Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences), director of the BS in health psychology program, and recipient of the MCPHS Trustees’ Award for Teaching Excellence. She earned a BA in psychology from Allegheny College and PhD in experimental social and personality psychology from Northeastern University. Dr. Spencer completed a post-doctoral fellowship in behavioral medicine at the University of Miami and a post-doctoral fellowship in psycho-oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Her current research focus is on professional development and interprofessional education. 

By Aaron S. Richmond, Ph.D., Metropolitan State University of Denver

Hello Graduate Students! I wanted to take this occasion to tell you that there are exciting changes coming to the Society of Teaching of Psychology’s (STP) flagship journal Teaching of Psychology (ToP) and I want you to be involved. But first, let me take this opportunity to thank Drew Christopher, the outgoing Editor-in-Chief, for his exemplary service to ToP and STP. He has helped shape our field and has guided graduate students (like me at the time) with a gentle, supportive, and constructive hand in the process of publishing their first work in ToP. His editorial style and guidance are responsible for instilling the passion of the science of teaching and learning to many of us. Thank you Drew, we will be forever in your debt.  

Now, the exciting changes to ToP that you, as graduate students, can be a part of. First, we are integrating Open Science practices into ToP. You as an author in ToP (hint, hint) can now have your materials be open, your data be open, and include preregistration with each manuscript. Second, much like most medical journals, were moving to a structured abstract for both data and non-data driven articles. This will allow graduate students to better access, summarize, and cite the important work that is published in ToP because the structure will allow you to go directly to the results, or the method, or the educational implications. Third, we have reorganized the types of submission that you can submit to ToP. Specifically, we are now accepting manuscripts in one of four corners: Replication Corner, Proof of Concept Corner, Science of Teaching and Learning Corner, and the Scholarly Teacher Corner.

The Proof of Concept Corner will house promising pilot studies or small-scale studies. In this corner, we are looking for  shorter articles that provide quantitative evidence for teaching and learning related interventions, establish associations in teaching of psychology variables, and/or to present descriptive data to purpose problems to solve. For graduate students, this is HUGE. It will allow you to develop the seed of an idea and get it published in a quality journal. You can then use this “proof of concept” as a rationale or evidence for a larger project like a grant proposal (hint, hint).

The Replication Corner will encourage graduate students and their collaborators not only to replicate findings from previously published studies, but to also have some novelty to their study (e.g., different type of institution, psychology subject matter, class size, additional measures). The beauty of this corner is that it does not require you, as an overextended graduate student, to reinvent the wheel.

The Science of Teaching & Learning Corner will be full-length articles that are data- or theory-driven, meta-analytic investigations, or conceptual position articles. Submissions to this section are meant to illuminate teaching of psychology topics with broad implications or importance to SoTL researchers.

Finally, the Scholarly Teacher Corner will be a forum for shorter articles that provide practical reviews, activities, and/or resources for teachers of psychology to directly use in their classroom or teaching responsibilities. They can be reflective essays, practical activities, nondata driven emerging ideas, subject specific (e.g., abnormal, developmental), how to incorporate a book into your course, research reviews that illuminate findings for teachers of psychology, translating new research, issues to consider, etc. This is another type of submission that is perfect for graduate students. Typically, you won’t need IRB review (halleluiah) to write up and review these materials. For more details about the changes to ToP follow this link.

Another change that is coming to ToP is our emphasis on involving graduate students. In the past, graduate students have not been officially involved (although they were welcome). Therefore, I’ve specifically reserved a seat on the editorial board for at least one graduate student that serves a 3-year term. I am pleased to announce that our first  graduate student and GSTA member to serve as a Consulting Editor (not just an ad hoc reviewer) is Raechel Soicher from Oregon State University. Moreover, I highly encourage you to volunteer to become an ad hoc reviewer for ToP. By becoming an ad hoc reviewer, you are on the path to becoming a member of any editorial board. It is a great line in your Curriculum Vitae. If you are interested in becoming a reviewer, please contact me @ top@psychteach.org.  

Finally, I would like to leave you with a few ideas on how to create cultural shift of involving GSTA and graduate students with ToP and the field of science of teaching and learning in general. First, I want to create a mechanism by which you become more involved in the science of teaching and learning. STP is a community of teacher-scholars and scholarly teachers and the entire society starts with you. Meaning, many of us “seasoned” society members had someone who was passionate about STP, or teaching, or the science of teaching and learning that sparked a desire to be a part of this incredible community. Whether they modeled exemplary teaching, or they were incredible scholars, or whether they introduced us to STP—it started in graduate school and we are committed to this wonderfully supportive academic community. Consequently, I want to involve you in this outstanding field and especially through ToP. You may ask: How may we accomplish this task? My first idea is to suggest that you apply to be a part of STP’s SoTL Writing Workshop. Dr. Georjeanna Wilson-Doenges is the Director of this program and (a) she is incredible, and (b) if you are accepted into the program you will be matched with a scholar in our field and be mentored for over 6 months on your project. You will then meet at STP’s Annual Conference on Teaching to participate in the workshop. I have mentored several graduate students in this program and it is in an amazing opportunity to learn how to become a scholar in the field and invariably get published and do great work. My second idea is to create a mentoring program for reviewing for ToP. I would like to establish and match graduate student reviewers with experienced Consulting Editors so that they could guide students through this somewhat “implicit procedural knowledge” process. In other words, there are weird social norms and templates used to review manuscripts that most students do not receive guidance or training on—they are just expected to know how to do it. Thus, having someone who has literally done 100s of reviews is extremely important.

I would like to leave you with an open invitation to contact me about what I have proposed, ToP, career advice, or whatever you would like. I welcome your thoughts and wishes.

Dr. Aaron S. Richmond is a professor of educational psychology at Metropolitan State University of Denver and is the Editor-in-Chief of STP’s flagship journal Teaching of Psychology. In more than 85 publications involving over 50 undergraduate and graduate students, Dr. Richmond has explored effective pedagogical approaches to instruction in both the k-12 and higher education setting. He is a passionate and accomplished teacher who loves to engage and mentor his students. 

Contact Dr. Richmond via email (arichmo3@msudenver.edu) or Twitter (@AaronSRichmond).

By Jeffrey D. Holmes, Ph.D., Ithaca College

Since you are reading this blog, it is likely that you aspire to become the most effective teacher you can be.  Perhaps you are already teaching or are working as a teaching assistant for college classes.  Perhaps you attend teaching conferences or read empirical research about teaching.  If you are particularly lucky, you may have had the opportunity to take a course designed specifically to teach you how to teach.  You may even consider yourself to be passionate about teaching.  Although “follow your passion” is a common mantra that does not always represent sound or realistic advice, it is quite relevant to your career as a teacher because such intangible teacher variables likely have a substantial impact on student outcomes. 

There is extensive scientific literature on the relative effectiveness of various pedagogical strategies.  For at least a century, researchers have been on a perpetual search for the techniques likely to yield the greatest benefit in terms of student learning.  These researchers have provided us with expansive ideas about how to approach our roles and responsibilities as educators.  To be sure, such research is sometimes used to advocate for exclusive implementation of certain strategies and the denigration of others.  Findings often are discussed—perhaps unintentionally—in falsely dichotomous terms as if even a single study, at a single institution, often in a single academic subject, revealing modest effects without controlling for a host of relevant variables justifies sweeping, generalized conclusions such as “lectures don’t work.”  It is certainly true that some studies show certain methods to be superior to others in certain contexts and for certain objectives, but virtually none of these studies control for the interests, motives, engagement, or other characteristics of the teachers who implement the strategies.  Moreover, most studies comparing teaching methods are conducted by instructors who are invested in the efficacy of a specific method; therefore, conclusions warrant particular caution especially since blinded studies of teaching strategies seldom are feasible (see Springer, Stanne, & Donovan, 1999).    

Even in light of such methodological limitations, the difference in student learning outcomes associated with differing teaching strategies tends to be small.  This is not to malign the critical efforts of those who conduct pedagogical research, as it is extraordinarily challenging to conduct studies that are both methodologically rigorous and ecologically valid in terms of actual classroom implementation.  Nor is it to say that what we do in the classroom does not matter or that we should not carefully scrutinize our strategies and objectives.  However, mountains of research data have not helped educators to identify methods that are unambiguously superior across instructors, students, and contexts.  Moreover, meta-analyses sometimes indicate that as study quality improves, effect sizes indicating differential effectiveness of various strategies declines (e.g., Kavale & Forness, 1987).   

The disappointing reality is that differential teaching strategies are associated with less variance in student outcomes than we might like to think (Detterman, 2016; Jacob, Lefgren, & Sims, 2009).  The more palatable interpretation is that as long as instructors are motivated in their work and passionate about student learning and inspiring students to think, there is little evidence that varying teaching strategies will have a dramatic separate effect.  Aspiring teachers, as well as those with years or decades of experience, would be wise to maintain their familiarity with the scientific research on teaching.  Such familiarity helps us to continue moving incrementally forward in our endeavors to help students learn, and it also helps us to avoid unproductive paths such as attempting to teach students according to their presumed learning styles (Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer, & Bjork, 2009).  Most people who take the time to conduct or consume pedagogical research are probably already among the most passionate instructors.  Research comparing the effectiveness of teaching methods is a critical tool for those wishing to maximize their teaching efficacy, but lesser-studied factors such as teacher enthusiasm, engagement, and rapport with students may be just as important.  There is little reason to hope that any teaching method will counteract the detrimental effects of a disengaged instructor; however, there is likewise little reason to fear that any method will substantially disadvantage students when implemented by a passionate, reflective, inspiring instructor.      

References

Detterman, D. K. (2016). Education and intelligence: Pity the poor teacher because student characteristics are more significant than teachers or schools.  The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 19, 1-11.

Jacob, B. A., Lefgren, L., & Sims, D. P. (2009). The persistence of teacher-induced learning. The Journal of Human Resources, 45, 915-943.

Kavale, K. A., & Forness, S. R. (1987). Substance over style: Assessing the efficacy of modality testing and teaching. Exceptional Children, 54, 228-239.

Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2009). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9, 105-119.

Springer, L., Stanne, M. E., & Donovan, S. S. (1999). Effects of small-group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 69, 21-51.

Jeffrey D. Holmes, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at Ithaca College where he teaches courses on psychological testing and assessment, abnormal psychology, controversies in psychology, and introductory psychology.  He is the author of Great Myths in Education and Learning, and has published research in journals such as Teaching of Psychology, The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, and the Social Science Journal.  He is currently Treasurer of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, and he is a licensed psychologist specializing in psychological testing.

By Dr. Guy A. Boysen, McKendree University

My wife and I were recently on the market for a car. We had a list of “must have” features: four doors, a sunroof, heated seats, under 30,000 miles, and less than 4 years old. When a pushy salesperson tried to get us to drive cars without these features, my reaction was “Not interested, bye,” not “Yes, I would love to buy different car than I asked for!” Academic search committees can be choosy too.

Faculty positions in psychology often yield dozens of qualified applicants. As such, search committees can be selective. Poor fit is a kiss of death that leads to automatic rejection (Boysen, Morton, & Neives, 2019). Getting on the short list of applicants to be interviewed requires nearly perfect fit with the qualifications listed in the job advertisement.

Lots of great cars sit undriven on car lots, and lots of highly qualified candidates get rejected for faculty positions. No, I do not want an SUV, even if is top of the line. And, no, your amazing record of research or teaching will not get you a job unless it matches what the search committee is looking for.

The importance of fit cannot be overstated. In fact, there are several different types of fit to consider when applying for faculty positions (Boysen, 2019).

Specialty Area

The first type of fit to consider is specialty area. Search committees want someone with training and experience that falls into a specific area (e.g., clinical, cognitive, social). Candidates from other areas will be rejected. Despite all the work some candidates put into writing application materials that make themselves seem qualified for positions outside of their specialty area, the first line of their CVs may be the only thing search committees read if it lists the wrong specialty.

Research vs. Teaching

The second type of fit is with an institution’s relative focus on research and teaching (see more on this topic here). For example, as illustrated by the figures, faculty at doctoral universities report that having few publications is very much a kiss of death that leads to automatic rejection, but they are only somewhat kisses of death at master’s universities and baccalaureate colleges (Boysen et al., 2019). Teaching experience is essential too, but it follow the opposite pattern of importance by university type. Of course, at community colleges, there are no scholarship requirements, so extreme research productivity in the absence of teaching experience is a sign of poor fit.

Teaching and Research Topics

Job advertisements often list specific courses that successful candidates will be able to teach and specific areas of scholarship that successful candidates will be able to publish in. Although a candidate’s teaching and research area often overlaps with their specialty area, the two are not synonymous. Two psychologists in the same specialty area can have nonoverlapping teaching and research experiences. It is best not to stretch the truth about who you are as a psychologist. Neither you nor your future employer will be satisfied if you are hired to teach or do research in an area that does not fit your interests or expertise.

“Additional” Qualifications

Job advertisements can include a host of additional qualifications. Just to name a few examples, search committees may want candidates who know advanced statistical methods, who are dedicated to liberal arts education, who have assessment experience, or who have a commitment to diversity. Although qualifications like these may be categorized as “preferred,” “ideal,” or “additional,” do not treat them as optional. You can apply for positions where your CV does not cover every additional qualification, but you should take care to explain why you still think you are good candidate even without some of the qualifications. Ignoring holes in your CV is yet another kiss of death.

Conclusion: Your Final Checklist

When my wife and I were looking for cars, we created a list of features that became our car-search guide. You can do the same during your job search. Use the qualifications listed in job advertisements as a checklist for your application materials. Ensure that your materials – especially your CV and cover letter – demonstrate fit with most everything on the checklist. The search committee is assessing fit, and you should too.

References

Boysen, G. A. (2019). Becoming a psychology professor: Your guide to landing the right academic job. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Boysen, G. A., Morton, J., & Nieves, T. (2019). Kisses of death in the psychology faculty hiring process. Teaching of Psychology, 46, 260-266. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628319853942

 

Guy A. Boysen, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology at McKendree University. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota and his PhD from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. His scholarship emphasizes the teaching of psychology, professional development of teachers, and stigma toward mental illness. He is the author of Becoming a Psychology Professor: Your Guide to Landing the Right Academic Job and An Evidence-based Guide to College and University Teaching. Dr. Boysen is on the editorial staff at Teaching of Psychology and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Visit https://thefullprofessor.wordpress.com/

Contact the Author

gaboysen@mckendree.edu

Twitter: @guyboysen

https://thefullprofessor.wordpress.com/

By Karen Brakke, Ph.D., Spelman College

One of my intellectual heroes is Jerome Bruner.  In graduate school – back in the last century – it was his writings on infant language acquisition and skill development that guided my thinking.  As my research interests drifted into early motor development, I stepped away from Bruner in favor of another hero, Esther Thelen.  Then, around 2010 I joined a faculty book club on my campus and read Acts of Meaning.  I fell for Bruner all over again; this time focusing on his arguments about the use of story and narrative to share meaning and create identity.  Since that time, I’ve had the good luck to engage in a number of collaborations that have convinced me that story and narrative are critical tools for psychology instructors, and that these tools can be used to advantage in many ways.

Stories themselves are not new, of course, nor are the narratives or frames used to tell them.  In fact, the power of story lies in its timelessness.  Our ancestors have told stories since the dawn of recorded history, and probably for generations before that.  Indeed, in many ways our brains are built to create and learn through stories. Throughout the millennia and across all cultures, as Bruner argues, stories have been used as a way for people to share experiences, pass along knowledge and wisdom to others, and provide frames of meaning to our lives.  In short, stories have long been the tools of education.

One of the goals of contemporary teaching, particularly in this age of staggering data proliferation, is to help students generate meaning about what they learn. Why not use stories to help do this?  As psychologists teaching about human behavior, many of us already use stories to support our work in the classroom. We may do so, however, with little thought other than wanting to provide an illustrative example here and there. Or we may write case studies without fully realizing the narrative devices that make some cases more effective than others.  We may not take advantage of all the ways that stories can be used in our classes to introduce or assess material, to reinforce and apply concepts, or even to help our students practice life-authorship as they prepare for adulthood.

This blog doesn’t provide nearly enough space to discuss all the ways in which story can support teaching and learning.  Fortunately, there are many resources available that support the pedagogical use of story in higher education.  Several websites are devoted to the art and craft of storytelling. Among these is Tim Sheppard’s site (http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/), which provides a clearinghouse of resources that you may find helpful. If you are interested in digital storytelling, the Creative Educator website  (https://creativeeducator.tech4learning.com/digital-storytelling) is a good place to start.  The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/about/) provides a host of resources on case-study development and has several psychology-relevant case studies available for use as well. 

Other resources not only provide practical ideas to use in the classroom, but also delve into the science behind storytelling.  For a quick overview of using story to teach psychology, I recommend three articles: Green and Brock (2000), Hazel (2008), and Landrum, Brakke, and McCarthy (2019).  One of my favorite sources of inspiration – and not just because I worked on it – is Telling Stories: The Art and Science of Storytelling as an Instructional Strategy, an STP ebook available for free download at http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/tellingstories.html. Collins & Cooper’s The Power of Story: Teaching Through Storytelling is a handy book as well.  For a deeper dive into the role that stories play in human development and culture, I suggest (of course) Bruner’s Acts of Meaning and Actual Minds, Possible Worlds; Brian Boyd’s On the Origin of Stories, or Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal.  Once you start looking, you’ll find a wealth of additional resources to support different uses of story in your teaching.  If you take the time to explore and let your creativity flow, I’m confident you’ll find a lot of engaging and effective ways to expand your teaching toolkit with story.

References

Boyd, B. (2009). On the origin of stories: Evolution, cognition, and fiction. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Brakke, K. & Houska, J. A. (Eds.). (2015). Telling stories: The art and science of storytelling as an instructional strategy [ebook]. Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/tellingstories.html

Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of meaning (Vol. 3). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. S. (2009). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Collins, R., & Cooper, P. J. (2005). The power of story: Teaching through storytelling (2nd ed.). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

Gottschall, J. (2012). The storytelling animal: How stories make us human. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 701-721.

Hazel, P. (2008). Toward a narrative pedagogy for interactive learning environments. Interactive Learning Environments, 16, 199-213.

Landrum, R. E., Brakke, K., & McCarthy, M. (2019). The pedagogical power of storytelling. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 5, 247-253. DOI: 10.1037/stl0000152 

Karen Brakke is Associate Professor of Psychology at Spelman College in Atlanta GA, where she teaches a variety of courses and serves on several committees.  A developmental psychologist by training, she has published on early cognitive and motor development as well as teaching and learning.  Brakke is active in the Society for the Teaching of Psychology and has participated in many of the organization’s initiatives over the years. 

By David B. Strohmetz, Ph.D., University of West Florida and Natalie J. Ciarocco, Ph.D., Monmouth University

Increasingly, faculty are being asked to incorporate “high impact practices” into their classes. This can be a confusing request as many of us may already believe we are making our courses “high impact.” At the same time, we are being asked to find opportunities for improving the career-readiness of our students. However, these two goals are not mutually exclusive. We can make our high impact practices even more impactful if we more intentionally integrate skill development into these experiences.

The label of “high impact practices” (or HIPs) can be, in large part, attributed to the work of George Kuh and his colleagues (Kuh, 2008). They identified participation in certain educational experiences as related to important student outcomes such as improved academic performance, increased retention, and greater self-reported gains in learning. What makes HIPs “high impact” is that these educational activities require meaningful student investment of time and effort as well as substantive interactions with faculty and diverse others (Kuh & O’Donnell, 2013). HIPs provide students opportunities to engage in real world applications of their classroom learning and reflect upon their learning. Examples of HIPs include collaborative assignments and projects, undergraduate research, writing intensive courses, internships, and capstone courses and projects. Quality HIPs require students to engage in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and problem solving. We would argue that what makes HIPs particularly impactful is that they also provide opportunities for students to develop and practice the types of skills that employers desire in recent college graduates (Fabris, 2015; Hart Associates, 2018).

Given that the majority of undergraduate psychology majors directly enter the workforce after graduation, increasing attention is being given to the skills students should be developing to facilitate their success in the workforce (Landrum & McCarthy, 2018). Appleby (2014) identified seven broad skills employers value in recent college graduates: communication skills, critical thinking and research skills, collaboration skills, self-management skills, professional skills, technological skills, and ethical skills. These skills reflect the types of activities which are characteristic of HIPs, meaning HIPs might serve multiple outcomes for our students, namely deeper learning and career preparation.

HIPs which involve appropriately setting performance expectations; investment of significant time and effort; and frequent, timely, and constructive feedback can help students build their professional and self-management skills. Collaboration skills are also reinforced in HIPs that involve substantive interactions with others and experiences with diversity. For example, common HIP activities such as learning communities or collaborative assignments and projects require students to work together to achieve desired educational outcomes. Other notable HIPs such as writing intensive courses, undergraduate research, and capstone courses not only build communication skills, but are also likely to strengthen critical thinking skills. Internships, service learning, and community-based learning provide students with opportunities to develop and practice a number of employable skills.

To learn if participating in HIPs might be related to one’s perceived skill efficacy, we examined data collected from 1,125 undergraduates through our website, http://www.employableskills.com. This website provides students with the opportunity to engage in a self-assessment of their employable skills. Students complete the Employable Skills Self-Efficacy Scale (Ciarocco & Strohmetz, 2018) and then receive feedback on how their perceived confidence levels compare to other students. We also give students tips on how they might strengthen their employable skills. Among the demographic information we collected, we asked whether the respondent had completed an internship or participated in research, two common types of HIPs. We found a consistent pattern in self-efficacy differences between those who either did or did not participate in an internship and/or research-related experiences. Students who had completed an internship were more confident in their communication, analytical, collaboration, and professional development skills. Students who reported engaging in research reported more confidence in their analytical skills than those who had not. 

Our data suggest that students who engage in these types of HIPs feel more confident in their employable skills, which is encouraging given that this type of skill development was probably not the focus of these activities and more likely a happy by-product.  To strengthen our students’ career preparation, we encourage faculty to be more intentional about skill development when incorporating HIPs in their courses. There are many ways to include skills development while engaging your students in HIPs (for more details, see Ciarocco & Strohmetz, 2020). Some ideas include highlighting skill development on your first and last days of class, as well as in your syllabus. You might also ask students to reflect on the skills they have developed through their high impact experiences and help them translate those skills to interviews and application materials. With a little re-tooling of your HIPs to intentionally include skill development, you have the opportunity to help your students become deeper learners and more confident about their skill sets at graduation.

 

References

Appleby, D. C. (2014). A skills-based academic advising strategy for job-seeking psychology majors. In R. Miller & J. Irons (Eds.), Academic advising: A handbook for advisors and students, Vol. 1: Models, students, topics, and issues, pp. 143–156. Retrieved from http://www.teachpsych.org/Resources/Documents/ebooks/advising2014Vol1.pdf

Ciarocco, N. J., & Strohmetz, D. B. (2018). The Employable Skills Self-Efficacy Survey: An assessment of skill confidence for psychology undergraduates. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 4, 1-15. doi:10.1037/stl0000102

Ciarocco, N. J., & Strohmetz, D. B. (2020). Psychology for the Workforce: Using the Classroom to Help Students Develop and Market Their Employable Skills? In T. Ober, E. Che, J. Brodsky, C. Raffaele, & P. J. Brooks (Eds.). How we teach now (Volume 2): The GSTA guide to transformative teaching.

Fabris, C. (2015). College students think they’re ready for the work force. Employers aren’t so sure. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com/article/College-Students-Think/151289

Hart Research Associates (2018). Fulfilling the American dream: Liberal education and the future of work. Washington, DC: Association of American College and Universities.

Kuh, G. D. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. AAC&U, Washington, D.C.

Kuh, G. D., & O'Donnell, K. (2013). Ensuring quality & taking high-impact practices to scale. Washington, DC: AAC&U.

Landrum, R. E., & McCarthy, M. A. (2018). Measuring the benefits of a bachelor’s degree in psychology: Promises, challenges, and next steps. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 4(1), 55–63.

Dr. David Strohmetz is Chair and Professor of Psychology at the University of West Florida.  Dr. Natalie Ciarocco is a Professor of Psychology at Monmouth University.  They frequently work together to promote undergraduate professional development and best practices in the teaching of research methods. Their collaborations include developing a self-administered assessment of employable skills (www.employableskills.com), authoring with another colleague the innovative textbook, Discovering the Scientist Within: Research Methods in Psychology, and creating the teaching resource www.teachpsychscience.org.

By Maureen A. Coyle, Ph.D. Student, The Graduate Center, CUNY

One of the things I emphasize the most to my students is that our perceptions of our social world are influenced by our expectations. Thus, students should be mindful of how their background (e.g., family upbringing, previous education) and identities (e.g., ethnic identity, sexual orientation) shape their observations and responses. Students should also consider how their behaviors can influence how others respond to them. Sometimes our expectations lead us to act in such a way that our expectations become true. This is known as self-fulfilling prophecy. Self-fulfilling prophecies affect ourselves (like if I think I’m going to fail an exam and decide to not study, I will most likely fail that exam) and others (like if I think someone is rude, I may act abrasively to them which will lead that person to respond rudely, confirming my assumption).

Self-fulfilling prophecy is often covered in introductory chapters of Social Psychology. However, I think that instructors across disciplines should also consider covering this concept in their early classes. This is because self-fulfilling prophecy can impact students’ motivation, engagement, and performance in whatever courses they’re in. Below I will discuss a role-playing activity I use to help students understand self-fulfilling prophecy.

I present this to students as an “Expectations Activity” before defining self-fulfilling prophecy. I first ask for four volunteers who don’t mind wearing baseball caps. As students volunteer, I hand them a baseball cap. Each baseball cap has an index card pinned on the front side with a trait and another index card taped over it (this is so students are unaware of what trait they are labelled with). Once the students have the caps on their head, I remove the top index card taped down so that the rest of the volunteers and class can view the trait labels. The traits are smart, lazy, mean, and control freak.

The volunteers are instructed to treat each other according to the traits, assuming the traits are the true characteristics of the students wearing them. I tell students that this activity is like an episode of the TV show The Office where the employees had labels of different races on their foreheads and had to treat each other according to the stereotypes about those races. The students are given five tasks to work on together in front of the class. They must reach consensus on the task before moving to the next one. I display the tasks one at a time on a PowerPoint slide, so they are unaware of what the next tasks are and can focus on the current one.

The tasks are as follows:

(1) Indicate 4 best reasons for being a Brooklyn College student

(2) Decide on a new course to be offered at Brooklyn College

(3) Settle if comprehensive exams should be required to graduate

(4) Determine the #1 thing that must be changed at Brooklyn College

(5) Line up in order from least to most likable

I tell the volunteers that they cannot say the traits (or synonyms of the traits) in their interactions and can only respond to in ways they think are appropriate given the traits they’re labelled with. As they work together, the students typically turn to the ‘smart’ one and listen to whatever he/she says, which confirms that he/she is ‘smart.’ No one usually asks for the ‘lazy’ student’s opinion and this student usually speaks the least, which confirms his/her ‘laziness.’ The students are usually mean to the ‘mean’ one, which tends to make the ‘mean’ one respond in a mean way. Whatever the ‘control freak’ says is usually dismissed by the other students and he/she usually struggles to gain influence, which confirms that he/she is ‘controlling.’ After they finish the tasks, I ask them to guess their trait label. They often can figure out what trait they have based on the way the students treated them.

Afterwards, I define self-fulfilling prophecy and identify instances where self-fulfilling prophecies occurred in the previous activity. I bring up how self-fulfilling prophecies can affect our experiences in group projects (this is especially important to acknowledge if group work is a component of your course) and ask students where else they see evidence of self-fulfilling prophecies (students usually bring up things like first dates and exams). I then give them a survey asking them how effective the activity was in demonstrating self-fulfilling prophecy and how much each person acted in accordance with the trait they were labelled with. This is not only an assessment tool but helps me in the following class on research methods when introducing correlations.

In the following class, after defining positive correlation (when two variables covary in the same direction), I show students the correlation between how effective the activity was and how much students believed the volunteers acted in accordance with their label. Regardless of how effective students rated the activity, their effectiveness rating has a strong positive correlation with how much they believed the volunteers acted in accordance with their labels. Thus, this activity has a twofold benefit for teaching students social psychological concepts (self-fulfilling prophecy and positive correlation).

This activity has a lot of flexibility in terms of appropriate trait labels and what activities to solve as a group. Occasionally students’ behaviors don’t match their traits. When this happens, I explain how our expectations are not always right and will not always lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. Regardless of how much self-fulfilling prophecies occur in the activity, I like to end with highlighting the importance of recognizing our own biases so that negative expectations don’t lead to negative outcomes for ourselves and for those that we are interacting with. If you use this activity or variations of it, please feel free to let me know how it goes at mcoyle@gradcenter.cuny.edu!

Maureen A. Coyle is a PhD student in the Basic and Applied Social Psychology program at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is also an adjunct instructor and lab manager of the Health, Emotion, and Relationships Team (HEART) Lab at Brooklyn College. Her research focus is the influence of media and technology on impression formation and relationship development. Maureen emphasizes the Writing to Learn strategy in her classroom and is completing Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) certification at Kingsborough Community College during the 2019-2020 academic year.