Undergraduate Teachers

Undergraduate Teachers September 2, 2019

Scientific literacy: It’s not just the textbooks. Psychology students score higher, too

About 10 years ago, a colleague and I compared scientific literacy content in introductory science textbooks(Macias & Macias, 2009). We found that psychology textbooks dedicated an average of about 21 pages to such content; about three times the amount in biology texts and 10 times what was typical for physics and chemistry (see Figure 1). But, as we pointed out elsewhere, this textual advantage may not translate into variations in student knowledge (Macias & Macias, 2018). The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in students’ acquisition of scientific literacy.

Undergraduate Teachers August 19, 2019

Integrating career readiness into your courses

Earlier this year, I wrote an article for the Psych Learning Curve on how faculty and academic departments can prepare undergrads for the world of work (e.g., collaborating with campus career services, etc.). I also made the case for why faculty should go through the effort. In this follow-up article, I want to focus specifically on how faculty can integrate career readiness into their respective courses.

Pre K - 12 Teachers, Undergraduate Students, Undergraduate Teachers July 8, 2019

Beyond the Textbook: Practical Applications for Teaching and Learning in Psychology

As psychology educators, we often have our favorite topics or specialties that we love to teach, but also have areas where we find it more challenging to build student engagement or interest. If you are looking for some new ideas, the Books for Psychology Class blog can help you find new inspiration or a fresh approach for difficult to teach topics.

Undergraduate Teachers July 1, 2019

Communicating Psychology: Developing Undergraduate Ambassadors to Share Science

As a semester comes to a close many college instructors take time to reflect. Whether it is through institutional evaluations or our own instructor solicited student feedback, it is important to consider how our courses met designed learning outcomes and the needs of our students.

This past semester I prepped a new course called Communicating Psychology Science. Here is a selection of what my students said they learned:

Graduate and Postgraduate Teachers, Pre K - 12 Teachers, Undergraduate Teachers June 10, 2019

Practicing Mindfulness to Combat Stress in Academia

Academics spend hours sitting at a desk, thinking deep thoughts on specific topic areas. And we are also planners, thinking ahead of our next research paper or lecture. And when we think back to our previous papers and lectures, we ask the questions what went well? What did not go well? Often, we worry. Will we get tenure? Will we get that grant?

For as much thinking as we do, we are rarely self-reflexive in the present. We rarely live in the current moment, which, for many reasons, is problematic.

Graduate and Postgraduate Teachers, Undergraduate Teachers May 27, 2019

The Jigsaw Activity: Constructivism in Action

As an educational psychologist and educator for the past 20 years, I’ve come to appreciate the claims of constructivism more and more. In particular, I’m a firm believer that students learn by doing at a much higher level of quality than when they just sit in the classroom and listen to somebody else tell them what the facts are.

Undergraduate Teachers May 13, 2019

School Is Ending: Educators Need to Close Strong

The end of a school year actually brings mixed emotions to educators.

Counter to what you may think, the approaching end of school does not mean educators are ready to celebrate. OK, maybe a little. This stereotypical response to the closing of school years misses something very important. Endings can be very difficult.

Undergraduate Students, Undergraduate Teachers April 29, 2019

4 Reasons to Pursue a Career in School Psychology

Most enter a career in school psychology to work with youth and families in school settings; address complex challenges; and support student learning and mental and behavioral health. Many school psychologists would agree, however, that the benefits of a career in school psychology extend beyond their reasons for initially becoming a school psychologist.

Shot of a programmer working on a computer code at night

Graduate and Postgraduate Students, Graduate and Postgraduate Teachers, Undergraduate Students, Undergraduate Teachers April 15, 2019

Computational Social Science Skills

Our devices track our behavior in ways that create unimaginable amounts of information, information that can be useful for understanding human behavior. Not surprisingly, the widespread availability of these data parallels an increasing interest in data science and related topics (see Figure 1). Social scientists are increasingly using “big data” to examine theoretically-grounded research questions. Yet, few social scientists, especially psychologists, have the skills and training experiences needed to engage with this rapidly growing area of expertise called “data science.”

Business team on a morning briefing; business meeting and presentation in a modern office

Undergraduate Students, Undergraduate Teachers April 8, 2019

Why I-O Psychology should be included in Introductory Psychology

Industrial-Organizational Psychology has become the fastest growing field in psychology. Yet, chances are your Introductory Psychology course doesn’t cover it. While there are a multitude of reasons I-O isn’t typically covered in Introductory Psychology courses (not in textbook/curriculum, lack of time, etc.), one big reason is that instructors don’t necessarily consider it a “foundational component” of general psychology.

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