Student Learning

What video games get right about motivation

Pre K - 12 Teachers, Undergraduate Teachers December 9, 2019

What video games get right about motivation, and how education can benefit

People who are extremely old like me, born at a time when a typical class would begin with the teacher saying, “All right, students. Everyone take out their cuneiform scroll and let’s practice writing the 12 letters of our alphabet,” tend to think of video games as a waste of time. We see children and teenagers playing on their consoles and can almost see their brains deteriorating. “Video games,” we say, pointing our index finger to the air, “are a distraction from studying and thinking! Now hand me the remote so I can watch Matlock.”

Parents September 23, 2019

The Motivation Paradox: How to encourage passion and joy in your children

Challenge and mastery are motivators. As adults, we become engaged in a topic or activity of interest and are motivated by our inherent pleasure. When we enjoy something, external reinforcements to learn more or work harder are unnecessary.

Unfortunately, many children are not afforded opportunities to make choices in their own lives. Highly scripted days within structured school environments and adult-led extracurricular activities leave little room for autonomy.

Kids are left feeling like out-of-control automatons progressing through the motions of life.

Parents, Pre K - 12 Teachers August 26, 2019

36 of Our Best Back To School Psychology Resources

Psychology’s insights can help teachers manage behavior problems, motivate students, assist struggling learners handle stress and much more. It can also help parents tackle issues like back to school stress, motivation issues, and resilience. With a fresh new school year ahead, we thought this would be an excellent opportunity to present some of our best resources for teachers and parents.

Graduate and Postgraduate Students, Graduate and Postgraduate Teachers, High School Students, Pre K - 12 Teachers, Undergraduate Students August 5, 2019

Best of the APA Style Blog: 2018 Edition

Each fall we put together a “best of” post to highlight blog posts and apastyle.org pages that we think are helpful both for new students and to those who are familiar with APA Style. You can get the full story in our sixth edition Publication Manual (also available as an e-book) and our APA Style Guide to Electronic References, in addition to the pages linked below.

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 Students June 17, 2019

A guide to lecturing as a grad student

Many universities offer teaching assistantships or require graduate students to teach as part of their training. While lecturing opportunities are an excellent way to build professional skills, they can be daunting for those who lack prior teaching experience or feel nervous about public speaking. Here is some advice on how to prepare for and give a lecture to an undergraduate class, as well as how to set fair course policies.

Hand arranging wood block stacking as step stair with arrow up. Ladder career path concept for business growth success process

High School Students, Pre K - 12 Teachers May 6, 2019

Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment: What’s a student to choose?

Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment: What’s a student to choose?

Properly preparing students for college is of the utmost importance for parents and high schools, especially when reports indicate that many students are not “college-ready”. Making students college-ready varies, but more often than not exposure to more rigorous coursework is the determining factor. Two well-known programs that prepare students for college-level work are Advanced Placement and dual enrollment. There are numerous reports highlighting the positive outcomes of each individual program, but which program best prepares students for college rigor?

Woman preparing for run up the stairs

Parents, Pre K - 12 Teachers March 18, 2019

What Goes Into the Development of Greatness?

What makes someone with early potential develop that talent in a way that results in high performance or greatness?

A new volume, The Psychology of High Performance: Developing Human Potential into Domain-Specific Talent, edited by Rena F. Subotnik, Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, and Frank C. Worrell, addresses that question by examining outstanding performance across five different domains: academic disciplines (mathematics and psychology), arts production (culinary arts and drawing/painting), arts performance (dance and acting), professions (medicine, software engineering, and professional teams), and sport (golf and team sports).

Blue glowing horse unicorn riding night sky star. Creative decoration magical backdrop shining cosmos space horn fairy myth moon light fantasy background vector illustration art

Pre K - 12 Teachers, Uncategorized, Undergraduate Teachers February 25, 2019

The Seductive Nature of Psychological Myths: Is Metacognition the Great Equalizer?

The Academically Gag Inducing Problem

Recently, in my educational psychology class, I overheard two students talking about how they were right-brain thinkers (i.e., are holistic thinkers, problem solve using intuition, creative, etc.).

Two weeks later, I heard my one of my developmental research methods students say, “I think the best way to study is to use color-coded highlighters” followed by “It also helps me on tests when I listen to lectures because I am an auditory learner.”