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.
Does Your Child Seem Stressed To Be Back At School? Fear Not.
It is normal for some students to experience back-to-school stress. Many challenges come with the start of a new school year. This article is geared toward the typical stressors of starting or returning to school.
Dealing With The Back-To-School Blues?
Many parents may be worried about their children starting a new school, changing school districts, facing a more rigorous academic year or dealing with difficult social situations. In this article, APA’s Help Center offers back to school tips for parents.
10 Ways Schools and Parents Can Help Students With ADHD
This article identifies ten ways schools and parents can help students with ADHD, encouraging teachers and parents to work together to help students face multiple social and academic challenges throughout the school year.
Motivating the Unmotivated Student
Using the Self-Determination Theory, the author discusses why students may be unmotivated, how to approach the situation, and why pressure and control don’t work.
Middle School Malaise
The switch from elementary to junior high school coincides with several significant changes for young adolescents. This article discusses why certain students adjust and thrive while others do not and what parents can do to help.
6 Things Parents Can Do to Boost Resilience In Kids
Learn about six vital things you can do to boost resilience in your kids using the APA Public Interest’s Resilience Booster: Parent Tip Tool.
Resilience Guide for Parents & Teachers
The ability to adapt to adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of stress can help our children manage stress and feelings of anxiety and uncertainty. This guide reviews tips for building resilience in children throughout their academic careers.
All About Kindergarten Screening: What You As A Parent Or Caretaker Should Know
Kindergarten screening is a brief evaluation or assessment of several developmental domains in young children that typically takes place before the beginning of kindergarten. It is used to gauge your child’s current functioning and growth. As a parent or caretaker, here’s what you should know about Kindergarten Screening.
Creative Teaching And Teaching Creativity: How To Foster Creativity In The Classroom
Numerous psychologists argue that creativity is not just an enrichment or add-on in the classroom: It is a definable, measurable, set of psychological skills that enhance learning and will be necessary for the 21st-century workforce. Here are some steps you can take to reflect, and some strategies you could try to boost creativity in the classroom.
Creativity in the Classroom
Learn how to use creativity in your classroom using this series of videos. In each module, watch interviews with renowned scholars in the field to see practice-based strategies to help you employ creativity every day and enhance academic outcomes.
Improving Students’ Relationships with Teachers to Provide Essential Supports for Learning
Positive relationships can help a student develop socially. This module talks about good teacher-student relationships, what they look like, how to improve relationships, and how to measure them.
5 Ways To Make Learning More Meaningful To Students
To be an effective teacher, it’s important not to focus too much on getting the lesson across without addressing the ‘why’. In this article, the author discusses five points to help you infuse meaning to your lessons.
Applications of Psychological Science to Teaching and Learning
These ten modules show how psychological and educational sciences apply to practical instructional problems and needs. Topics include: practice for knowledge acquisition, brain functioning, and learning, bullying, classroom management, “How do my students think?”, overcoming misconceptions, autonomous learners, using praise, student-teacher relationships, and classroom data.
Cultivating Student Learning Accountability
In this article, the author shares what teachers can do to improve accountability and to help students feel accountable and connected to their learning.
Mental Health Primers: Students Experiencing Stress
Teachers are an essential part of establishing and maintaining healthy environments for students to learn and grow. They also play an important role in guiding students suffering from excessive stress to professionals in the building who can be of assistance. Learn what stress is, how students express it, and what teachers can do to help.
The Infrastructure Of Trauma-Informed Schools Requires A Human Scaffold
All adults in a school, including teachers, play a role in creating strong and supportive relationships with students and speaks about the challenges of answering the call. This article reviews the challenges of dealing with trauma.
Psychology And Trauma In Schools: How Can Teachers Help?
As school shootings and gun violence have captured the attention of many, there’s a more significant problem lurking in the classroom. This article reviews how teachers can help in the face of trauma.
Early Learning Guidelines (ELG) Educator Toolkit
The ELG Toolkit addresses the preschool age group using the domains from the Head Start Framework. It serves as a roadmap to early childhood educators looking for national and state resources that are based on research and evidence-based practices.
Fostering A Growth Mindset Through Culturally Responsive Teaching
This article reviews the idea of growth mindset, discusses some of its downfalls and sheds light on how culturally responsive teaching can empower students to bring their culture and their capabilities into everything that they do.
Academic Caring of Adolescents
Being able to communicate that you care about students’ learning outcomes is essential. Learn how to demonstrate care to your students by providing the best research-based instructional strategies and watch interviews with teachers to learn more about academic caring.
The Truth About Teacher Burnout: It’s Work Induced Depression
This article discusses what it means to be burnt-out, the true nature of burnout and strategies in properly addressing educator burnout.
Professional Development for PreK-12 Teachers
These professional development programs help teachers to understand the importance of better and incorporating psychology to improve student and teacher experiences. Offerings include topics such as teacher stress and bullying in school.
Classroom Management Videos
These videos provide direction on practical classroom management using individual and class-wide strategies and interventions for classroom disruption as well as individual strategies for addressing emotional and behavioral interventions in the classroom.
Classroom Management Module
Implementing classroom management strategies can enhance prosocial behavior and increase student academic engagement. This module discusses why classroom management is important and how to use a tiered model approach in your classroom.
TOPSS — Unit Lesson Plans
Explore unit lesson plans with three- to seven-day units that include a procedural timeline, a content outline, suggested resources and activities, and references for high school psychology teachers.
Two-Day Lesson Plans
Explore two-day lesson plans from recent past winners of the APA TOPSS Charles T. Blair-Broeker Excellence in Teaching Awards.
Teaching Psychology: Where Can I Find Help?
This resource provides the novice or veteran psychology teacher with a quick reference for needs and questions that arise while preparing to teach a course in psychology.
Promoting Psychological Science: A Compendium of Laboratory Exercises for Teachers of High School Psychology
Each of the exercises provides students with the opportunity to plan and carry out investigations utilizing laboratory procedures just as would occur in biology, chemistry, and physics courses, including suggestions for data analysis and the preparation of lab reports.
TOPSS High School Psychology Course Template Available in Canvas
This course template, available in Canvas, provides teachers with resources, videos, and test banks to use in class.
Professional Development for High School Psychology Teachers
This list provides professional development opportunities for high school psychology teachers at the local, regional, state, and national levels. Contacts for each group or conference are included.
Building, Guiding, And Sustaining Regional Networks For High School Psychology Teachers
This post is an aide to help psychology teachers develop and sustain regional networks that are accessible and cost-effective to provide quality professional development opportunities for instructors of psychology.
Teaching Resources for High School Psychology Teachers on Skills
This resource provides information for teachers and students on metacognitive, transferable, and well-being skills.
Resource Vetting Rubric For High School Psychology Teachers
This document assures quality control for classroom resources, such as demonstrations, activities, and/ or presentations. It can be used when vetting resources for use in your classroom.
High School Assessment Exemplars
These vetted assessment exemplars for high school teachers can be used in the introductory psychology class. Teachers can search for the “high school” topic area to find these templates.
Assessment Guide for Psychology Teachers
This guide was specifically written for high school psychology teachers, but its content may be useful to all psychology teachers (K-12, undergraduate, and graduate) as well as to teachers from other disciplines.
20 Psychological Principles That Will Help Your Students (or Children) Learn More Effectively
This article reviews the Center for Psychology in Schools and Education’s Top 20 Principles its potential applications for their use in teaching high school psychology.
