For the very first time, the Society for Teaching Psychology (STP) is sponsoring a Twitter poster conference. Inspired by a Twitter poster conference in chemistry, STP leadership decided to sponsor a Twitter poster conference around the theme of teaching psychology.
In the last blog, we focused on your reasons for going to graduate school – or, you can say you selected your destination in putting together your roadmap to graduate school.
Confirmation bias is the original sin of cognition. In seeking proof for only what we’ve already decided is true, we open ourselves to unlimited errors of thought. Maybe I’m amazed at my horoscope’s accuracy.
From the day we first learn about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement in elementary school, words like “discrimination” and “prejudice” frequently get thrown around left and right. They’re important concepts, but people tend to use them interchangeably when discussing social issues that come up in life. And we get it, they all sound pretty similar.
When I was a kid, I guess I often stared off into the middle distances. My parents would bring me back to reality with the comment “A penny for your thoughts”. This was a simple gentle prod to the fact that I was daydreaming. Years later, I look out at my classes and am tempted to use the same prod. Not for the occasional student texting, but for those who minds seem anywhere but on the material I am covering.
Psychology courses often involve topics students can relate to on a personal level. When students connect to the course content in a personally meaningful way, it can enhance their learning. This connection can also make classroom discussions more interesting.
Come June of every summer, I start getting emails from individuals that wanted to go to graduate school in psychology, but didn’t get any offers. The exact questions may be different, but the theme is the same:
Why didn’t I get into graduate school, and what can I do better?
A recent report from the American Psychological Association’s Center for Workforce Studies examined data from state licensing boards of 50 states and Washington, D.C., from 2012-2015. This report presents a county-level look at the distribution of licensed psychologists in the United States.
After 30 years of working for the Lincoln Public Schools (LPS; Nebraska) as a high school teacher and a curriculum developer, I recently made the jump to higher education. My professional identity during my time with LPS was centered around the teaching of psychology. This change from secondary school education to a university has given me time to pause and reflect on those 30 years. Often overlooked in importance, reflection is a good practice for all teachers. During the past three decades, the teaching of high school psychology has come a long way.
Thirty years ago, we didn’t have the APA Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools (TOPSS), and we certainly didn’t have standards for teaching high school psychology.
There was no Advanced Placement (AP) psychology test and many wondered if there would be enough demand for AP psych to support it.
It was common to hear of high school psychology as a “touchy-feely” elective. A biology teacher teased me about psychology being a “pseudo-science”.
Thanks to the formation of TOPSS and the work of dozens of teachers and psychologists connected to APA, we have high school psychology standards. In fact, we’re on our third revision of the standards and a fourth is planned.
According to data from the College Board, the AP Psychology course is wildly popular. More students take this exam than the economics test, the geography test, or the world history test. In fact, more students take AP psychology than AP Biology. The International Baccalaureate (IB) psychology exam also ranks high among IB tests in terms of exam volume.
High school psychology students learn about hypothesis testing, the central nervous system, and how to use statistics when conducting research. That’s not touchy-feely, and it’s no surprise some states are considering making psychology a science credit.
Not everything has changed. Despite the huge number of on-level and AP psychology high school students nationwide, despite the relevance of psychology courses to students’ lives, and despite the many benefits of studying psychology, psychology courses are still not widely seen in K-12 education as important, serious courses of study. It is common for school principals to assign psychology courses to teachers with little (and sometimes no) background knowledge in psychology. There is much work still to be done to promote a greater understanding of high school psychology’s value, reach, and the way it’s delivered and assessed.
The recently announced APA Summit on High School Psychology Education should be just the vehicle for developing the materials necessary to help school administrators, state boards of education, parents, and other external groups and stakeholders better understand the value and reach of high school psychology. My guess is that most who work outside the discipline of psychology are unaware of high school psychology’s growth over the past 25 years. These outside groups are not alone; who among us has reflected on how the teaching of high school psychology has been transformed during the past three decades? With the Summit on the horizon it is also time to ponder and reflect not just on how far we’ve come as high school psychology teachers, but where we should go in the near future. What would make for an even better high school psychology class? An APA steering committee composed of high school psychology teachers and college professors has been meeting to prepare for the Summit that will address this and many more questions related to the ideal high school psychology. For instance:
If you are interested in helping answer these questions, please consider submitting an application to participate in the week-long Summit held next July at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. We’re looking for participants who can help us reflect on how we currently teach high school psychology and craft a vision for improving high school psychology education the future. Think about our challenge. We hope you will apply to join us next summer at this historic event.
A journalist once quoted psychologist Elena Newman, PhD, talking about “post-dramatic stress disorder.” Don’t let that happen to you, Newman told participants at APA’s Education Leadership Conference.