What Educators Need to Know About Online Sex Trafficking
What comes to mind when you hear the words “sex trafficking”?
If you’re like a lot of people, you might think of a sinister alley in a foreign country serving as the local red light district.
Didn’t Get Into Graduate School? Here is your Plan B.
Around this time of year, I often get emails from individuals who had just gone through the application process for graduate school, but did not receive any offers. The emails always have a similar theme: What can I do now?
Don’t Be A Marshmallow: My Experience with Advocacy
“Your child is bright. He could grow up to become the President of the United States.” I was in the fifth grade when I heard those words from my teacher. Because my parents spoke only Spanish, I was asked to be the translator at my own parent-teacher conference. I relayed the words to my parents with mixed emotions. I was proud hearing them, but also troubled. I knew at an early age I could never become the President of the United States—I was an undocumented immigrant. Yes, I was bright and I had goals and ambitions, but I was uncertain whether I could ever reach them. Through hard work and perseverance, my family earned our permanent resident card and, in 2009, we became U.S. citizens.
I have seen first-hand how policy initiatives can represent both obstacles and opportunities for disadvantaged and diverse individuals. Fortunately for me, my early experiences sparked an enduring passion to help these groups, both on an individual and societal level.
Over the past two years I’ve had the privilege of participating in visits to “the Hill” (Capitol Hill) where I’ve spoken about the benefits of the Graduate Psychology Education (GPE) Program. The GPE Program is the nation’s primary federal program dedicated to funding the training of doctoral-level psychologists. Graduate students and interns are trained in interprofessional collaboration and learn how to provide behavioral and mental health services to vulnerable and underserved populations. The GPE program is a great fit with my personal and career goals of helping underrepresented groups receive cost-effective, evidence-based health care services.
I distinctly remember my first Hill visit, mainly because I was a ball of nerves! Though I had the passion to be involved in policy work, I wasn’t sure where to begin. As a graduate student in clinical psychology, I was taught about the science and practice of psychology, but here I was treading new waters, trying to connect my knowledge base to policy issues and efforts. Before I got involved in this kind of work, I found advocacy intimidating. I thought, “Can I contribute to these discussions? Will Senators and Representatives listen to what I have to say? Can I make a meaningful difference?” Fortunately, the answer to all three questions was YES.
Prior to the Hill visits, Sheila Lane Forsyth and Alexandra Ginsberg from APA’s Education Government Relations Office provided excellent training on how to translate my knowledge and experience into a story that can connect with congressional staffers, Senators, and Representatives. After training, I was more confident that I had something to contribute to these discussions. Most importantly, I learned that my lived experiences and my work as a behavioral health consultant were compelling talking points.
When we arrived at the Hill, I felt a mix of emotions. I felt grateful to have the opportunity and I felt excited to meet my state’s congress people. I was in awe as I walked through the corridors and hallways where history has been made. I also felt, once more, a bit terrified. I was worried that I would not be an effective advocate, but those fears and worries disappeared after my first meeting. It was affirming (and cool!) to see that congressional staffers and congress people were interested in my message. Staffers were very cordial and had many questions about the GPE program and how it affected lives in my local community. The in-person meeting helped me develop a personal relationship with each office we visited and helped put a face to each request we made. In fact, I have continued to have follow-up contact with congressional offices even after my visit to DC.
Of course, I was ecstatic to learn later that Congress supported APA’s request for additional GPE funding! I know that I was just one small part of this effort, but my experience with advocacy taught me we can make a meaningful difference!
It was quite the lesson: That we psychologists can have an impact on a much larger, societal level. We can advance the science and practice of psychology by informing key policy makers about ways to have a positive impact on human welfare.
On my latest visit to the Hill, I had a chance to tour the Smithsonian, in particular the National Portrait Gallery. I was drawn to an exhibit on Dolores Huerta, a Latina civil rights activist who was a strong advocate for the rights of farm workers, labor unions, and women. It was a marvelous exhibit and featured this quote, which has had a profound effect on me:
“Don’t be a marshmallow.
Walk the street with us into history.
Get off the sidewalk.
Work for justice.”
This is a call for all of us to be engaged in advocacy. As psychologists, helping people should also include promoting human rights and calling for social justice. I will never be the President of the United States, but I can do my part to help raise awareness about the value of psychology as a science and how it can be used improve the lives of those who are often overlooked and in need.
You A Scapegoat? Answers to Who’s Accountable For Learning
We all like having someone to blame. Whether it is the state of the economy, security, sanctions (or lack thereof), it just seems to feel better if we can point a finger. Learning is no exception. Educators point fingers all the time. Americans bemoan the state of public education. States experiment with different ways to resurrect dropping exam scores and poor testing results. College faculty often blame high school teachers who often blame middle and elementary school teachers. Teachers also blame parents for not fostering good study habits or disciplining their kids, and blame students for not studying enough.
Many students badmouth teachers (take a look at Ratemyprofessor.com for some eye opening commentary). An educated citizenry is critical to a vibrant, successful, forward-looking, and successful America. If we are loosing the battle to other countries or if our students are not learning things will not end well. Who can we blame when students don’t learn? There are many scapegoats, but do we have any real basis to confidently identify the true scapegoats when learning is not taking place?
Yes.
And no, there’s no app for that but just good old fashioned scholarship on teaching and learning. Like any empirical study, perhaps we cannot be 100% certain, but there is empirical evidence to maintain a high degree of confidence. A wealth of research on learning nicely highlights what some of the main factors influencing learning are. Ken Bain wrote about What the Best College Students Do and Beth Schwartz and I summarized large swathes of the empirical literature in Optimizing Teaching and Learning and Evidence Based Teaching for Higher Education. These tomes make for good reading if you have a few days to spare but some of the answers are quick to share.
Of course, there are the usual suspects: Effort, ability, motivation, goals, study habits, mind set. Each of these are the no-brainers of learning. Students need to work, care about the outcomes, have goals, good study habits, and believe that intelligence is flexible and not fixed. Most teachers can generate this list from their experience. Some of the predictors of learning are somewhat surprising: Social support and self efficacy (the belief that you can successfully accomplish something). Teachers may not think of the value of support and rapport enough but it is clearly a key component of successful learning. In a recent Gallup-Purdue study of successful college students, 63% of the over 30,000 students sampled cited having at least one professor who made them excited about learning as being critical to their success. Feeling teachers cared and having a mentor who encouraged them to pursue goals and dreams were also important.
Fine, fine, you may say. I promised some definitive finger pointing so let me get to it. Beyond oodles of research studies in psychology and education that shine the spotlight on different parts of the learning puzzle, there is one granddaddy of them all. John Hattie, then at the University of Auckland, New Zealand (now at the University of Melbourne, Australia) gave us some big answers. Hattie took a close look at over 65,000 studies of student achievement. Studies involved close to a quarter of a billion students. Yes, 250,000,000. He then used a statistical methodology known as meta-analysis where he essentially combined the findings to create a measure of the relative significance of different educational factors. This analysis yielded a metric called an effect size which allows us to get a strong sense of just how important a certain factor is. It lets us allocate blame or praise.
Hattie’s work provides a treasure trove of findings for students, teachers, administrators, politicians, and the public in general. In a recent publication in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology (Hattie, 2015), Hattie provides a table listing the top 195 factors influe
ncing education. Most important factors to blame (with low or negative effect sizes) include depression, television watching, and home corporal punishment. Some important factors to praise (those with highest effect sizes) include teacher estimates of student achievement, teacher efficacy, study skills, and classroom discussion. Class size? Not a big deal. Single-sex schools, gender, or type of testing? Next to no effect.
Wait. It gets better.
Hattie took all the data and calculated the main categories of factors that influenced learning. Carving nature at its joints, he provides a stark vivid picture of just who is to blame. The lion’s share belongs to the student. Evidence from millions of students suggests that close to half, 50%, of what predicts learning is what the student brings to the classroom!! Before teachers enjoy too many sighs of relief and get fingers ready to point, note that the next largest chunk of influence was teacher qualities. What teachers do, their training, their characteristics, accounts for 20-25% of the variance in learning (see Figure below). The rest can be attributed to peers (5%), home factors (5%), and a number of other smaller contributors.
Fifty percent. Half of learning depends on what students do. As someone who has taught for 20 years or so I can tell you that far too often students look to us faculty as keepers of the keys to learning. I show my students a pie chart with each of the percentages described above but without the labels. I ask them to predict who the data says is responsible for 50% of their learning. Without fail, they think it is teachers. If I only had a better teacher they say. They quickly assume that poor teaching is the lion’s share of the issue. We educators become the scapegoats.
I also know that some teachers put the onus completely on the student. When I ask attendees at teaching workshops to guess how much of variance in learning is due to students, they often guess as high as 80-90%. If students only worked harder they say. Hattie’s data is a stark reminder that BOTH students and teachers have to work together to cultivate learning. I work tirelessly to provide the best instruction for my students and I like to inspire my students to similarly be accountable and participate in their own learning too. Yes, there are many skills both students and teachers can adopt, but the message is clear.
There is no one scapegoat for poor learning. Let’s stop pointing fingers and provide students with the skills to learn and teachers the tools to teach well.
Re posted with permission from the author. Read more here.
Your Summer Reading List: 5 Psychology Books to Add to Your Bookshelf
The summer is a great time to catch up on psychology reading! Here are five books that provide information teachers can use to update, add to, and “enliven” research from your textbook. And as a bonus: they are filled with entertaining stories and details to keep us all reading this summer!
Leaping through fire — or, preparing to go to graduate school
Words of wisdom: grad school edition.
I remember graduate school quite well, partly because the memories are still fresh (I got my doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of Miami in 2012), partly because it was such a tremendous experience and partly because it has no comparison to anything before or after it. What I learned in graduate school was of course a lot about how to become a better clinician, scientist and community steward.
Looking for a research job?
An undergraduate education will prepare you for several careers. And, for many of you, graduate school is the intended step forward from the bachelor’s degree. If that is your intention, as it is mine, possibly the most essential part of your graduate school application is being able to share your research experience. For scientific fields like psychology that continually adapt to new information, a demonstration of your ability to conceptualize, theorize, test and analyze critical information is crucial. But sometimes, the most difficult part of this axiom is finding the research position. Having entirely redirected my career path halfway through my undergraduate study, I was forced to find a research job that not only fit my new interest but was also readily available in order to make up for two years of “lost” time.
Looking to succeed? Understanding the importance of research publications
Are you working on a research project? Odds are you are currently involved with a research project or have been in the past. Psychology majors typically have a distinct advantage over other majors in undergraduate research, as our field has a rich and proud tradition of involving students.
High School Teachers…Preparing Your Students to Succeed in College Can Be Hazardous to Your Professional Health
My recent blog titled Why Your Freshman Year in College Will NOT Be 13th Grade must have struck a particularly sensitive nerve in a very large group of people because it has received over 19,000 views.