Studying for college exams can be a daunting task. However, by using memory games and other helpful tactics, it’s possible to improve retention and ensure good recall regardless of how much material is being covered.
Set a Study Schedule
The practice of cramming all night before an exam leads to mental fatigue and impairs the brain’s ability to hold on to information. Study sessions are more effective when broken up into shorter periods over the course of one or more days. Quality sleep after studying helps the brain sort out information and prevents the mental distractions that come with being tired. Everyone has a different time that’s best for them to study and an ideal length for study sessions, and finding the right balance can be the key to academic success.
[Image: Sean Kelly]Use Helpful Devices
Memory games, like those described in this post at NeuroNation (a cognitive training website), often involve associating information with existing knowledge or everyday experiences. Using acronyms, mnemonic devices, rhyming words and other associations improves retention by making the information more relevant. Some people do better with auditory or visual cues. Listening to music, drawing pictures and taking notes provide memorable “anchors” for information in the brain that can be drawn on the day of the exam.
Talk it Out
Reading material out loud is a good way to improve retention. Hearing information rather than just reading chunks of text serves to cement it in the mind and ensures that it is truly understood. Make study sessions even more valuable by asking questions while reading and performing regular self-tests or quizzes. Re-read the text at least once before the day of the exam if time permits, focusing on difficult or challenging sections. Answer questions aloud, repeating important information as often as necessary.
Nourish the Brain
Studying is more effective when the brain has the nutrients it needs to function at its peak. Flax seeds, walnuts, hemp seeds, chia seeds and other foods high in omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to aid with memory and support brain health. To ensure optimal function and concentration during an exam:
• Eat a balanced dinner the night before. • Avoid alcohol, caffeine and other mind-altering substances. • Make time for a hearty breakfast that includes a balance of healthy foods.
Taking a walk or performing other moderate exercise can also improve exam performance by increasing the blood flow to the brain and maximizing nutrient delivery.
Along with stress reduction techniques, these study tips and memory games can make it easier to recall information and excel on every exam. Even after the tests are over, strong study skills provide benefits for retention and recollection that can be relied on throughout life.
Bio
Marco Vertucci studied cognitive sciences at the University of Bologna, Italy where he was awarded with a Master Degree with Honours in 2012. He has always been fascinated by the psychology of learning and how to improve mental performance. He is currently working as a freelance writer for several psychology related blogs as well as research supporter for private companies in the digital health sector.
It is your first day of teaching introductory psychology. Young faces with blank stares are looking down at you from afar. Your heart is pounding. Sweat starts to bead on your forehead like rain on a windshield. Your palms begin to moisten as if you were in a confessional booth purging all your sins. These visceral reactions are because you have come to realization that you are largely responsible for their first impression and knowledge of psychology. What do you do? How do you engage your students for 75 minutes?
I just modeled active learning. I brought you in (cognitively activated you), related this blog to your personal life, and engaged you. Now I will try to explain some of my confessions (they are confessions because they are hard lessons I’ve learned) about using active learning instruction.
Confesión Numero Uno!
I am not here to tout one instructional method over another. In fact, research on exemplary teachers suggests that they use varied instructional strategies to engage their students—one of which is active learning instruction. Active learning is generally thought of as instruction that engages students by having them experience concepts (active behavior) or requires learners to think about concepts (active cognition). The good news is that there is a plethora of resources available for you to become an active and engaged teacher (see the must read section below).
Moral: Develop active learning instruction as an arrow in your quiver of instructional strategies.
La Confession Deuxième: Show Me the Money/Evidence!
As alluded to, active learning has been widely studied in the field of psychology. If you search the journal Teaching of Psychology for “active learning” you will find over 700 results. So what does all this research tell us? Answer: When used properly, active learning increases academic performance. Specifically, there is a growing body of research that suggests that it is particularly advantageous for increasing higher-level learning. Active learning also increases student’s perceptions of teaching effectiveness (otherwise known as student’s ratings of instruction; SRIs). Although, SRIs are not the end-all-to-be-all, they are widely used for merit and promotion in academia.
Moral: Active learning may increase your student’s academic performance and your SRIs.
What it Takes to be an Active Learning Teacher
First and foremost, research suggests that effective active learning activates student’s cognition more than their behavior (e.g., what is the answer to the rebus?). For instance, when teaching intelligence theory, I give my students the Black Intelligence Test for Cultural Homogeneity (yes, the BITCH Test). Students always perform poorly—tantamount to mental retardation according to a normal curve. Merely giving them the BITCH test would only activate their behavior, but this is not enough. Rather, I must actively and cognitively probe their experience, how the activity relates to IQ tests, what role does culture have in IQ theory, what does this mean to them personally, what does this mean from a theoretical standpoint, etc.
Moral: Make sure you reflect, debrief, engage in metacognitive practices, and connect content to student’s prior knowledge and beliefs.
Moral: Always assess the implementation of introducing an active learning method.
Finally, effective active learning requires time, effort, and commitment on your behalf. In essence, teachers who use active learning—do their homework! They research different active methods by reading articles in Teaching of Psychology, Psychology Learning and Teaching, orScholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. Additionally, they commit to preparing good activities as opposed to winging it! For instance, whether using cooperative learning activities (see Morling et al., 2008 for use of iClickers), or a think-pair-share (see Hakala, 2015 NOBA blog), or a classroom demonstration on auditory perception (see Haws & Oppy, 2002), all of these instructional methods took time to learn, refine, and master.
Moral: Be a student of the game!
The IV confession: Snake and Charlatan Avoidance
Developing active learning methods can be fun, exciting, and challenging, but with “great power, comes great responsibility!” That is, we need to consider the potential harmful effects that some active learning methods can have on individual students.
For instance, I often use a great (insert #egocentric here) demonstration on action potential by asking students to line-up, put their right hand on the person’s shoulder in front of them, then squeeze the person’s shoulder, then the last student at the end of the axon shoots a water gun at another neuron (see Felsten, 1998 for complete description of the activity). What if students didn’t feel comfortable with touching others or shooting something or felt coerced into participating? How would they feel? Will the demonstration be counterproductive to learning? If the answer is yes, to any of these questions, then something needs change.
Moral: Always ask students to volunteer to participate in activities and do not penalize them for not volunteering.
Another problem stems from the notion that many students are skeptical of some classroom experiences, especially those that re-create classic experiments. They feel like they are being set up to fail. For example, to demonstrate the effects of deeper processing in long-term memory, I divide students into two groups: one gets a shallow processing strategy (e.g., counts the number of e’s in a word) while the other gets a deeper processing strategy (e.g., free associate with the word). Both groups then map their performance on the board in histograms. Inevitably the students who have the deeper strategy significantly outperform the other students. If not properly implemented, half my students may feel dumb, embarrassed, or even humiliated.
Moral: Be honest and forthright about what will happen, give opportunities for students to do something else, and provide opportunities for anonymity to avoid being a charlatan.
The Confessio:
In the end, we have all experienced the beads of sweat (either real or imagined) caused by the understanding of how important our job is as psychology teachers. However, being an engaged teacher through the effective use of active learning techniques will promote your students attention, their enjoyment with your class, their respect and trust for you, and will invariably increase their knowledge of psychology.
A Must-Read Before You Hit The Proverbial Pillow!
If you are interested in reading more and acquiring specific examples for introductory psychology courses or beyond, please check out these outstanding resources.
Afful, S. E., Good, J. J., Keeley, J., Leder, S., & Stiegler-Balfour, J. J. (2013). Introductory Psychology teaching primer: A guide for new teachers of Psych 101. Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology web site: http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/intro2013/index.php
Felsten, G. (1998). Propagation of action potentials: An active participation exercise. Teaching of Psychology, 25, 109-111.
Griggs, R. A., & Jackson, S. L. (2011). Teaching introductory psychology: Tips from ToP. Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/tips2011/index.php
Haws, L. & Oppy, B. J. (2002). Classroom demonstrations of auditory perception. Teaching of Psychology, 29, 147-150.
Morling, B., McAuliffe, M., Cohen, L., & DiLorenzo, T. M. (2008). Efficacy of personal response systems (“clickers”) in large, introductory psychology classes. Teaching of Psychology, 35, 45-50.
Miller, R. L., Balcetis. E., Burns, S. R., Daniel, D. B., Saville, B. K., & Woody, W. D. (2011). Promoting student engagement (Vol 2): Activities exercises and demonstrations for psychology courses. Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/pse2011/index.php
Richmond, A. S., & Kindelberger Hagan, L. (2011). Promoting higher level thinking in psychology: Is active learning the answer? Teaching of Psychology, 38(2), 102-105. doi: 10.1177/0098628311401581
Silberman, M. (1996). Active learning: 101 strategies to teach any subject. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
I know the stress of anticipation is killing you. Thus, the Rebus solution: Con + fess (it’s a real word) + shun + # + 3 = confession number three. And yes, I stole this great idea from my friend Dan Segrist, checkout his article on active learning.
Bio
Aaron Richmond received his Ph.D. Educational Psychology from the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a national award winning teacher, the Vice President for Programming for the Society of Teaching of Psychology, an editorial board member of Teaching of Psychology, and has published extensively on the scholarship of teaching and learning.
How are my slides? Am I talking too fast, or too slowly? Is there something I’m not doing that my students expect from me? Is the course work overwhelming, or trivially easy? How is this class actually going!?
Don't let the suggestion box gather dust until the semester is over. Jump in early by collecting meaningful mid-term feedback that you can use to improve your teaching. [Image: Hash Milhan]Many instructors, particularly new ones, find it more difficult to assess the student experience of a psychology course than student mastery of the course material. Indeed, if students are struggling, questions regarding their motivation and preparation may come head-to-head with concerns over vague prompts, unclear presentations, and dull lectures. The goal of any pedagogue is to provide the appropriate resources and environment to not just allow for, but to spur student understanding and academic success.
To this end, many instructors try to assess not only student learning of course material, but also solicit feedback on their own instruction. Often, universities will allow students to provide some end-of-term responses about their instructor and overall experiences. However, these evaluations suffer from a variety of issues: 1) low response rates due to a lack of personal interest, 2) vague, standardized questions, independent of the style of course, and 3) they are offered too late for the instructor to make meaningful changes.
Feedback is valuable and-- just as one uses exams to make sure their students are mastering course material-- instructors are often equally interested in making sure they are progressing as teachers.
What is midterm feedback?
Midterm feedback refers to any questionnaire or discussion that allows students to report on their experiences in a class. It is any feedback that does not occur after a semester or year is over but during the course of a class. Often this feedback is collected after the first quarter of a course, so the students have had time to really experience the general flow of a class.
Why use midterm feedback?
Teachers often have the unique opportunity to adjust the way they perform their job. From different supplementary materials, to speed of presentation, to adjusting the style of PowerPoint, oftentimes teachers have the ability to modify their courses in order to attempt to provide the best environment for their students. But what, if anything, should they change?
While there are a host of reasons for providing midterm feedback, I will narrow it down to four central bases:
Midterm feedback will allow for a more accurate view of in-class learning, student desires, and expectations.
Midterm feedback, as opposed to end-of-term, allows the instructor a unique opportunity body of information about the student experience right now.
Midterm feedback allows enough time for an instructor to make adjustments to the course, if desired, during the current semester.
Importantly, midterm feedback prompts student investment! Quizzes, exams, essays; often instructors are consistently evaluating their students. Offering midterm feedback is offering your class an opportunity to evaluate you, as an instructor. Demonstrating to your class that they may have an active role in course policy and class content should help improve their commitment to attention and interest in the course material, after all, they are taking an active contributing role in guiding their own education.
How to actually acquire feedback?
There are a variety of resources one can use as a basis for acquiring midterm feedback. A few are listed below:
University Teaching Centers: Many large universities have a center which can provide any instructor a host of resources on everything from course design to feedback. Use university resources, such as trained facilitators, to your advantage!
Questionnaires: In-class questionnaires are a great method of acquiring feedback. Make sure to set aside a portion of class time, preferably at the beginning of a class, to allow your students to provide anonymous feedback. Online questionnaires can be used as an alternative. They tend to have lower response rates but do not interfere as much with class time. It is possible to incentivize participation by offering extra credit.
Do’s of midterm feedback:
Always allow enough time for feedback. If you are taking class time, make sure you allot extra time and that students do not feel rushed.
Present feedback as allowing students to take a collaborative investment in how the course works. This is key: make sure to only ask for feedback on things you are able or willing to consider changing. If there is a course feature that the administration requires, or you would absolutely refuse to see go, then asking for feedback may be a bit disingenuous.
Respond quickly to student feedback. Show your students that you seriously care about their experience. Give them an overview of what the feedback said, what you plan to do with it, and so forth. If you receive conflicting feedback (e.g., some students find the course to be too slow, some too fast), bring this up with the class! Ask for suggestions and open a dialogue.
Personalize the feedback for yourself and your course. This feedback is best when tailored for specific issues you know you’ve had in the past or want to avoid. Worried about talking too fast? Concerned your students aren’t enjoying your slides? Ask them! The more specific your questions, the better able you will be to address the student concerns.
Don'ts of midterm feedback:
Don't change things without serious consideration. This may sound surprising, given the tone of the article, but do not flip your entire course design based on just a little bit of feedback! Oftentimes, instructors will only glance at positive feedback and focus on the negatives. Radically changing a course feature that most people are fine with to appease a few people who do not enjoy it may end up hurting more student experiences in the long run! Carefully consider the overall distribution of the class attitudes. Tell your class why or why you are not changing certain features, and make sure to not put too much weight on a small portion of the responses!
Don't give a false impression of what is changeable. If you ask “What changes would you make to the course load?” students will anticipate that you will be able or willing to adjust this, when it may be out of your hands. Make sure to ask for clear, specific information about the student experience, on topics that you have control over. Students may feel hoodwinked if they collectively respond to not enjoy some aspect of the course that you then inform them you have no control over.
Don't leave the students in the dark. Always, always, always take time out of the course to carefully go over the responses on the feedback. Make sure your students know that you have read what they have said, value their opinions, and are looking into how the course works. If they respond positively, you can share some of the more enjoyable comments. If there are critiques, discuss them. Ensuring that their opinions are heard and their experience is important is key to making them feel invested in the course: this isn’t just a course they are passively experiencing, but one they are actively invested in shaping.
Concluding Thoughts
Midterm feedback is a valuable source of information, allowing an instructor to assess how their course is going, while it is still in progress. You can relatively quickly and easily allow your students a platform to discuss their issues, provide advice, and make explicit their own personal experiences with your teaching style. By considering when and how you will provide feedback, and keeping in mind the “do’s” and “don’ts,” you will hopefully be able to provide a more engaging, more personalized experience for your class.
Steven Bengal is a doctoral student in social psychology at the Ohio State University. Steven's scholarly interests are in the interdisciplinary connections between attitudes and anchoring, as well as the role of knowledge and confidence in responses to extreme messages.
I have always joked that returning to class after summer vacation can feel like taking a cold shower. Does this sound familiar to you? For most of us, adjusting to the busy schedule of school can be a shock to the system.
As a 4th year doctoral student in clinical psychology (a.k.a. professional student, perpetual student, or just crazy), my semester includes classes, practicums, research, extracurricular academic activities, and work. I get tired just thinking about it. However, over the many years of schooling, I have found a few quick tricks to help with getting back into the swing of things.
It all starts with using a calendar/planning system
Note: having a monthly view and the ability to utilize a daily to-do list is ideal
Incorporate all your mandatory appointments first (e.g., classes, work, appointments with advisors, etc.)
You can’t move these appointments, so it is important to block the time out
Incorporate any project or assignment due dates
This helps to manage your time so you can see what is due and when
Break larger projects into smaller pieces and schedule time for each of the smaller pieces. This technique help to avoid procrastination and feeling overwhelmed.
Keep regular days/times for studying, reading, and schoolwork
If you don’t schedule these, they may not happen
Incorporate regular days/times for exercise
Exercise can be helpful in reducing stress and balancing our cortisol levels. Even if you just go for a short daily walk or run, it will all help with stress reduction. Key learning: exercise is a must!
Schedule yourself a monthly or bi-monthly “carrot”
A carrot will be different for each person. For me, a carrot may involve a weekend away, going on an epic hike, or doing something that takes me to an environment that is different than my usual weekly grind.
Schedule something new and different for each carrot. Novel experiences have been associated with increases in happiness!
Schedule some weekly or bi-weekly time with friends and/or family
This could be scheduling a regular weekly lunch with friends, or time to catch up with your family, or a date night with your partner
Perceived social support has been associated with increases in psychological well-being.
Allow yourself to deviate from your schedule occasionally
We are human after all and unexpected things will come up.
The good news is you have a well-functioning planning system and you can rearrange a few things to have a little “sporadic” fun!
So, these scheduling tactics may sounds like basic information. For some, it may seem excessive to schedule a lunch date with a friend 2 weeks out. However, I have learned that when a busy school schedule ensues, if it doesn’t get scheduled, it may not happen. Best of luck in the new term!
Bio
Cindy Marino is a PsyD student of Clinical Psychology at the Pacific University School of Professional Psychology. Her early graduate research work focused on attitudes toward sexual minorities, while her current focus is on how diversity variables relate to mindfulness. Her clinical and assessment experience has included working in various settings, including community mental health, college counseling, and private practice.
Jeremy Piven, the actor famous for his roles in Entourage and Mr Selfridge, was recently interviewed by Success Magazine. During the interview, he mentioned that the only way to get work is to go out and audition for specific roles. Easier said than done.
One underappreciated challenge actors face is that they can get in their own way. They can work tirelessly to prepare for an audition. No matter how much homework they’ve done if they end up too tired or too over-rehearsed, things go badly. Their obsessive passion makes their performance come off as desperate.
Piven said that when he quit worrying about a specific result, he was able to audition more spontaneously. He quit trying to be what he thought others wanted him to be and relaxed into his roles. His passion for acting became more healthy and harmonious. This shift in approach allows him to get the jobs he believes he is supposed to have.
Two Types of Passion
Can you identify the type of passion that's driving you? Is it harmonious and helping you be your best self? Or is it the obsessive type that can be a threat to both your physical and emotional well-being? [Image: Parker Knight]Psychological research can shed light on Piven’s experience. Dr. Robert Vallerand, a leading expert on the psychology of passion, has distinguished two primary forms of passion: one healthy and the other unhealthy.
Harmonious passion is something you’ve chosen on your own accord. You view the activity as important in itself and feel no social pressure to do it. You are in control of your passion and can easily concentrate while you do it, often entering a state of flow—a mental state sometimes referred to as “The Zone.” Here, a person is fully immersed, focused and enjoying the process of the activity.
Other outcomes of harmonious passion are:
healthy interpersonal relationships
improved physical and emotional well-being
improved performance and creativity
Conversely, obsessive passion originates from social pressure with certain contingencies attached—such as feelings of social acceptance or self-esteem. Thus, obsessive passion is tied to a particular outcome, which may detract a person from being present in the moment.
When obsessively passionate about something, people:
are controlled by their passion
become narrow-sighted and inflexible
struggle to live presently in the moment
suffer a lack of physical and emotional well-being
experience difficulty in interpersonal relationships
How Passion Is Internalized
According to Vallerand, people naturally incorporate aspects of their environment into their identity. When a person is introduced to an activity they perceive as meaningful, they often evaluate themselves in relation to the activity.
During this self-evaluation, a person will focus on certain sources of information more than others. This information will be internalized into the person’s identity either autonomously or controlled by external factors, such as social pressure from other people. An autonomous internalization process leads to a predominant harmonious passion, whereas a controlled internalization process leads to predominant obsessive passion.
My Experience with Obsessive Passion
The first time I tried getting into graduate school, I become obsessed. I lost sight of what was important in my life. Everything became about getting into graduate school.
Sensing my obsessive passion, my wife arranged for us to backpack through Europe for the entire summer following our undergraduate graduation in 2013. Sadly, I was not able to enjoy much of the trip because I couldn’t get my mind off graduate school.
“I shouldn’t be here.” I thought to myself. “I should be back home doing research and preparing for graduate school.”
I wasn’t able to live in the present moment, even while seeing some of the world’s most historical and famous sites.
When you’re obsessed with something, you become dependent on that thing. You sacrifice your control to that thing and become a slave to it. This is not a happy or healthy place to be.
After two months in Europe, I was finally able to let go and detach myself from my obsession passion. This allowed me to examine my situation more objectively. I was finally able to breathe calmly and more mindfully enjoy the present moments.
In this more healthy and neutral state, I was able to ponder and reflect upon my motivations for wanting to go to graduate school in the first place. I discovered that, throughout my undergraduate education, I had gotten mixed-up somewhere along the way.
I had lost track of my own goals and had adopted my professor’s goals for me. I had stopped doing the work I naturally loved and instead worked to please my professors. My work became shallow and inauthentic. Throughout the course of my undergraduate education, I lost sight of why I was studying psychology in the first place. I came to realize that I was attempting to get into the wrong graduate programs entirely and was able to make a radical shift in my life.
Conclusion
It may be difficult to discover that you are obsessively passionate. Maybe you’re studying what your parents want you to study. Or you’re getting your degree solely for extrinsic motivations.
If you find yourself feeling pressured to do what you’re doing in college, it may take courage to be authentic. Try laying your passion aside for a weekend and simply spending time by yourself. Does the passion tug at you like an addiction—does it leave you feeling guilty? Or does it call to you with the promise of fun? Try to get perspective on which type of passion you have and how it aligns with your values.
Bio
Benjamin Hardy is the foster parent of three children. He’s pursuing his Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology at Clemson University. He researches how people build the courage to become entrepreneurs. To learn more about Ben, visit www.benjaminhardy.comor connect with him on Twitter.
References
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.
Vallerand, R. J. (2010). Chapter 3 – On Passion for Life Activities: The Dualistic Model of Passion. Experimental Social Psychology Volume 42, 97–193.
Vallerand, R. J. (2015). The psychology of passion: A dualistic model. New York, NY, US: Oxford University Press.
Woodard, C. R. (2010). The courage to be authentic: Empirical and existential perspectives. In C. S. Pury, S. J. Lopez (Eds.), The psychology of courage: Modern research on an ancient virtue (pp. 109-123). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.
Sherlock Holmes has astounding powers of observation. Iron Man has his armor. Superman is invincible. Star Wars has C3-PO who seems to know everything. Powers to make life easier abound in the movies. Envious? Jealous of those fantasy worlds? Don’t be. With just a little positive spin, we can provide our students with many powers to make their lives easier. How, you ask? By playing up the applicability of psychology. One of my goals as a teacher is to make psychology, and the introductory class in particular, as applicable to my students’ lives as possible. Let’s help our students see that mastering psychology can actually gain mastery over many aspects of their lives. It is almost like gaining/developing superpowers. Psychology today is well positioned to engage students if it is well presented. A surefire way of achieving increasing engagement and motivation is to play up the applications of psychology. In this post, I overview some pragmatic ways to make psychology more applied.
Hmmmm, expose them to high doses of radioactive materials and hope for the best . . . . or emphasize the daily applications of psychology? [Image: alc990]
Psychological research explores the enormous complexity of human behavior and contributes in important ways to solving a wide range of problems that students will confront during their lifetimes (APA, 2014). These problems include poverty, global warming, international conflicts, prejudice and discrimination, exploitation and violence, depression and dysphoria, child neglect and parental divorce, and even rising medical costs. Psychology can also help answer questions that intrigue many of our students. What in the brain and body make thought, emotion, and even a sense of self possible? How can you be happy, get a date, make more money, and rock that interview? How can you best deal with life’s stressors? In short, psychology has the tools to change one’s life. These topics can fire a student’s imagination; it is almost like spraying them with special rays that provide them with intellectual superpowers.
We can also make Intro Psych more applicable by more explicitly noting that no one area of psychology fully explains day-to-day life. If a student wants to really understand why some people procrastinate or why others work hard, they must learn about many different areas of psychology and how they work together. Many of the most exciting advances in psychology today are emerging across traditional training areas within psychology and across disciplines (Cacioppo, 2007). For example, understanding romantic relationships can involve neurochemical (e.g., oxytocin), social (e.g., self-fulfilling prophecies), personality (e.g., traits), and cognitive factors (e.g., automatic thoughts).
Psychology is the study of people—how we think, feel, and act. As such, it is easy to personally relate to the core concepts of psychology in a way that might not be as true of mathematics, astronomy, or supply chain economics. What’s more, Introduction to Psychology is a primer for life, equipping students with a basic understanding of learning, research, emotions, and social interactions that should prove useful for the rest of their lives.
Making Intro Psych Applicable
There are a number of explicit ways to embed more application into the classroom (Gurung, 2014; in press). I will use the example of my class to illustrate some key techniques regarding design, class dynamics, and assessment.
Application can be integrated into every element of course design and one of the first considerations relates to content. If you plan on covering every single page of an Intro Psych textbook, it will probably leave little time to build in good application. I assign most of the chapters in the textbook (9 out of 14) and spend approximately one week on most chapters. I spend extra class periods on difficult material such as biology and learning, and also make sure there are many different ways for students to interact with the material.
Unlock the inner-superhero through psychology!
I also use application as a form of assessment itself. During the semester I have students perform between eight to ten group exercises (yes, even in my 250 person Intro class). I divide the class up into groups of four to five and give all of them real world scenarios. They then have to generate answers as a group. For example, when teaching Learning, I describe five different everyday situations that feature some form of classical or operant conditioning. Students have to identify the correct concept being used. Whereas this is not a direct test of whether application itself is aiding memory and retention of psychological concepts, it is another way to push application into the classroom.
One of my assessments directly requires application. I often have students write a short three-page paper at the end of the semester. Even with 250 students, I can read over the papers and assign a grade relatively quickly (I do not edit the papers or turn them back), quickly getting a sense of what the student has learned and how well they can apply the material. I am always open to providing more detailed feedback on papers to students who are concerned by a low paper grade. In short, I ask students to pick a topic from life and apply as much as their knowledge from the course to discussing the topic (full directions for the assignment are reproduced in APA 2014).
To highlight applications I also use a lifespan approach to situate the different sections of psychology. I work to show students how what feel like discrete chapters are actually part of a single narrative: the story of human experience through life. Before discussing the syllabus at the end of the first class, I give them a big picture of the semester where I map out the plan for the semester with a narrative. I embed individual chapters and domains of psychology within the story of life. I mention we will start with tools (Research Method), then the biological building blocks that make us human (Brain and Biology, Neuroscience, Sensation) and then start elaborating on human growth and experience. First we are born and grow (Human Development), we have to learn (Learning), remember (Memory) and then interact with the world (Social) that shapes and is shaped by who we are (Personality). Sometimes things go wrong (Health and Abnormal) and psychology can help fix it (Treatments). Student feedback suggests this is a much more appealing first day. Students report feeling more connected to the class and material.
I also put a key question in front of them: “Why should I care?” I tell students that if they ever find themselves asking this question they have missed something about the content of the class and psychology. Throughout the semester I aim to make the material as applicable to their lives as possible and repeatedly ask this question and have students answer it in class. This approach is particularly useful early in the semester when students are not sure why they have to study research methods or the biology of the brain and nervous system. A student may at first be wary of brain structures and not know why they should care. When I then map out how changes at the neuronal level (e.g., action potentials and strengthening of pathways) can lead to structural changes that lead to memory changes (e.g., more recall of material rehearsed with the consequently more often activated pathways), students begin to care more.
Another critical element of course dynamics relates to the delivery of material and how you present information. I use a lot of personal stories in class but also promise students that every story will have a point and relate to class material. Based on the metacognitive concept of self-referencing, my fundamental approach in encouraging students to read is that the basic concepts in psychology are immediately applicable to all of us. If students see the connections between key psychological concepts and life, students will be more interested in learning about psychology and may retain key ideas long after the course is over. Ultimately, what we each remember from introductory psychology are the stories, whether they are told by the instructor or through the textbook. If you can get students to tell stories about their own life using the material, chances are they will remember the concepts even better (Wang, Bui, & Song, 2015).
At the heart of it, the idea behind my approach to teaching introductory psychology is to make the material applicable, something that effective teachers do intuitively. Even if we have to work a little harder to take complex course material and translate it to everyday life, the effort is well worth it. Engaged students make for engaged instructors (and vice versa). Making the material applicable and encouraging students to look for applications of content not only make the course more engaging, but stand to make the course material more memorable as well. Just like the superhero Batman whose Bat-belt has a tool or device to get him out of nearly any predicament, psychology provides our students with many super-tools to apply to their own lives.
American Psychological Association. (2014). Strengthening the common core of the introductory psychology course. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, Board of Educational Affairs. Retrieved from www.apa.org/ed/governance/bea/intro-psych-report.pdf
Cacioppo, J. T. (2013). Psychological science in the 21st century. Teaching of Psychology, 40(4), 304 – 309. doi?
Gurung, R. A. R. (2014). Discover Psychology: Instructor's Manual (digital edition). Champaign, IL: DEF Publishers. doi: www.nobaproject.com
Gurung, R. A. R. (in press). Give them something to care about: Engaging students in Introductory Psychology. In D. Dunn & B. M. Hard (Eds.) Teaching Introductory Psychology. Belmont, CA: Cengage.
As a professor, do you ever have a course that, even with your best intentions, just doesn’t go as well as planned? You know, the one where you have problems communicating with students, get poor course evaluations, or have students who just don’t seem motivated?
It happens to all of us. Maybe with some classes more than others, but it happens to all of us from time to time.
The truth is, every group of students has its own dynamic, situated within a particular course, and sometimes it’s difficult to get a handle on that dynamic. Traditionally, professors wouldn’t get a full sense of what’s going on in this dynamic until the end of the semester when students submit their course evaluations (you guessed it, AFTER it’s already too late to do something about it).
But recent research has suggested a solution to this problem. The solution, first put forth by Mitch Handelsman (2012), is the use of student management teams (or SMTs).
A Student Management Team is a small group of students that help give an instructor greater insights into how well a course is progressing from the student perspective. They allow an instructor to make adjustments during the course while the feedback is most meaningful. [Image: UGA College of Ag & Environmental Sciences]
About Student Management Teams
A SMT is a group of 3-5 currently enrolled students who work with the professor throughout the semester to monitor the course, transmit feedback, make recommendations, and help implement them. Basically, instead of having an evaluation of the professor at the end of the course, there is an ongoing feedback loop between the SMT (who represent all students in the class) and the professor. For additional information on implementing a SMT, see this guide that I’ve created.
I usually seek out a SMT by asking for volunteers about 4 weeks into a course, and then I have the team create and analyze (informally) an early-semester evaluation. The SMT tells me what they’ve seen in the early-semester evaluation, then we brainstorm ways to improve what’s happening in the class. For example, in the past, some students have expressed that they found my exams to be somewhat difficult, so we implemented a review session before the subsequent exams.
The ongoing feedback continues throughout the semester. I also routinely give the SMT 5 minutes of class time to talk with their classmates to see how the course is going. This can be especially helpful at important stages of the semester (e.g., before large assignments are due).
Benefits of SMTs
Recent evidence suggests that SMTs create a number of benefits for students. In one study, college students who were members of SMTs showed improved performance over the course of the semester, primarily due to their increase in course engagement as the semester went on (Troisi, 2014). Of course, this finding raises an ethical concern—students should have every opportunity to improve their performance, but only a finite amount of them can be on the SMT. With that said, explaining potential benefits of SMT membership to students is important (i.e., that students may perform better because of increased engagement). And also worth noting, I welcome all students in the class to attend SMT meetings with me if they wish.
There are many other potential benefits as well. In a second empirical study, all members of a college class with an embedded SMT demonstrated greater feelings of autonomy than students in a comparison class without a SMT (Troisi, 2015). Furthermore, based on my experience, it’s fun to get to know members of a SMT on a more personal level. These students also feel good for taking on a bigger responsibility and role within the class. And, what is more, they often come up with good ideas that might not occur to the professor (this has happened to me many times).
The use of a SMT can also prevent or mitigate difficulties that may arise in a classroom. Students are much less likely to feel that their voice isn’t being heard if they can go to the SMT with concerns about their class.
For example, I once made a grading calculation error on Blackboard, which I corrected, but students were still a bit confused because it appeared as though they had some points “taken away.” I tried to explain the circumstances, but they seemed frustrated yet uncomfortable with airing their concerns with me directly. The SMT took over, gathering student opinions and concerns and communicating them to me, thereby allowing me to address them to everyone’s satisfaction.
So, if you’ve got a course that just doesn’t quite go the way you want it to, try using a SMT. They’re good for all kinds of circumstances: trying your hand at a brand new course, revamping a course that isn’t going well, or even just to reinvigorate a course you’ve taught dozens of times.
And who knows, using a SMT might just boost your student evaluations a little bit as well.
Bio
Jordan D. Troisi is an assistant professor of psychology at Sewanee: the University of the South, a liberal arts college in rural Tennessee. His teaching interests merge with his scholarly interest on topics related to interpersonal relationships; he researches and speaks regularly on how relational processes may facilitate learning in the college setting. He is an active member of The Society for the Teaching of Psychology (APA Division 2), where he serves as the Chair of its Early Career Psychologists Committee, and as a Consulting Editor for the Division’s flagship journal, Teaching of Psychology.
This is Part 2 in a series on the value of games in education and learning. Part 1 isHERE.
It’s not easy to find humor related to suicide but Epictetus came close. The first century (C.E.) stoic Greek philosopher observed, “…just as [children] say, when the game no longer amuses them, ‘I will play no more,’ you too, when things seem that way to you, you should say likewise, ‘I won’t play any longer, and so depart. But,” he added (with a hint of a smile?), “if you stay, stop moaning” (see Hard, 1995, p. 53).
But moaning about going hungry is probably exactly what the people under King Lytus of Lydia, in Asia Minor, were doing, according to Rawlinson’s (1861) translation of The Histories of Herodotus. In this case King Lytus attempted to help his people survive a terrible famine by alternating days of game playing with days of eating.
The ancient Greeks were not the only ones to find meaning in games. Another ancient but more treacherous example comes from the Hindu myth of Shakuni, pictured below, who won with fixed dice what he could not win by war.
As you can see, game-playing is ancient and seems to have exerted remarkable powers that have been credited both for evil and for good.
We can look to the recent past (in this case, 1798) to understand why games are associated with evil. Madame Stael de Holstein (pp. 155-163) lumped together “the passions of gaming, avarice, and drunkenness” as causes of the French revolution. She seemed vaguely aware that the correlation between widespread gambling and the frequency of heads being lopped off was not necessarily causal. But in light of the bloodletting, she wanted to encourage in citizens a “philosophical apathy when they can think without enthusiasm.” Her grim motto could have been, “Better depression than death.” In 1832, John Parkhurst reached a similar conclusion when he argued that governments should not sanction gaming (gambling) because, “If a thing is evil in itself, to give it the sanction of law only increases the evil.” And in 1838, Jeremiah Day (1838) dragged god into the conversation by asking, “why one [person] prefers to go to the gaming table, while another goes to the house of prayer.” One obvious answer did not seem to occur to Jeremiah Day: playing is more fun than praying.
God himself may have endorsed the other side of the debate, as the bible repeatedly describes how a roll of the dice was used to divine powers that they could not understand. The book of Proverbs, for example, asserts that, "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord" (Proverbs 16:33). Jonah’s shipmates cast lots to discover which guilty person God wanted to have thrown overboard (Jonah 1:7). The soldiers who executed Jesus cast lots for his clothing and the apostles cast lots again to determine who would become the replacement apostle for Judas (Acts 1:26). In 1881, J. P. Lesley (pp. 301-320) made an even bolder assertion that games could only be appreciated by “a soul inspired with a knowledge of the mind of God.”
What is it about playing with chance that inspires interpretations that range from mass murder to knowing the mind of God? Games are just a set of rules, so games are amoral. Immorality comes from those who get to write those rules, pass the laws, fix the dice, or take advantage of others’ statistical naiveté to bend the laws of chance in their favor. Combe and Fowler (1844) did not seem to need divine inspiration to assert the health benefits and “superiority of cheerful play and amusing games.” In 1894, John Lubbock (62-77) perceived important social benefits to honest games, such as teaching a man “how to get on with other men…to give way in trifles, to play fairly, and push no advantage to an extremity.” So, asking “Are games evil or good?” seems to be the wrong question, no matter how many people claim that god is on their side.
The history of games inherited some scientific clarity when natural selection emerged as an answer to a question that only a few people were asking: Where does this ancient impulse to play games come from? In 1898, Karl Groos observed the many ways that playing a game was adaptive for non-human animals.The notion of “survival of the fittest” also may explain an article by Princeton’s John Kennedy that (in 1962) referenced several previous decades of simulation games conducted by the Air Defense Direction Center. In the latter half of the 20th century, educators began to recognize that games could be an effective motivational tool (see Kazdin, 1982; Matson & Boisjoli, 2009 for reviews), but they seemed uncertain about how to use them. Researchers also began to use games such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma to force covert values to the surface of overt behavior, resulting in a richer understanding of how humans solve problems, use heuristics, and calculate probability. Some of this scientific research resulted in a Nobel prize for Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981; Wilkinson, 2008).
The entertainment industry didn’t need a Nobel laureate, psychological training, or insights from the Prisoner’s Dilemma to hear the sweet sound of money sliding into slot machines or passing into their pockets through games of chance. The golden age of radio in the 1930s and 1940s created huge audiences by using game shows such as Quiz Kids and Truth or Consequences to lure audiences into new patterns of shopping behavior. The 1960’s television version of The Price is Right, pictured here , illustrates how game show designers used classical conditioning to motivate people to buy more butter, soap, and laundry detergent. Just as Madame Stael de Holstein seemed slightly confused about correlation and causation when commenting on the causes of the French revolution, academics may shun using games to motivate students simply because games are so often correlated with superficial entertainments.
The ground has shifted beneath the academic feet of higher education because our students appear to be happily saturated in a game-based, digital world. A 2010 report by the video game industry (with estimated annual revenues of 10.5 billion dollars) tells us that students voluntarily spend about 8 hours per week playing video games and 40% of those gamers are females (who tend to prefer the Wii to the Xbox). About 49% of gamers are between 18 and 49 years old and about 64% of parents believe that games are a positive influence on their children; 48% of those parents play video or computer games with their children about once per week. And that’s only the video game industry. It doesn’t count people who volunteer to coach softball, play tennis, attend a weekly poker game, or periodically donate their money to slot machines (http://www.esrb.org/about/images/vidGames04.png) .
To paraphrase John Lennon, history is what happens to you while you are planning something else. Games are not beneath higher education; games have moved past higher education and it’s time for us to catch up. The stoic philosopher Epictetus had it right. If you’re going to play, stop moaning about unmotivated, underprepared students. If you’re going to stay, then play!
So, if you want to discover how game-based principles can induce extraordinary levels of persistence in students previously labeled as “unmotivated” and “under-prepared,” then watch this space….
Note: Follow the link HERE for an extensive bibliography of game-related references.
Bio
Tom Heinzen is a professor at William Paterson University, works in game design for higher education, has authored with Susan Nolan a statistics textbook, and is an interdisciplinary methods geek He has published peer-reviewed articles as experiments, case studies, quasi-experiments, focus groups, surveys, theoretical models, novels about teaching psychology, several book chapters, academic books, a history about Clever Hans and facilitated communication, and even edited a book of poetry by nursing home residents. Game design is especially appealing because it is a natural home for interdisciplinary applications.
What is the best way to learn content and skills in a new discipline? How much can we trust our intuitions about how we learn to guide decisions about how we should study new material?
Students and instructors wrestle with these questions. Popular culture is rife with advice about how to study, but not all of all of this advice is well-grounded in evidence.
One common misconception about learning is that individuals have specific “learning styles” (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio, & Beyerstein, 2009). An internet search will quickly produce web sites with questionnaires and diagnostic tests that claim to determine your optimal learning style, often categorized in terms of sensory modalities (visual learners, verbal learners, kinesthetic learners). These assessments depend on self-reported preferences to engage with material in one form or another (e.g., pictures, graphics, reading, listening, writing, manipulating objects, or movement). Students do prefer to engage in some learning activities more than others. However, their preferences may not coincide with activities that work best as study strategies and create the largest benefit for learning. Empirical research on learning styles rarely supports popular beliefs that instructional strategies are most effective when they align with a student’s “learning style” (Pashler, McDaniel, Roher, & Bjork, 2009). Instead, Pashler et al. identified multiple research examples in which students used a “preferred learning style” and learned less than students who used a non-preferred, but cognitively effective, learning style.
If matching student learning preferences is not the answer, then what are our best strategies for presenting information? [Image: Earlham College]
If learning styles don’t predict which teaching strategies will be most effective for learning, can we ignore student preferences and just lecture? Although research evidence does not support the value of matching presentation modality to learning preference, an extensive body of research supports the value of presenting information in a variety of modalities to improve retention and retrieval (see Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett, and Norman (2010), Pashler, Bain, Bottge, Graesser, Koedinger, McDanier, and Metecalf (2007), and Winne & Nesbit (2010) for reviews of evidence-based strategies for effective teaching and learning). A selected list of their recommendations appears below.
Effective Learning Strategies
1. Present material in a variety of modalities: visual (pictures and graphics) and verbal (written and spoken).
2. Provide concrete examples as well as abstract explanations of concepts. Discuss the connection between characteristics of the concrete examples and key elements of the abstract representation.
3. Distribute learning activities over time. Repeated exposure and practice of new material with intervals of time (a few weeks) produces longer-term learning.
4. Interleave review of examples of solved problems with activities that require students to solve problems independently. As expertise and problem-solving skill increase, ask students to spend less time studying examples of solved problems and more time working independently to solve new problems.
5. Use quizzes and exams as opportunities to learn. Tests require students to practice retrieving information from memory. Students get feedback during the test and from their test scores about how well they encoded new material and appropriate retrieval cues. Ask students to reflect on how they prepared for an exam and consider whether using a different study strategy might improve future test performance. Post-exam reflections (so-called “exam wrappers”) help students calibrate their judgments about how well they have prepare and how much they have learned. These insights can guide their choices for future study activities.
Resources
Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Lilienfeld, S. O., Lynn, S. J., Ruscio, J. & Beyerstein, B. L. (2009). 50 great myths of popular psychology: Shattering widespread misconceptions about human behavior. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2009). Learning styles: concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9, 105-119.
Pashler, H., Bain, P. Bottge, B., Graesser, A., Koedinger, K., McDaniel, M., & Metcalfe, J. (2007). Organizing instruction and study to improve student learning (NCER 2007-2004). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://ncer.ed.gov.
Winne, P. H., & Nesbit, J. C. (2010). The psychology of academic achievement. Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 653-678.
Bio
Claudia J. Stanny is the Director of the Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment and an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of West Florida. She offers workshops on teaching strategies, faculty career development, scholarship of teaching and learning, and assessment of student learning. Her publications discuss assessment in higher education, applied aspects of memory and cognition, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.
A version of this post first appeared on the University of West Florida’s Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment website. You can find it and other great teaching tips posts by Claudia Stanny by visiting - http://uwf.edu/offices/cutla/
When I was a neophyte teacher, I resorted to the same teaching methods that most of my teachers had used with me—namely, traditional lectures. I had performed fairly well in those lecture-based courses, so I assumed that my students would do the same. And, for the most part, they did. They got pretty good grades, and, in turn, they gave me pretty good teaching evaluations. But I nevertheless sensed that something wasn’t quite right. Ultimately, I realized that my students weren’t as engaged as I hoped they would be. It was then that I went searching for new ways to “draw them in;” to get them excited about what I was teaching, whether it was in my psychology of learning course—which students tend to find pretty interesting—or my research methods class—which, at least initially, doesn’t evoke the same type of enthusiastic responses.
In my search for new teaching methods, I came across the concept of “student engagement.” Since its introduction into the research literature the late 1960s, it has become a bit of a buzzword in educational settings. To illustrate, Figure 1 shows the number of Google Scholar hits for “student engagement” over successive 10-year periods since 1970 (in the 5-year period since 2010, the number has already exceeded 350,000). Clearly, people are interested in this topic, which is one reason why alternative teaching methods such as peer instruction and “flipped classrooms” are currently hot. One pedagogical tool that can be added to this list is “interteaching.”
Figure 1
Interteaching
Interteaching is relatively new teaching method that was developed by Dr. Phil Hineline from Temple University and that has its roots in behavior analysis. (Hineline and his colleague Ted Boyce subsequently published a description of interteaching in 2002.) A typical interteaching session works as follows:
The teacher creates a preparation (prep) guide that students receive several days in advance (often via a course webpage) and that they use to prepare for class. A prep guide typically contains 5 to 15 items and covers 10 to 20 pages of reading material.
In class, students first hear a brief clarifying lecture that lasts about one third of the class period and covers difficult material from the last class session (see below for more detail).
After the lecture, students form pairs and spend the rest of the class discussing the prep-guide items they answered for that day. During the discussions, the teacher moves around the room and answers questions.
Once students are finished, they complete a record sheet on which they list which prep-guide items they would like the teacher to review in more detail.
Using the record sheets as a guide, the teacher constructs a short lecture that targets the material students found to be most confusing. The lecture begins the next class period and precedes discussion of the next prep guide, which students completed for that day.
Research on Interteaching
Since the introduction of interteaching just over a decade ago, researchers have found it to be an effective alternative to more traditional lecture-based teaching methods. My colleagues and I, for instance, have shown that it significantly increases exam scores in a variety of undergraduate and graduate psychology courses. Other researchers have studied its efficacy in religion, special education, food science, sociology, and computer science courses, also with positive results. Rather than bore you with data, though, I figure that it might be more useful to discuss how I have implemented interteaching in my courses and what I have learned along the way.
Implementing Interteaching: Some Considerations
I first implemented interteaching over 10 years ago in a history of psychology course that I taught over a 4-week summer session. In retrospect, that was not the best idea I’ve ever had, even if the class did go swimmingly well. Most days, I was just a few hours ahead of my students, completing prep guides just an hour or two before I had to distribute them in class. If you decide to implement interteaching in your classes, don’t take this approach. Instead, either give yourself plenty of time to develop the course materials or, at the very least, implement this method slowly. You could, for instance, develop prep guides for a unit or two of information and move toward a “complete” interteaching class over the course of a few semesters.
Maybe not surprisingly, some students are skeptical of this “new thing” I’m making them do in class. Many students have learned how to “jump through the hoops” to get good grades, and they wonder why I’m making them do something different, something with which they aren’t familiar. As such, I spend a good chunk of time explaining to my students why I use interteaching and why I think it will benefit them. As with many alternative teaching methods, it’s important to “sell it to them” not only at the beginning of the semester, but also periodically over the coming weeks.
Another issue that teachers need to consider is the general format of interteaching, which I described above. Every so often, I talk to teachers who tell me that, “I tried interteaching, and it didn’t work for me.” When I ask them to provide more detail, they often note how they deviated from the original format. But there are important conceptual reasons why interteaching is structured the way it is, and deviation from this general structure is likely to impact its efficacy. So, stick with the general format until you have a feel for how interteaching works. At that point, you could consider modifying it for your particular purposes.
I have also found that the prep guides are key to producing the kind of learning I want from my students. For instance, I have had teachers tell me that to save time, they simply took questions from an instructor’s manual when constructing their prep guides. In my experience, not all instructor’s manuals do a great job of providing the types of questions that get students to think and discuss the way I want them to. If your students are not having the kinds of discussions you want them to have, you may need to check the types of questions you have on your prep guides. In my experience, questions that fall higher on Bloom’s taxonomy—for instance, questions that require students to analyze or evaluate information—will produce better discussions (and learning) than questions that only ask students to define terms.
Finally, although my first few interteaching classes went really well (which is why I began implementing this class into nearly every class I teach), it does take awhile to get into a “groove” with interteaching. Don’t give up if it doesn’t work for you after a few weeks. Tweak and re-tweak, and see what happens.
In the 10 or so years since I first implemented interteaching in my courses, I have found that my students are much more engaged than they used to be. I have also found that when my students are engaged, so am I. In this way, using interteaching in my classes has created a reciprocal environment where everyone involved becomes more engaged in the teaching and learning process. For me—and hopefully for others who decide to give it a try—it’s been a win-win outcome.
Recommended Readings
Astin, A. W. (1993). What matters in college?: Four critical years revisited. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bergmann, J., & Sams, A. (2012). Flip your classroom: Reach every student in every class every day. Washington, DC: International Society for Technology in Education.
Boyce, T. E., & Hineline, P. N. (2002). Interteaching: A strategy for enhancing the user-friendliness of behavioral arrangements in the college classroom. The Behavior Analyst, 25, 215-226.
Crouch, C. H., & Mazur, E. (2001). Peer Instruction: Ten years of experience and results. American Journal of Physics, 69, 970-977.
Saville, B. K. (2013, February). Interteaching: Ten tips for effective implementation. APS Observer, 26. Published online at www.psychologicalscience.org
Saville, B. K., Bureau, A., Eckenrode, C., Fullerton, A., Herbert, R., Maley, M., Porter, A., & Zombakis, J. (2014). Interteaching and lecture: A comparison of long-term recognition memory. Teaching of Psychology, 41, 325-329.
Saville, B. K., Lambert, T., & Robertson, S. (2011). Interteaching: Bringing behavioral education into the 21st century. The Psychological Record, 61, 153-166.
Saville, B. K., Zinn, T. E., & Elliott, M. P. (2005). Interteaching versus traditional methods of instruction: A preliminary analysis. Teaching of Psychology, 32, 161-163.
Saville, B. K., Zinn, T. E., Neef, N. A., Norman, R. V., & Ferreri, S. J. (2006). A comparison of interteaching and lecture in the college classroom. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 39, 49-61.
Bio
Bryan K. Saville (Twitter: @BryanSaville) is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at James Madison University, in Harrisonburg, Virginia. For the past 12 years, he has studied evidence-based teaching methods, most notably, interteaching. More recently, he has begun studying the topic of passion and, more specifically, the objective and subjective outcomes that occur when college students are (or are not) passionate about their academic activities. In his free time, he loves hanging out with his family and playing guitar.
