Category Archives: Reflections

Psyc 100 Section 002: What textbooks do you need?

Posted on August 28, 2012 | Comments Off on Psyc 100 Section 002: What textbooks do you need?

Hello to all my new, eager students! I’m receiving emails daily from people wondering about book options and/or classroom location. Normally these are the kinds of questions that would receive an answer along the lines of  “please check your syllabus” — however, considering I haven’t quite finished it yet, I can’t exactly expect you to consult it.

If you’re in my Psyc 100 class, section 002, that meets MWF 12-1, we’re meeting in Scarfe 100 Term 1, and switch to Buchanan A101 in Term 2.

You absolutely need three things:

  1. “Psychology: From inquiry to understanding” Canadian edition by Lilienfeld and other authors. It *must* be the Canadian edition that looks like this. You can find this at the UBC bookstore, or on amazon.ca, or, if you’re into electronic books, at Coursesmart.
  2. An i>clicker personal response system, available at the bookstore. If you’re wondering what it is, here’s a website that has a photo and some person’s review. It must be the i>clicker brand in order to work with our system at UBC. At the end of the year, if you’re never going to use it again, you can return it to the bookstore just like a used book.
  3. Access to PeerScholar. This is a website that we will use in both terms to facilitate peer feedback on your papers. If you buy the textbook bundle at the bookstore, access costs $5 (included in the price of the bundle. If you buy access online, access costs $12.95 (probably plus tax). If you prefer the online-buy option, go to the website link and follow the instructions there.

You don’t have to have access to MyPsychLab. It comes with the textbook bundle at the bookstore, or you can buy online access later. It’s a study guide that many students find helpful. It has quizzes and flashcards and videos and all kinds of things like that for each chapter. Note that representatives for the publishing company for your textbook have made this website, not me. I had nothing to do with it. Many students have found it helpful for studying, but it’s up to you if you want to use it.

There are a few more resources we’ll be using over the year, but I’ll explain those later. These are the resources I’ve been asked about. Note that if you are experiencing serious financial need, please come to me and I’ll work with you to find access to the resources you need. (And don’t feel embarrassed — I’ve been there myself.) For example, I have some i>clickers for loan.

I’ll post the syllabus when it’s ready, later this week. Looking forward to meeting you next week!

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Olympics are over!

Posted on August 13, 2012 | Comments Off on Olympics are over!

Time to get to serious work!

I have spent the last two weeks thoroughly distracted by the Games — almost as badly as when they were here in Vancouver! While I realize that there are economic and social problems with the Olympics, I find myself inspired by the accomplishments and even the disappointments our athletes face. (And I say “our” to reflect my fierce Canadian pride that especially swells at times like this.) From Rosie MacLennan’s first (and Canada’s only!) gold medal performance, our women’s soccer team pulling themselves up from last place in the world last year to win bronze, *so* many top 10 but out-of-medal performances, the heartbreaking DQ in the men’s 4×100 relay after a shocking rise from off-radar to bronze position… and many many other inspiring moments. Our athletes showed their pride of achievement, and sadness while striving for dignity in defeat. Watching people strive for amazing and challenging achievements inspires me. Such performances highlight the risk involved in devoting your life to a goal, especially a competitive goal defined by social comparisons. It’s possible you’ll never achieve it — and it might be because of simple bad luck, or the fact that someone else just outperforms you (imagine competing in a cohort that just happens to include Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt!). It must take tremendous strength of character to say, “I did my very best, and I’m proud of my accomplishment” after off-podium, far off-podium, or defeat finishes in a domain in which you stake your identity.

Of course, it wasn’t just the Canadian’s who inspired me. There were some incredible “firsts” of these Games that will have an important legacy: Oscar Pistorius, who blurred the boundaries between Olympics and Paralympics; every country competing sent at least one woman; every sport was open to women and men — even boxing; and best all-round female gymnast went to a woman of colour, Gabby Douglas, for the first time ever. Some of these firsts seem bizarrely delayed, it being 2012 and all, but I suspect that feeling is more a product of my sheltered Canadian vantage point than reality.

Thanks, London 2012, our Canadian Olympic Team, and all Olympians, for giving me an excuse to pause and reflect on achievement, failure, competition, national pride, women’s rights, the meaning of physical ability and disability.

Now really, it’s time for me to get back to work!

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STLHE 2012 Conference Reflections

Posted on July 9, 2012 | Comments Off on STLHE 2012 Conference Reflections

I recently went to the annual conference for the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. This year it was held in Montreal (last year in Saskatoon Saskatchewan, next year in Cape Breton Nova Scotia). It’s my favourite conference of the year because it’s relatively small (about 400 delegates), and everyone there is committed to improving teaching and learning in higher education. Some delegates are faculty like me, but many others are educational developers who work at places like UBC’s CTLT, others are graduate students, administrators, and so on. I always leave with a ton of great ideas ranging from the big picture to day-to-day implementation. If you follow me on twitter, you may have noticed my live tweeting. Like my earlier list, with this post I’m trying to collect and remind myself of the major ideas from this conference:

  • A deliberate method for implementing successful iclicker questions is called “Peer Instruction” out of the physics literature. Includes students reading ahead, then giving a mini-lecture, providing a tough clicker Q, students explaining reasoning to someone else, class discussion going through all options, mini-lecture, tough clicker Q (younger level to converge on answer, upper level to diverge). From Rob Cassidy. Seems similar to what I do normally, but reading about it could give me ideas for implementation.
  • Look up research on peer instruction by Weiman, Eric Mazur (Harvard), Derek Bruff (Vanderbilt), and contact Rob Cassidy (Concordia).
  • Graduate courses on university teaching exist at Guelph, McMaster, Dalhousie, SFU, etc. Fantastic contacts, including Erin Aspenlieder at SFU, Suzanne Sheffield at Dalhousie (for evaluation materials), Cynthia Korpan at UVic (made updated critical incident films, new head of TAGSA), Natasha Kenny at Guelph.
  • Idea gems about grad courses on university teaching (from Natasha Kenny): every moment is a teaching moment, the goal is that students leave the course knowing teaching is about *students* first and foremost, syllabus contained “how this course was changed based on last year’s feedback”
  • Based on Erin Aspenlieder’s lit review on how to train grad students to teach, what works is mentorship, practice with feedback, and portfolio development to promote reflective practice. What doesn’t work is single-event workshops — which is what grad students & faculty say they want!! To improve single-event workshops, need to follow up with participants to find out how they implemented the information. *This gives me impetus for Psych Dept TA Training follow-up.
  • Film the teaching in my Teaching of Psych grad class to facilitate reflection.
  • Make a Western Canada TA training conference! There are loads of us doing this work, and it could be a fantastic opportunity to network and improve.
  • Ways to evaluate impact of my Teaching of Psych class: Approaches to Teaching inventory (pre/post), midterm and end of term feedback, focus groups, course outlines, teaching philosophy statements with coding scheme (see Concordia crew including Rob Cassidy for their draft rubric that considers line-by-line).
  • I’d like to co-design a session for next year’s STLHE on integrating qualitative and quantitative perspectives. A meeting point that’s relevant to many educators is interpreting student evaluations of teaching (including one’s own, guiding others, and the research literature). To do this, I need to find an expert in qualitative research to co-facilitate this!
  • When guiding others to improve their teaching, start with two questions: What is your content? (to get them excited and to define parameters of the course), and What do you want students to know about it? (to guide creation of learning objectives, switch their thinking to learner-centred). — From Cynthia Weston’s lifetime achievement award address
  • Consider “luck-free” written portions of my exams: here are 10 questions, three will be on it, prepare as you wish (teams or individuals)
  • Build regular writing time into my professional life.

That is a rather odd collection, but they’re the ideas I want to make sure I keep. Many are related to teaching graduate students to teach, which I think is going to be a big part of my upcoming year.

 

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“A circle of life”

Posted on June 18, 2012 | Comments Off on “A circle of life”

While describing an endowment she created (see article), Vicki Green, an Education faculty member at UBC-Okanagan, made this statement:

“There is a circle of life you come to understand as a teacher — when a student comes to university he or she belongs to your present and you become part of their past.”

Just beautiful. She has captured a wonderful duality here, one that in my view is quite profound. When I think of my own time in undergrad, including my professors, I can’t help but see how profoundly it changed my view of the world… and indeed has affected the course of my entire life. As a professor, I am honoured to become a part of students’ past. And yet I’m also keenly aware of how much I am affected each day, for good and not-so-good, by the presence of my students. My present (especially for the 8 months of the year I’m in the classroom) is indeed filled by my students.

As I think more about it, it’s also interesting to consider that professors belong to a students’ present, and students become part of a professor’s past. I suspect that once September hits, all the assignments and learning activities I have carefully planned will influence my students’ present. The students–individuals and cohorts alike–who have journeyed with me through the years have helped shaped who I am as a teacher today. Students in the first stats lab section I ever taught, the first course I ever taught, the first year I taught full time — those represent just a few of the cohorts who have helped me develop as a teacher, and every cohort teaches me something new. Fun thoughts… but I must cut them short. Heading off to STLHE in Montreal tomorrow!

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My students are awesome :)

Posted on June 13, 2012 | Comments Off on My students are awesome :)

Last week one of my wonderful students from Intro Psych sent me this photo that was taken on the last day of classes. I thought I’d share (with her permission).

What a fun bunch! I really enjoyed your group’s presence in our class. Thanks for good times!

I hope all of you — and all my students — are having a great summer. I’m looking forward to meeting our incoming class!

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