I view a successful college course as one that encourages students to become critical and analytical thinkers and creates occasions for them to have their preconceived notions challenged. I achieve this classroom environment through collaborative empowerment. This is the core of my teaching philosophy because empowered students are critical of current theory and advocate for change through the application of what they learned, expanding the boundaries of knowledge by following their own curiosities. I may be empowered to teach, but I teach to empower.
Empowerment Through Engagement
I liked the fact that he called us scholars and had us share our opinions with our eyes closed. He was very respective of every opinion and nodded and elaborated off of each.[1]
Empowerment starts with the syllabus[2]. I purposefully refer to students as scholars in my syllabi. Treating them as scholars recognizes and affirms the knowledge everyone brings into the classroom and creates a cooperative learning atmosphere. Scholars are encouraged to consider how class topics relate to what they have learned from their lived experiences, other educators, and peers.
The syllabus is a social contract that prescribes the collaboratively generated goals for the course. Our first day of class in my upper-level courses is spent collectively bargaining over the syllabus. Scholars propose assignment grade weights based a range of weights that management (myself) would accommodate. In Advanced Lab in Political Psychology, scholars voted to increase the weight of both attendance and the midterm. Scholars are also presented with a range for the number of assignments and are asked to propose three additional contract stipulations, such as policies regarding deadlines.
Empowerment Through Critical Thought
Dr. Carriere was great at shifting to a virtual class experience that I actual enjoyed. He had a variety of ways to learn. I really appreciated how he always incorporated the ways psychology differs for different races, genders, and cultures.
I view an essential part of empowerment as developing a critical eye toward what we accept as true or false. In my Experimental Psychology class, we spend a week discussing Open Science and registered reports. In my upper-level seminars, I task each scholar with choosing a citation from a course reading, explaining the cited study, and concluding if the journal authors used the study citation appropriately. They are always shocked to see how frequently authors do not cite appropriately. In Coding in R for Beginners, we find published research with open data from Psychological Science and attempt to reproduce visualizations from the articles, leading to class discussions about what it means if our graph looks different than the published one.
Science is inherently political, and making positive changes requires that my scholars not only understand their own perspectives, but the perspectives of others who may disagree with them. A specific strategy I have found useful for engaging opposing perspectives is assigning podcasts, and then having discussions or debates around the arguments presented. In my Introduction to Psychology class, scholars listened to the Revisionist History podcast episode “Free Brian Williams” to jumpstart our conversations about memory. In my The Psychology of Human Rights seminar, we held a debate based on More Perfect’s episode “The Hate Debate.” A fourth of the class argued for censorship of hate speech, a fourth argued for the right to express hate speech online, and the remainder served as a jury. These debates encourage scholars to listen and consider all viewpoints, regardless of their personal opinions. Free podcasts enable undergraduates to easily access course content while creating space for dialogues about controversial topics.
I strive to empower my undergraduate scholars by encouraging them to explore new ideas and develop their own perspectives. My lab, the PACT (Politics, Activism, Culture, and Threat) Lab, brings in between five and eight scholars a semester to work on individual projects with my guidance. Beyond fulfilling a university requirement, these scholars have made meaningful contributions of their own to the field of psychology. By engaging in scientific dialogue and observing firsthand how knowledge is synthesized and dispersed, these scholars graduate from their program with valuable insight into the research process and the confidence to make their own mark on the field.
Empowerment Through Application
This class was absolutely incredible! I learned soooo much. I feel like I don’t get a lot of hands on classes, and this one was. Loved the group work.
Empowerment is the application of knowledge beyond the classroom. In my Psychology and Public Policy course, scholars lobby their Congressional Representative to co-sponsor a bill based on sound psychological science that they spent the semester researching. One scholar’s mother had recently been sentenced to jail, leaving her to take care of her younger siblings and navigate the criminal justice system. Her lobbying efforts encouraged sharing information about resources for family members of incarcerated individuals through the development of advocacy centers and informational packets, all supported by psychological research. The first year running this course, scholars lobbied the District Office Staff. This semester, I won the Action Teaching Grant from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and will be able to bring my scholars to Washington, D.C. to lobby the Congressional Staffers.
Practical application of research is not limited to policy. In Introduction to Psychology, scholars find research covered in the news and then determine if the news source covered the research accurately. In Experimental Psychology, Advanced Lab in Social & Political Psychology, and Guided Research in Psychology, students apply their knowledge by conducting experiments at various levels of scaffolding – beginning from manipulations of jury stimulation paradigms (PSY-215) to ideas generated by myself (PSY-315), to research ideas generated by the student (PSY-493). Each allows scholars to go out and “see” what they study.
A lack of programming knowledge in our undergraduates constitutes a new kind of illiteracy; programming is a critical skill to success both inside and outside of an academic environment. I continue to develop a lab module entitled “Psychology Statistics”, which is an interactive learning environment for scholars to improve their programming in R with real-time feedback while improving their statistical knowledge at an undergraduate level. It allows tracking of submissions to ensure scholars are keeping up with the homework. Following this, I have developed a 2-week crash course in R (R Coding for Beginners - PSY-113) and have co-taught BIO-245/MTH-245 (Applied Statistics in the Life Sciences) and transitioned the class to teaching students R.
Empowering Myself
Finally, I am constantly seeking ways to empower myself to become a better educator. I organized webinars through my professional organization on topics such as “Internationalizing the Introductory Psychology Curriculum: Critical Diversity Interventions in the Classroom” and “Flipping the Classroom in Higher Education: Becoming student centered.” I have recently became a SafeZone facilitator to ensure that I am maintaining a welcoming environment, and to signal to students that my lab and classrooms are safe spaces for all learners.