Bethany K. B. Fleck

Using Twitter to Reinforce Classroom Concepts

Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook have become very popular among college students. These sites enable people to be in constant contact and communication. Their value in meeting educational objectives is less clear. We use Twitter “tweets” to remind students of psychology topics while they are outside of class. The intervention itself was straightforward: Students received an informative tweet about once per day. Students remembered these topics significantly better in a test situation. The Twitter intervention appears to be an effective way to increase memory for important class concepts.

Reducing Student Prejudice in Diversity-Infused Core Psychology Classes

The current quasi-experimental study compared two sections of a course, one that included diversity content and one that did not. The authors obtained pretest and posttest data on students’ attitudes toward a number of different minority groups and on their levels of course content knowledge. The authors also examined two questions: first, whether exposure to diversity would reduce prejudice, and second, whether inclusion of diversity content would reduce the amount of core course content learned by students. At posttest, significant differences were found in terms of positive attitude change; infusing diversity into course content did not affect content knowledge.

Linking Class and Community: An Investigation of Service Learning.

This study contributes to the service learning (SL) literature by providing new empirical evidence of learning from a problem-based SL research project conducted in a developmental research methods course. Two sections of the course taught in a traditional manner were compared to two sections of the course taught with an integrated SL project involving a local Boys & Girls Club. Pre- and posttest scores of the groups were compared in regard to content knowledge, civic engagement, and perceptions of the course. Results indicated that the SL students outperformed the control courses in learning outcomes. Civic engagement did not significantly change over the course of the semester. Student preference data indicated that most enjoyed the SL course, found it helpful, and thought it contributed to their understanding of the course material. The findings are related to past research and theoretical underpinnings that support SL.

Effective Teaching Outcomes Associated With the Mentorship of Early Career Psychologists

To date, research has not examined the influence of mentorship on the teaching effectiveness of Early Career Psychologists (ECPs). We sought to fill this void by conducting a national survey of 122 ECPs assessing the presence or absence of three types of ECP mentors (i.e., in their department, in another department at their university, or another self-selected mentor) as well as the successes and challenges associated with working with those mentors. Overall, ECPs viewed relationships with mentors quite favorably, and mentorship was positively related to more effective teaching activities and adherence to model teaching criteria. Implications for future research on the study of mentorship among ECPs and how junior and senior faculty can benefit from these findings are discussed.

A Primer for Creating a Flipped Psychology Course.

Instructional design for psychology courses is ever changing. Recently, there has been an explosion of scholarly literature related to flipped classroom pedagogy in higher education. This essentially entails inverting a course so that lectures are viewed outside of class, and class time is devoted to active learning through activities such as demonstrations and group work. Although beneficial to student learning, implementing the flipped course design into a psychology class can be difficult, time consuming, and daunting. As such, we provide a primer for successful implementation of the flipped design. Based on the literature, we describe several teaching tips (e.g., what content to deliver in class versus online) that may aid in the implementation process. Additionally, we describe several common pitfalls to avoid (e.g., apprehension about learning new technology) when implementing the flipped classroom.

Active reading questions as a strategy to support college students’ textbook reading.

This pilot study and experiment investigates the use of active reading questions (ARQs) as a potential reading tool to support college students’ textbook reading. The pilot study compares the self-selected use of ARQs and PowerPoint slides (PPTs) in 4 college classrooms and indicated that both reading strategies had similar but limited effects on learning. In the experiment, a reading tool (e.g., ARQs or PPTs) was required or participants were given no tool at all (control group). Time spent reading and general reading comprehension skills were controlled for. Participants who completed the ARQs demonstrated significantly increased higher-level learning for recall questions when compared with the PPT (p = .02, d = .36) and control conditions (p < .001, d = .31). Students given ARQs also demonstrated significantly increased lower-level learning for recall questions when compared with the PPT (p = .03, d = .68) and control conditions (p = .003, d = .63). There were no differences in participants recognition of information. Applications of these findings are discussed as well as limitations and future directions.

Does pedagogical documentation support maternal reminiscing conversations

Abstract When parents talk with their children about lessons learned in school, they are participating in reminiscing of an unshared event. This study sought to understand if pedagogical documentation, from the Reggio Approach to early childhood education, would support and enhance the conversation. Mother–child dyads reminisced two separate times about preschool lessons, one time with documentation available to them and one time without. Transcripts were coded extracting variables indicative of high and low maternal reminiscing styles. Results indicate that mother and child conversation characteristics were more highly elaborative when documentation was present than when it was not. In addition, children added more information to the conversation supporting the notion that such conversations enhanced memory for lessons. Documentation could be used as a support tool for conversations and children’s memory about lessons learned in school.