|
 |
Teaching Tips Contest 2009
Criteria and Format for Submissions
Using a model developed by Drew Appleby at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, all submissions to the 2009 Teaching Tips Contest should be set up using the format that appears below.
The judges for the Teaching Tips Contest will examine all of the submitted teaching activities and demonstrations ensure that the following criteria are
met.
- The activity or demonstration must be PORTABLE (i.e., it involves procedures that are possible on all campuses).
- The activity or demonstration must be COMPELLING (i.e., it successfully captures and holds students' attention).
- The activity or demonstration must be PEDAGOGICALLY SOUND (i.e., it increases students' understanding of an otherwise hard-to-understand psychological concept, principle, theory, or method). It must not be a mere gimmick, game, or trick that entertains students, but teaches them nothing.
SAMPLE FORMAT
USING TEXTBOOK ILLUSTRATIONS
TO DEMONSTRATE THE
INTERDISCIPLINARY NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY
Drew Appleby
Indiana University Purdue-University Indianapolis
PRINCIPLE
DEMONSTRATED: |
Psychology is an interdisciplinary discipline. That is, it draws from and contributes to the knowledge and methods of many other academic disciplines (e.g., biology, education, medicine, philosophy, chemistry, mathematics, etc.). |
| PURPOSE: |
I designed this demonstration to increase my introductory students' awareness of the interdisciplinary nature of psychology. It can also help them understand that the principles, theories, and methods they will learn in the course can be applied in other academic and professional fields. I have found that my students are more receptive to the information that I present if they understand how the academic disciplines in which they are majoring (e.g., biology and mathematics) contribute to psychology and how a knowledge of psychology can enable them to be more effective in the profession or career to which they aspire (e.g., nursing or education). The discussion that concludes this demonstration is also an effective way to break the ice on the first day of class, to demonstrate that I advocate active learning, to show that I respect other academic disciplines, and to establish that I consider student input to be an important component of my class. |
| EQUIPMENT: |
An introductory psychology text, black board, and a box of chalk
|
| PREPARATION: |
I skimmed through my text and noted the numbers of the pages that contain illustrations that could also be found in the textbooks of other disciplines (e.g., diagrams of the nervous system, the electromagnetic spectrum, and mathematical formulae). |
| PROCEDURE: |
When I discuss the course syllabus on the first day of class, I stop after I explain the interdisciplinarity of psychology and ask my students to take out a piece of paper, open their textbooks to page 72 (which contains an illustration of the human brain), and imagine the following scene.
You are studying in the library. Your psychology book is lying on the table in front of you and is opened to page 70. One of your friends walks up behind you, sees the illustration on this page, and says: "Oh, I see you're studying __________."
My students' task is to guess what course their friend would say they are studying and to write page 70 followed by their guess on their papers. I then write the numbers of the pages containing other interdisciplinary illustrations across the top of the board and tell my students to follow the same procedure for each of these pages. As soon as I see students looking up after they have completed the task, I invite them to the board to write their guesses under the page numbers. (I invite everyone in small classes and the first 20 who finish in large classes.) When all the guesses are written on the board, we discuss the results, which are usually
quite homogeneous within each page number. Students almost always say that their friend would guess math when the illustration is formulae and graphs, physics when the illustration is the electromagnetic spectrum, and biology when the illustration is the nervous system. However some illustrations produce more heterogeneity of responses (e.g., a picture of three trephined skulls often elicits responses of archeology, medicine, or criminology and a photograph of a homeless person often prompts responses of sociology, economics, or theology). |
ETHICAL
PROBLEMS: |
I have encountered no ethical problems with this demonstration |
| OUTCOMES: |
Students demonstrate an awareness of the interdisciplinary nature of psychology.
Students understand that the principles, theories, and methods they will learn in the course can be applied in other academic and professional fields. |
|
