Connecting course content with students' lives

The approach is gaining more credence in higher education circles.

By Bridget Murray
Monitor staff

Each semester, students in Elizabeth Vozzola's psychology of women course invite their grandmothers to class.

The group sits in a circle, and students ask the grandmothers about their experiences as young women of the 1940s. Typically, the women tell stories of opportunities denied, of brothers sent to college while they stayed home, of hideouts where they'd slip away to read books.

Until taking the class, many young female students view feminism largely as abstract, radical and media-hyped, says Vozzola, a psychology professor at Saint Joseph College in West Hartford, Conn. In her course, she aims to show them feminism's real impact.

Most of the grandmothers tell how the women's movement has opened doors and improved life for their granddaughters, with only occasional exceptions.

"We dreamed," they tell students. "You do."

Vozzola's approach embeds real-world relevance in the course, connecting students' lives to course content without forcing the issue. The approach--part of the current educational emphasis on "student-centered learning"--is gaining credence in higher-education circles and spreading to psychology classrooms throughout the country. Its aim is to draw students in, spark discussion and animate the blank faces of students in large introductory courses.

And professors aren't short of ideas on how to add relevance to their courses. They're trying a host of approaches, from requiring students to record how course material relates to daily life, a practice often simply called "journaling," to having students collect their own statistical data for a project of their choosing--for example, a survey of drinking behavior among fellow students.

Points of contact

Adding course relevance isn't without challenges. Its advocates walk the tightrope between personalizing material without sacrificing course substance. And some psychology faculty worry that it's too intrusive, bordering on therapy.

For example James Madison University's Jane Halonen, PhD, president-elect of APA's Div. 2 (Society for the Teaching of Psychology) won't use journaling because she worries "it can get fuzzy and intimate."

But Paul Hettich, PhD, psychology chair at Barat College and a staunch journaling practitioner, says it works well if students focus on the cognitive, not the emotional. And Halonen concedes that Hettich's version of journaling works well for him, adding that, "any way instructors can make room for the student is going to improve teaching."

William Buskist, PhD, a psychology professor at Auburn University, agrees that it's just a matter of keeping students from getting too personal. In an activity he uses to add relevance to his "Individual in Society" course, students write on index cards the one thing they would change in their lives if they could. Buskist then collects their responses, submitted anonymously, and selects some to use in class. Throughout the semester, he projects those responses on an overhead screen and relates them to course material.

The class might, for example, discuss a classmate's wish to feel more confident--and less anxious--in social situations. In such a case, Buskist would tie the discussion to the psychological constructs of self-efficacy and desensitization.

Many first-year college students feel socially awkward and can relate to such discussions, says Buskist. "They realize they have many of the same struggles."

Buskist does, however, set limits on the concerns students submit to him, discouraging them from disclosing "deep, dark secrets" or private sexual matters. Fairly typical concerns--such as wanting to lose weight or improve one's grades--he addresses in class, using, for example, a model of self-control. However, when students reveal serious substance-abuse and other personal problems--which though rare, happens--Buskist refers them to counseling.

Similarly, Hettich encourages students to seek professional help rather than work through personal problems in their journals. When assigning the journal, he explains that it should explore how cognitive theories apply to their experiences.

"Research shows that the highest levels of knowing include making connections between what you're learning in class and what you experience in daily life," says Hettich. "The journal is an excellent tool for making those connections. I've seen insights in journals that aren't even matched in term papers."

For example, a student who's taking tennis lessons might explore in her journal how her coach uses modeling behavior to teach a technique.

Today meets yesterday

JMU's Halonen uses a different approach focused solely on students' academic lives. She requires students in her combination capstone/history course to produce a "cognitive autobiography."

In it, students show what they have gained as "psychological thinkers" over four years--the research that interested them most, the lessons they learned about their communication abilities, the career plans they have.

Halonen also puts a unique spin on students' history projects, requiring each to explore one of psychology's prominent theorists. She urges them to select people with whom they have common interests. One student interested in an optometry career studied pioneering psychologist Christine Ladd-Franklin, who proposed models of color and binocular vision in the late 1800s.

Students are often so "now" focused that they need course activities that enliven history and show how it's shaped their present, says Vozzola. That's one reason she's added the "bring in your grandmothers" activity to her courses. Another is that it demonstrates aspects of qualitative research.

Vozzola points out to students that there's selection bias in the grandmothers sample. Many women of the 1940s worked at poorly paid jobs during the hardscrabble Depression years, she notes. But comparatively wealthy, stay-at-home women, whose numbers increased in the 1950s, likely view feminism less enthusiastically, she says.

This opens discussion of qualitative research. Students explore the strengths of using narratives in research, and the problems of considering limited research cohorts. Finally students leave the course with a broader outlook on feminism, says Vozzola.

Bringing numbers to life

Undeniably, however, adding relevance to courses in feminism and social psychology proves easier than in the drier area of statistics. And nowhere is relevance more important, says Frances Conners, PhD, a faculty member at the University of Alabama who teaches the subject.

"Psychology students choose a program in people, not math, so they come into stats thinking, 'Gotta get this over with,'" says Conners. "If we can link this to their lives, they're going to have a more motivated attitude."

Conners captures her students' interest by conducting a class study on a topic they select. One class, for example, chose to explore romantic, monogamous relationships. Students designed a survey, filled it out anonymously and analyzed their data, under Conners's direction. When students learned a new concept, such as T-tests or analysis of variance, they applied it to one of their research questions--such as, "Who is more likely to be unfaithful in a relationship, women or men?"

The approach demands more work of Conners and her students than the typical statistics course. They wrestle with unwieldy datasets, rather than the "neat, sweet" ones found in textbooks. But it's worth it because "students are with me more," Conners says. "They really want to find the answers to their questions."

And the same is true of Buskist's "what one thing in your life would you change?" approach. Students genuinely want to hear what psychology and their classmates can suggest for them, he says. Course attendance improves, quiz grades go up and, he says, "I have students chasing me down the hall, wanting to know when we'll get to their issue."



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