Springboro High School Teacher Earns APA Award for Excellence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 8, 2019
Contact: Emily Leary Chesnes (202-572-3013)

Stephanie Franks, MS, a psychology teacher at Springboro High School in Springboro, Ohio, has been named a winner of the 2019 APA TOPSS Charles T. Blair-Broeker Excellence in Teaching Award by the American Psychological Association’s Committee of Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools (TOPSS).

"Stephanie's lessons focusing on empathy make her special," said Allison Shaver, MA, chair of APA’s TOPSS Committee. "She wants her students to understand the human condition outside of their school environment."

"Psychology helps my students have greater empathy for others and gain more insight into the diversity of human experience,” said Franks. By incorporating psychological research into her classes, she believes “that students become more compassionate human beings and will continue on to create a better world.”

Learning is key to her growth as a teacher, according to Franks. She is a member of TOPSS, the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (APA Division 2) and the National Council for Social Studies Psychology Community, and these organizations help her research topics, create lesson plans and support psychology education. She has also attended professional development conferences, including the Excellence in Psychology Instruction Conference in Green Bay, Wisc. and is the co-chair of the Ohio Psychology Teaching Conference, which has the goal of bringing teachers and professors together to collaborate in order to give every student in Ohio the best experience learning psychological science.

"I'm a firm believer that no matter how [long I am in the classroom], there is always so much more to learn," said Franks. "Collaborating with colleagues who love psychology is frosting on the cake."

Franks will receive a framed certificate, an engraved award, $500 and a complimentary TOPSS membership renewal for 2020. Additionally, Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers is providing her with a $500 credit and a copy of the High School Psychology Video Anthology.

The award is named for retired psychology teacher Charles T. Blair-Broeker, MAT, who taught for 39 years at Cedar Falls High School in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Now in its 27th year, TOPSS is the voice of high school psychology teachers within APA. Through APA’s Education Directorate, TOPSS offers teaching materials, professional development, the Psychology Teacher Network quarterly newsletter and programs for high school psychology teachers and students. There are approximately 2,000 APA high school teacher affiliates in APA. Psychology continues to be a popular high school course, with nearly 312,000 students taking the Advanced Placement (AP) psychology exam in 2018, an increase of more than 9,000 over the previous year. In 2018 there were nearly 22,000 students worldwide who took the International Baccalaureate (IB) psychology exam. On-level and other psychology courses are also taught at the high school level.

TOPSS’s mission is to promote the highest standards in the teaching of psychology as a science and discipline; promote professional development and other means for lifelong learning for high school teachers of psychology; facilitate networking among teachers from all teaching levels of psychology; encourage recruitment and retention of students in the field of psychology; enhance the visibility and legitimacy of high school psychology; and recommend the appropriate advocacy, education policy and certification issues that impact the quality or visibility of teaching of high school psychology. Learn more about TOPSS here and on its Facebookopens in new window page.