WASHINGTON — Steve Jones, MA, a psychology teacher at City of Medicine Academy in Durham, North Carolina, has been named a winner of the 2016 APA TOPSS Charles T. Blair-Broeker Excellence in Teaching Award by the American Psychological Association’s Committee of Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools.
“Students and teachers gravitate to Steve for his deep knowledge of psychology and his humble personality,” said R. Scott Reed, chair of APA’s Committee of Teachers of Psychology in Psychology in Secondary Schools (TOPSS).
Jones’s vast social media presence makes him stand out, according to Reed. In 2012, he introduced a new hashtag, #appsychreview, for students to pose questions on difficult psychological concepts for response from nationwide. Further, he is co-founder of the “Teaching High School Psychology” blog, providing a national platform for psychology teachers to promote each other’s ideas.
“Steve is an influential social networker in psychology education nationwide,” said Reed. “Everyone knows Steve because he has tweeted before there was even Twitter.”
Jones calls himself a “hunter and gatherer” as he constantly seeks to find others’ ideas, then use and share them, Reed said. In 2013, Jones invited a representative from the Duke Institute of Brain Sciences to speak to his psychology classes, where the students held human brains in a hands-on neuroscience experience.
His students said they found this to be one of the most memorable educational experiences of their lives. “My ultimate most favorite memory, which I still remember vividly, is the day I got to hold the mechanism that is responsible for everything,” said Ana Sofia Ocegueda, a former Jones student. “To hold [a brain] in my hands was so surreal, and Mr. Jones made that experience possible, and I forever thank him for that.”
Jones will receive a framed certificate, an engraved award, $500 and a complimentary TOPSS membership renewal for 2017. Additionally, Worth Publishers is providing him with a $500 credit to Bedford Freeman & Worth Publishers and a copy of the "High School Psychology Video DVD."
The award is named for retired psychology teacher Charles T. Blair-Broeker, who taught for 39 years at Cedar Falls High School in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
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 one of the most popular high school Advanced Placement (AP) courses, with nearly 277,000 students taking the AP exam in 2015. International Baccalaureate (IB) psychology courses are also popular, with over 17,000 students worldwide taking the IB psychology exam or writing their IB extended essay in psychology in 2015. Introductory psychology courses (non-AP/IB) are also taught in high schools.
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 online and on its Facebookopens in new window page.
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes more than 117,500 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.