Keynote Addresses
Statistics Across the Psychology Curriculum
Jess Hartnett
Dr. Hartnett will share a selection of her very favorite examples for teaching statistics. These will not be just any examples: Instead, each will correspond to a core topic in psychology. She hopes to provide at least one example that every attendee can easily include in their class. Why? To help build our major’s statistical literacy.
 

The Development of Cultural Consciousness and Structural Awareness through Affinity Groups

Teceta Tormala

Affinity groups- structured for people who share a sociocultural identity or lived experience (Alicea & Johnson, 2021; Pour-Khorshid, 2018)- can offer a container for people to explore their identities, connect through their lived experiences, and give guidance and support to one another (Haslam et al., 2022; Michael et al., 2009). This talk will describe the impact on student participants of structured, student-led affinity groups within a graduate-level psychology course, and the implications of the use of affinity groups as pedagogical tools for building cultural and critical consciousness, self- and ingroup-awareness, and intergroup understanding.

Sessions:

Think Big(ger): Using Course Themes to Help Students Think Beyond the Class
Ciara Kidder

 As instructors, we know that psychology is infinitely applicable to the world around us, however students often struggle to apply psychological concepts to the “Real World”. Creating course themes can bring the real world into the classroom and cultivate opportunities for students to think about psychology beyond the course materials. I’ll discuss different approaches for applying theme to a course, how to incorporate themes into different kinds of assignments, and some suggestions to get started!

How can community colleges and HBCUs prepare students for their next steps? 

 Albee Mendoza  & Lisa DiDonato  

In this presentation, speakers will discuss how learning objectives, authentic assessments, and experiential learning can foster the development of transferable skills that students need for their own next steps (e.g., career exploration, gap year, job market, higher education). Utilizing principles from Vygotsky’s teaching theory (1978), Dr. DiDonato will describe how scaffolded student-led research projects bolster student engagement and critical skillsets. Using principles from Kolb’s learning stages and reflective cycles (1984), Dr. Mendoza will explore how guest speakers, role plays, and field trips can play a part in developing hard skills and soft skills to impact students’ professional and personal lives. 
 

Making Transferable Skills Transparent: Resources from APA & STP’s Joint Working Group

Janet Peters & Ashley Waggoner Denton

The Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) and APA’s Committee on Associate and Baccalaureate Education (CABE) recently formed a joint working group tasked with creating course resources that directly link psychology courses to the knowledge and skills most desired by employers. Specifically, our goal was to provide resources to help teachers articulate for students what transferable skills they will gain and how they will gain them. In this talk, we will share the results of this collaborative effort, demonstrate the ways in which instructors can use the materials, and provide templates that attendees can customize to their specific courses.

Open Education Practices: Teaming with the Library
Victoria Taylor, Prince George’s Community College

In response to a call to action, Prince George’s Community College’s Interim Director of Library & Learning Resources, Associate Professor Jeffrey Potter, and I teamed up as a faculty/academic librarian team/dyad. The charge was threefold. First, all the selected faculty/academic librarian dyads had to work collaboratively for nine consecutive weeks creating the Open Educational Practices (OEP) Action Plan that would be implemented during the spring 2023 semester. Second, each faculty/academic librarian dyad had to present and defend their OEP Action Plan during a two-day presentation of plans from all 15 dyads and observe two dyads’ presentations providing feedback and asking questions. Last, the faculty/academic librarian dyads had to implement their OEP Action Plan at their prospective community colleges, incorporating the newly developed faculty and academic librarian artifacts; data was collected across the semester, findings were reported, and analyzed. One major task was to get students to buy-into OEP by providing a tangible artifact that can be openly-publicly shared with the agreement that all identifying information would be protected/removed (e.g., students’ names, pictures, etc.) – Inaugural Psychology in My Life Compendium (2023).