Abstract
Happy New Year!
It is my honor and my privilege to serve as your 2014 Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) President. The more I learn about this organization, its leaders, and its members, the more impressed I am. The president of any organization typically gets more share of the limelight than they deserve, and I can assure you that it is our five vice presidents, treasurer, secretary, and exceptional executive director who deserve the credit. The underlying theme for all that I will do for STP during 2014 will be to ask and answer the question “How can we better serve our members?” I know with this talented and energetic leadership team, we will be both steadfast and innovative in our advancement of the teaching and learning of psychology.
STP is an organization that has served teachers of psychology for generations, and we are the successful organization today because of the dedication and leadership of our members—past and present—including past officers, editors, committee chairs, task force chairs, council representatives, and past presidents. During my own presidential year, I will highlight how storied individuals from our past contributed to our current success, with acknowledgments of past presidents. Professionally, I’ve “grown up” as part of STP, becoming a member in 1988, served as secretary 2009–2011, and I’m humbled to become a small part of that rich STP legacy.
As I have thought about my specific goals for 2014, I can place them in two categories: initiatives that serve STP and initiatives that serve the discipline. A bit about teach is presented here.
Initiatives That Serve the Society
Membership Counts
I plan to work to substantially increase the amount of STP members and continue to provide members with member benefits that matter. How can we serve our members better? Can we provide benefits that allow for better or more efficient access to resources? Specifically, we’ll work to document and promote the benefits of membership. Although this will involve the entire executive committee, new initiatives here will be led by our Vice President for Recruiting, Retention, and Public Relations.
Website
Our web presence has a new look in 2013, chiefly due to the efforts of our Internet editor. With functionality improved, I hope that we can continue to add new features. Possible ideas for these new features include guest bloggers and an archive of twitter feeds. We may consider a “How Can I …” feature, such as “How can I use twitter in the classroom,” “How can I get started with clickers,” “How can I find grant support for teaching innovations and SoTL efforts?” I welcome member’s suggestions as well, and these efforts will be considered with our Vice President for Resources as well as our Internet editor.
Initiatives That Serve the Discipline
For each of the initiatives listed here, my intent is to have cochairs lead each task force, with one cochair to be an experienced STP member and another cochair be a relatively new STP member.
Skills Matter
My goal for this task force is for the members to coordinate division-wide efforts and identify resources and propose an action plan centered on the assessment of undergraduate student skills. How might we measure the skills attained by students in our courses, and what core set of skills might introductory psychology students gain which will serve them for the rest of their lives? Can we share resources nationwide to measure and document the skills of our psychology majors/graduates? How can we encourage employers of psychology graduates to help document graduates’ accomplishments as well as provide persuasive evidence to faculty members, administrators, accreditation bodies, legislators, and the general public about the value of the bachelor’s degree in psychology?
The Power of Story
Given the lack of retention from typical introductory psychology course approaches (based on available data), perhaps storytelling is an alternative pedagogy that could lead to improvements in the retention of content knowledge in psychology. What is the current research evidence available about the power of story; if an educator wanted to adopt this pedagogy, what might “evidence-based best practices” be based on the available literature? My goal is that we can utilize STP resources to develop a repository of supportive documents and practices regarding the use of storytelling as an instructional practice to encourage long-term retention of information and the development of skills. This initiative should be cross divisional and should reach out for participation beyond the discipline; additionally, this topic will be featured in my August 2014 Presidential Address in Washington, DC, during the American Psychological Association Convention.
National Advocacy for Psychology Undergraduate Students
In order to better serve the teaching and learning of psychology, undergraduate students should benefit from advocacy just as teaching of psychology can derive benefits through advocacy. There is no national advocacy group in the United States that represents the full spectrum of undergraduate psychology majors. I encourage members of this task force to explore the need and logistics of this vast population; how might we better serve all undergraduate psychology majors and psychology baccalaureates. I hope a particular focus of this task force can include an emphasis on curriculum effectiveness and career advising provided to those with and without postbaccalaureate education plans.
It is an ambitious agenda, but with the energy, support, and talent available among the executive committee and the general STP membership, the opportunities are endless. I look forward to my service as your president during 2014; if you have any ideas for potential answers to the question “how may we better serve our members,” I hope you’ll share those ideas with me directly at