Describes the use of newspaper advice column letters as case problems in a human development course where students wrote weekly papers focusing on defining the problem in the letter, offering a solution to that problem, and relating the letter to course concepts. Reveals that students enjoyed and learned from the assignments. (CMK)

Discusses a developmental model for supervising internships for undergraduate students in psychology programs. Provides some context on the nature of both the undergraduate students being supervised and the supervision itself. Evaluates the effectiveness of this model of supervision stating that the interns are generally satisfied with the…

Presents instructional concerns and strategies for ethnic/culture-based courses. Focuses on four student issues: (1) uncomfortableness with ambiguous concepts; (2) different levels of ethnic/cultural identity development; (3) fear of examining personal biases and assumptions; and (4) emotions from the acquisition of new information. (CMK)

Describes an undergraduate course entitled "Nontraditional Families and Individual Development" that focuses on nontraditional families and their implications for life-span development while familiarizing students with psychological research, theories, and applied issues. Explains that this course was created as a response to the changing state of…

Describes an exercise where students examine their perceptions of normative developmental patterns in life domains across an adult life span. Explains that the activity aims at eliminating the myth of a single prime of life. Discusses the post-exercise discussion and student evaluations of the exercise. (CMK)

Identifies imagoes as idealized and personified self-concepts that we form in early or mid-adulthood. These characters dominate life stories and personal myths. Discusses a class exercise where students review the imagoes most frequently used in journal entries concerning individual myths and major life events. (MJP)

Describes an undergraduate course project where students helped mentally alert senior citizens write their life stories. By assisting senior citizens to organize memories and interpret life decisions, the students experienced stages they had not yet lived through. Students evaluated the course project as a positive learning and personal growth…

Describes limitations of a Western, individualistic perspective on psychological theory. Summarizes research and theory regarding how personality may be shaped differentially by individualistic and collectivist cultures. Describes strategies for teaching about the impact of culture on personality. (CFR)

Discusses the results of a content analysis of student journals in which the students applied concepts from their social psychology course to their daily social experiences. Reveals that students applied each of four cognitive operations (labeling, explaining, reducing consequences, and self-assessing) to various aspects of the self. (MJP)

Describes an educational game where students are assigned a hypothetical "lot" representing a life event that centers on a developmental issue. The lot serves as the topic for empirical research and investigations into community agencies. Student research focuses on implications for individual development and the quality of family life. (MJP)

Describes an assignment where students chart the development of a film or literary character's racial identity according to theoretical models of identity development. Students found the exercise thought-provoking, intriguing, and informative. Includes outlines of the racial identity model and an examination of the issues raised during discussion.…

Presents the results of a study that tested students in a research methods and a developmental psychology class on methodological and statistical reasoning at the beginning and the end of the term. Reasoning scores of research methods students improved more than the scores of developmental psychology students. (MJP)