In this collaborative professor-student contribution, an experiential nature-based university psychology course is described and discussed. Existing scholarship on experiential environmental education informed the course, with the overall aim of educating the "whole student". Experiential environmental education has been identified as…

The author, a psychology instructor at an American university, describes the internationalization of his course in Human Growth and Development. The author argues that human development cannot be easily summarized by nature (i.e., biological and evolutionary predisposition) or nurture (i.e., learning through environment and experience).…

What is "General Psychology?" Is it just one course that could be an elective, part of a minor, or part of a student's major? Or could "General Psychology" literally be the "corner stone" or "foundation block" upon which all the other psychology courses, taken afterwards, add to like bricks upon a "foundation block?" This paper will seek to…

The article describes a report stemming from the development and application of a Suicide Opinion Questionnaire (SOQ)--a 100 item attitudinal and factual instrument designed to cover a wide range of suicidal concerns. Subjects of the study were 17 college students drawn at random from 89 students enrolled in an abnormal psychology course. Results…

Although a history and systems course in psychology should provide a valuable forum for organizing the discipline, no current texts consistently provide enough coverage of the context in which the discipline emerged to anchor developments throughout the history of psychology. To test the validity of this observation, 10 undergraduate history and…

Describes teaching methods that promote reflexivity, a practice of observing and locating one's self as a knower within certain cultural and sociohistorical contexts, in order to open up the classroom for all students. Provides seven strategies that each incorporate reflexivity within a course, such as modeling and inviting speakers. (CMK)

As a result of the development of two computer statistics laboratories in the psychology department at New York's Brooklyn College, a project was undertaken to develop and implement computer program modules in undergraduate and graduate statistics courses. Rather than use the technology to merely make course presentations more exciting, the…

This paper explains that an interdepartmental writing across the curriculum course at Syracuse University was developed and proposed by a writing teacher and a professor of experimental psychology and psychopharmacology. The paper states that the course, Perspectives on Drug Experience, was to be offered in both writing and psychology and sought…

Describes a course entitled "Preparing for Graduate Study in Psychology" that is a two-credit seminar developed to prepare undergraduate students for graduate study in psychology. Requires students to actually create application materials. Contends that the course provides students with a structured approach to learning about the graduate…

"Active Learning" refers to activities that help students connect new academic subjects with previous knowledge and experiences. This paper is an outline of a senior seminar on making connections between psychology and the broader lives of students. It is assumed that, for many undergraduate students, basic understandings of human nature…

Although standard courses in psychology are offered each academic year at New Jersey's Raritan Valley Community College (RVCC), the psychology of women and gender has yet to be incorporated into the curriculum. The psychology of women developed with the emergence of the second wave of feminism, beginning with a critical analysis of psychology's…

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…

In an Adolescent Development course at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, activities are employed to encourage students to become active learners, to become critical consumers of information regarding adolescents, and to develop an empathetic understanding of adolescents and their experiences. One activity that promotes critical thinking…

The Research on Trial technique is designed to enable students to think critically about psychological research, to help them apply what they have learned in class in an in-depth way to this research, and to create a classroom environment in which research issues are debated. The technique employs a courtroom trial role-play, with students…

Cooperative learning is defined by an emphasis on positive interdependence among students to learn course materials, face-to-face interaction, individual accountability, the development of interpersonal and small group skills, and group processing of group functioning. In the last 10 years, lower-, upper-, and graduate-level psychology courses at…