My department nomination for the Summer Graduate Teaching Scholars (SGTS) Program was accepted, which means that I’m going to be taking on another Associate-In position this summer! The course I’ll be teaching during UCSD’s summer session II is PSYC 162 Psychology & Law. PSYC 162 is an upper-division undergraduate course that closely aligns with my research interests, and I’m choosing to teach it over Zoom in order to gain further experience teaching in different environments.

The SGTS program allows for advanced doctoral students to receive formal pedagogical training (we have to take two course on pedagogy) as well as close, faculty-mentored teaching.

Dr. John Wixted will be my faculty mentor supervising my teaching and giving me feedback. I will also have members of the Engaged Teaching Hub at the Teaching + Learning Commons observe my classes in order to give input on the course design (e.g., syllabus, learning outcomes, class structure, etc.) as well as the learning and assessment tools that will be most effective for this lecture-based course. I have already taught in person at the undergraduate level, but I have never taught a full undergraduate course on Zoom. It will be incredibly beneficial to get formal, empirically-tested input on what strategies are most effective for in-person learning versus virtual learning, and I am eager to find out how to make virtual learning environments more engaging and dynamic.

Thank you everyone in the Department of Psychology for their support via their nomination letters, as well as to those at the Teaching + Learning Commons who deemed me a good candidate for their program.