Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 14:36:19 -0800
From: Jennifer Freyd <jjf@dynamic.uoregon.edu>
To: psychology faculty
Subject: Copsy Convention/ Sharing Teaching Strategies

Dear Teaching Colleagues,

I wanted to let you know about the Copsy Convention Web Page: http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jfreyd/copsy/copsycon/

This page presents the abstracts for the final group projects in Psychology 435/535, Cognition. The web page contains links to the full text for most of the students' projects. In addition, in the mailroom, a poster is on display showing photographs of the students in each group with their names, project titles, and project abstracts. This poster has been on display in class meetings for the last few weeks. The poster and web page will be available for viewing for a limited time only.

I often wish we had (time efficient) ways of learning more about what each of us are doing in the classroom. Some of you have asked me individually about managing final project presentations and student web publishing so I thought I would provide some more information about structure and pedagogical goals to the department in case it is of interest to others. (If not for you, my apologies, and please hit delete.)

The final project structure:

Students in this course were required to work in small groups throughout the quarter for both weekly 20-minute in-class problem solving activities and discussion, and outside class for their final projects. Final projects (worth about 1/3 of the course grade) consist of both a written project and an in-class presentation during the final week of the quarter. For more on other course requirements, you can visit the course home page at <http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jfreyd/copsy/index.html>, and from there select the syllabus. Final projects involve library research and the design of an experiment. Some groups collect data, but that is not required. In class presentations may be live, video, or mixed media. Each presentation is followed by a question period. Web publication of the final project is an extra credit option.

The pedagogical goals for this final project include:

  1. Core Content & Academic Skill Acquisition/ learning more in depth about a selected topic in cognition and translating that knowledge and interest into an experimental design and APA style final written product and clear presentation.
  2. Small Learning Community/ group cooperative learning experience allowing both the creation of a small learning community and experience creating high quality group product. (Students are often initially very resistant to working in groups, but tend to tell me after the course is over how valuable the experience was for them, even when the groups were fairly high in conflict, and certainly when the groups bonded well.)
  3. Internet Literacy/ encouragement to use the WWW for dissemination of projects for even novice web users (extra credit option) & reading classmates' projects
  4. Respecting Peers & Professional Conduct/ experience learning from peers, attending a "convention," asking appropriate questions after presentations, and treating fellow students with respect for their specialized expertise in topic area
  5. Students as Experts & Personal Growth/ accomplishing something significant and relevant to the students, coming to appreciate cognition as a topic, experience with presenting quality material to peers; completing the course with students as the knowledge holders and knowledge makers, students in role of teachers themselves (with professor and teaching aids sitting in the audience).

First day student surveys consistently indicate that most students take 435 because it satisfies a major requirement, not because they are eager to learn about cognition. Students are not necessarily eager to work in groups or learn to use the internet. Past experience indicates that this structure described above does not generally decrease enthusiasm for cognition, groups, or the internet, and in some cases significantly increases enthusiasm. I believe significant learning occurs. Managing initial resistance to the topic area, small groups, web publication, and organizing a final convention are labor intensive for the teacher, and I am indebted to the assistance of JQ Johnson, and the three volunteer teaching aids for this course: Spark Campbell, Cindy Veldhuis, and Kevin Cadman.

I hope this information is valuable to others in the department. I welcome the opportunity to learn more about what others are doing in their undergraduate courses.

Jennifer Freyd