Best Practices for Teaching Introduction to Psychology

Book excerpt: This new book provides a scholarly, yet practical approach to the challenges found in teaching introductory psychology. Best Practices for Teaching Introduction to Psychology addresses: • developing the course and assessing student performance • selecting which topics to cover and in how much depth • the effective use of teaching assistants (TAs) and efficient and fair ways to construct and grade exams • choosing the best textbook • assessment advice on how to demonstrate students are learning; • using on-line instruction, writing exercises, and class demonstrations • teaching majors and non-majors in the same classroom. This book will appeal to veteran and novice educators who teach introductory psychology as well as graduate students teaching the course for the first time. It will also serve as an excellent resource in faculty workshops on teaching introductory psychology.