While I strive to make psychology and cognitive development exciting and relevant to students’ lives, I am also presenting theories which can be evaluated empirically. New findings are constantly arising, while some seminal studies now fail to replicate. To promote a critical approach, students in my Developmental Psychology sections read conflicting articles about one topic each week. These topics often have personal relevance, such as the effectiveness of different types of punishments and rewards, which allows students to reflect on the practices they grew up with while integrating these experiences with empirical results from the articles. Students then write brief essays that integrate the information across sources and raise a question that is not answered by the articles. I encourage students to not only ask questions in these essays, but to present a research design that would begin to answer them. Additionally, while the students are required to respond to the assigned readings, I also encourage students to incorporate their own sources into their essays and class discussions. For example, a student noted connections to his decision-making class when we discussed punishment and rewards. Bringing in outside sources not only allows students to take greater ownership of the topic during discussion, but it also reinforces the idea that learning goes both ways, as I have a chance to learn from students’ unique backgrounds. 

As a Graduate Writing Fellow, I consult one-on-one with other graduate students on how to develop their voice as a scholar as they grapple with grants, manuscripts and conference submissions. I have also led a graduate-level course on presenting scientific research for audiences outside one’s field. In these settings, I strike a balance between offering feedback based on my area of knowledge and deferring to these scholars who are experts in their own fields. With undergraduate students, I treat them as experts-in-training. Recently, I mentored an undergraduate research assistant in our lab through her honors thesis. She had been critical to collecting data which we had previously coded to answer an earlier research question. Now, drawing on the insights she had gained during data collection, I helped her design and implement a second coding scheme that gave her ownership over the final research product.

I strive to create a climate that supports the well-being of students from all backgrounds and confidence levels in the classroom and in my department. As one of five graduate Diversity and Inclusion Committee members, I assess the department’s challenges via an annual survey and report, and I organize department recruitment events for potential students from underrepresented backgrounds and quarterly programming which emphasizes the inclusion of historically marginalized voices.  For discussion or lab sections where students might feel less confident taking risks or discussing the material, students spend 15 to 20 minutes in two- or three-person groups, deliberating, for example, on a list of measures that they could use to gauge the success of an educational intervention. In these small groups, even those students who are most reserved become active participants. Afterwards, we re-join the larger circle, giving students a chance to circulate the ideas they’ve been refining in their essays and small groups.