Using one's own passion and undergraduate TAs to transform the large-lecture introductory psychology course.

Abstract

Using One? Own Passion and Undergraduate TAs to Transform the large-lecture Introductory Psychology Course y first experience teaching introductory psychology occurred nearly 25 years ago. I was a new faculty member at Northwestern University, and I was asked to teach the introductory course during the winter quarter. I was told that the enrollment would be between 300 and 500 students and that I would have one graduate student teaching assistant (TA). I had virtually no teaching experience while in graduate school. During the fall term, I had struggled with an 80-person introductory social psychology course and was barely able to keep my head above water. The prospect of coming up with an entirely new set of lectures and study materials for the introductory course was daunting. I knew that I was supposed to be getting my research program off the ground, but the teaching was so all-consuming that there was little time for anything else.The Northwestern approach to covering introductory psychology-having a teacher with a microphone confront several hundred students in a lecture hall-is the norm at most schools. Indeed, because of enrollment pressures and constrained resources, it is hard for departments to offer this course any other way. Although I understood the reasons for this pedagogical approach, I nonetheless felt straitjacketed by it. I guess this was because I hoped to accomplish more through my teaching than conveying factual M This chapter represents an active collaboration between Camille B. Wortman and Joshua M. Smyth. Because much of it draws heavily on the personal experiences of Camille B. Wortman, however, sections are written in the first person.