Teaching Statement

Conor T. M^cLennan, Ph.D.

 

The central component of my teaching philosophy is the belief that students must learn how to become independent active learners. I am interested in teaching at the university level in order to help students evolve into critical thinkers. I genuinely believe that understanding how to properly evaluate information is an invaluable skill that proves beneficial in all aspects of life.

 

I am confident that my training as a cognitive psychologist and my understanding of learning and memory, including my knowledge of how people represent and process information, has a positive impact on my teaching effectiveness. Moreover, I believe in incorporating fundamental findings from psychological research into my teaching style and approach. For example, knowing that people tend to develop more robust and longer lasting memories (and thus learn better) when information is processed at a relatively deep level allows me to develop a teaching plan in accordance with this information. As a teacher, I can help to ensure that information is processed at a relatively deep level by focusing on the relationships among different aspects of the material and by presenting information in a variety of different contexts.

 

I plan to employ a variety of methods in order to achieve my teaching goals. For example, when used properly, multimedia technology can be an important and valuable pedagogical tool. I have successfully incorporated PowerPoint presentations and Internet demonstrations into past lectures and plan to continue such approaches in the future.

 

I am dedicated to stimulating and challenging students, while also maintaining a collaborative and supportive environment. However, part of what I believe makes an excellent teacher is the ability to remain flexible and to successfully adapt to unique and challenging circumstances. Clearly, a different approach is required and different techniques are called for depending on whether you are teaching a 20-student seminar or lecturing to a class of 300. Consequently, I believe that continually assessing and evaluating my effectiveness in achieving my teaching goals will ensure that my abilities as a teacher improve throughout my career.

 

In the Spring of 2000, I was a teaching assistant for Research Methods taught by Dr. Alexis Thompson. As a teaching assistant for this course, I was in charge of facilitating course demonstrations, answering students’ questions on course material, leading review sessions, and holding regular office hours.

 

In the Fall of 2000, I was a teaching assistant for Psychological Statistics taught by Dr. Paul Luce. As a teaching assistant for this course, I was in charge of over 100 students divided between two recitation sections. During these recitations, I was in charge of providing a thorough review of each week’s course material, increasing the students’ understanding through practical examples and applied demonstrations, and answering students’ questions on course material. Furthermore, it was my responsibility to work with the other teaching assistants to develop weekly quizzes that we administered during each recitation. Other responsibilities for this course included grading weekly homework assignments and quizzes and keeping tack of students’ grades.

 

In the Spring of 2001, I was the supervising teaching assistant for Psychological Statistics taught by Dr. Paul Luce. In addition to my regular teaching assistant duties (see above), I also helped develop a more technologically based Psychological Statistics course. I facilitated both the students’ and the other teaching assistants’ use of on-line material (e.g., course notes, virtual office hours, on-line quizzes). Using Blackboard as an on-line complement to the department’s traditional Psychological Statistics course, we aimed to make the course more interactive and more accessible to students.

 

I am interested in teaching core courses such as Experimental Research Methods and Design, Cognitive Psychology, Perception, Statistics, and Introductory Psychology. These courses would provide me with the opportunity to inspire an interest and passion for Psychology in students who are new to the area. I am also interested in teaching more specialized courses and seminar topics such as Language Representation and Processing, Bilingual Lexical Representation and Processing, Language and Cognitive Development, Psycholinguistics, and Speech Perception, which would allow me to guide the development of more advanced skills such as critical thinking and knowledge integration.

 

I am also interested in teaching laboratory courses in language perception. I believe the laboratory is an important educational tool. I have had the opportunity to teach in this more “hands-on” environment as a result of my direct supervision of undergraduate and graduate students and research assistants (both as a graduate student and as a post-doc). Introducing students to all aspects of the scientific process (e.g., discussing relevant literature, stimulus preparation, data collection and analysis, presenting research) in a laboratory setting provides students with a unique view of what it means to be a scientist. Consequently, I am also very interested in supervising undergraduate honors theses. I believe that such experiences are invaluable for producing a true appreciation for science.

 

By using a variety of teaching techniques and teaching at different levels, I plan to attract a number of students to Psychology and provide the field with future psychologists, teachers, and research scientists.