Great learning and great teaching go hand in hand, and both are enhanced when we take into account scientific research on teaching and learning. As a teacher-researcher, I use psychological science as a way to both improve student learning and also support continual development of teaching skills.
As a researcher, my primary focus is on combining cognitive neuroscience research with empirical classroom studies that examine student learning across experimentally manipulated pedagogical interventions. Accordingly, one aspect of my research takes an educational neuroscience approach to understanding basic human attention, memory, and reading processes by using converging methodologies such as event-related brain potentials, measures of eye movements, and behavioral indices. Another aspect of my research uses empirical classroom investigations to examine student learning across different pedagogical interventions, such as student response systems (“clickers”) and online and homework and quizzing tools.
As a teacher, I strive to put our laboratory and classroom research into practice to support student learning of both content and skills. Most recently, this has been done as a teacher of Introductory Psychology, but also across a variety of psychology courses including Cognition and Sensation and Perception, among others. I also train graduate student teachers in how to use evidence-based teaching practices and develop assessment tools, all of which are to support student learning.
Taken together, the goal of this work is to provide new scientific knowledge that will support learning and inform the effectiveness of teaching tools and techniques to augment students’ experiences in higher education.