SkyTeach Faculty & Staff

Teaching Interests

As an educational psychologist, my teaching seeks to prepare undergraduate and graduate students to become reflective, responsive and resourceful professionals by connecting theoretical, scientific, and applied psychological knowledge with practice. My overarching teaching goals are: 1) to get my learners to understand the material at a deep conceptual level so that they may transfer and apply that knowledge to their own professional domains and 2) to teach my learners how to be self-regulated and meta-cognitive so that they will be equipped to be life-long learners. 

Research Interests

One’s beliefs – or conclusions made about varying states of expectancy – are part of an integrated cognitive system that highly influence behavioral change. However, not all beliefs are equally important and those that are most central to a person are the most resistant to change. In the context of teaching and learning, one’s beliefs can help or hinder the outcome. Thus, my research explores people’s beliefs within a variety of P-16 teaching and learning contexts to help mitigate problem beliefs while strengthening beliefs through targeted intervention to help improve outcomes (e.g., motivation, learning, teaching quality, performance). 

Courses Taught

• PSY 290/490 Supervised Study in Psychology
• PSY 310 Educational Psychology
• PSY 412 Psychology Of Motivation And Emotion
• PSY 490 Research, Readings Or Special Projects In Psychology
• PSY 510 Advanced Educational Psychology
• SMED 210/310 Knowing and Learning in Mathematics and Science
• SMED 510 Advanced Topics in Knowing and Learning in Mathematics and Science
• SMED 620 Collaborative Research to Improve Mathematics and Science Teaching
• SMED 630 Action Research Seminar

Links

• Resume [PDF]
• The Academic Quality (TAQ) Lab