Paper-writing Guidelines

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University of Virginia, Dept. of Psychology

About this course: I taught three 20-student discussion sections in an independent supplement to a 250-student lecture course in child development.

About this document: I provided this handout to students preparing for their two long papers in the class. Many students were either first-years (freshmen) or majoring outside psychology. As a result, most did not have experience writing a college-level scientific paper. I wrote these general guidelines to orient students, and then devoted in-class time to specific guidance on each paper’s topic and grading criteria.

Evaluation Form

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University of Virginia, Summer Enrichment Program

About this course: I designed and taught this 2-week course for gifted middle school students over three sessions of the UVA Summer Enrichment Program.

About this document: All teachers in this program developed their own student evaluation forms, completed anonymously at the end of the session. I saw this as an excellent opportunity to supplement the daily feedback I’d collected from students. I designed my questions to (a) assess what the students had taken away as the most important/interesting elements of the course, and (b) obtain their feedback on specific activities. This allowed me to see if I had made my main points clearly and demonstrated them dynamically. I used the feedback in revising subsequent versions of the course.

See also student responses.

Syllabus

University of Virginia, Dept. of Psychology

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About this course: I taught three 20-student discussion sections in an independent supplement to a 250-student lecture course in child development.

About this document: Although the lecture professor set the “Tentative Schedule and Readings,” as well as the paper topics and deadlines, I wrote all other assignments and policies. Each was targeted to explain my expectations and my own pledged commitment clearly. The assignment sections are an important example of this: note that I later asked students to evaluate the goals I list for “Weekly assignments”, and a majority felt they had been met (see student evaluations and comments). One third of students also took advantage of my offer to review drafts and outlines of the papers. Finally, note the last section, “Respect, Benevolence, and Justice:” these are the official ethical principles of the American Psychological Association, and I introduce them as a frame in which to explain my expectations for a safe discussion environment, while introducing students to the field.

Grading Rubric

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University of Virginia, Dept. of Psychology

About this course: I led three 20-student discussion sections in an independent supplement to a 250-student lecture course in child development.

About this document: TAs graded all papers in this course, although the lecture professor set the paper topics. Since only I had experience grading, before each of the two papers, I set up a meeting for all of the TAs, in which we wrote the rubric for each paper (a revision of one I had used elsewhere). Once papers were in, we met again to grade and discuss a sample set of papers for calibration (so students would not receive different grades based on who their TA was). Students were told about these grading criteria in advance, and received a copy of the rubric with their graded papers, annotated with the specific points they had gained or lost. In their evaluations, a majority of students felt grading criteria were clearly explained, and grading was fair (see Student Evaluations).

Note that this rubric is for a child observation. Students received the following support to write the paper:
- The professor’s assignment, detailing the desired structure and content
- Sample graded papers from past semesters
- General paper-writing guidelines I prepared to aid students (especially freshmen or students outside the major)
- In-class discussion of the paper.

Course Plan: “Psychology – Breakdown of the Mind”

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University of Virginia, Summer Enrichment Program

About this course: I designed and taught this 2-week course for gifted high school students over three sessions of the UVA Summer Enrichment Program.

About this document: In creating this course, it was a challenge to reinterpret my graduate-school knowledge of psychology in a form that younger students could understand (most of my students had just finished the 8th grade). It was also a challenge to come up with enough interesting activities for the 3-hour-long daily classes. I interspersed hands-on demonstrations, brief lectures, multimedia, small group work, and discussions/debates. I also invited a different guest speaker at the end of each day: another UVA researcher currently working on the topic under discussion. I later used one of the most popular lessons as the basis for another course.