Having an Impact: Supporting Your Students’ Skills for Success in Introductory Psychology

As teachers, we know that our students face many challenges that make it difficult for them to succeed in school, and even more so during a pandemic. Our students’ academic challenges are often most obvious, for example due to not having developed strong study skills. However, our students come from diverse backgrounds and have many challenges including with mental and physical health, financial issues, and time-management problems, just to name a few, all of which indirectly affect their success in college and beyond. Student success courses can help students develop many skills they need to succeed, however, not all institutions offer such a course, and even when they do, not all students enroll in it. Importantly, many of the skills that are developed in student success courses align well with content taught in introductory psychology. And because more than a million students take introductory psychology each year, we have a unique opportunity to help many students learn about psychology while also developing skills that will help them succeed. Accordingly, the goals of this interactive workshop are to: 1. Discuss the challenges our students face that can negatively affect their success in our courses, 2. Describe six evidence-based strategies we can teach our students that will have a broad positive IMPACT on their success (Improving, Monitoring, Practicing, Attending, Connecting, and Thinking Deeply), and 3. Discuss how we can create pedagogical approaches in our introductory psychology classes to help our students learn and practice these IMPACT strategies. By the end of the workshop, teachers will come away with concrete ideas for creating and implementing new activities in their introductory psychology classes that will help their students succeed educationally, in their chosen professions, and to flourish personally.