How to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too: Embedding Experimental Research in Your Courses to Improve Student Learning and Performance

Are you interested both in psychology research and in using findings to improve student learning? In fact, many psychology teachers view themselves as teacher-scholars. However, many of us also wonder how we can translate research into classroom practices and determine whether they impact student performance and learning. The goal of this interactive workshop is to provide a practical and effective way to support the needs of teacher-scholars. We aim to achieve this goal by using an approach called evidence-based teaching and learning, where teachers explore new research in the field, develop experimental classroom studies, and use the findings to improve their teaching practice and the educational experiences of their students. Accordingly, in this workshop, first we will explore new research findings that have the potential to be applied to the classroom and discuss which ones are relevant for your courses, teaching goals, and student populations. Second, we will discuss an efficient and effective method for translating these findings into pedagogies that can be investigated with experimental classroom research to determine their effectiveness. Third, we will explain how we used experimental classroom research in several introductory psychology classes at our college to explore whether using online homework improves student performance and/or learning. Finally, we will discuss ideas about developing your own experimental classroom research projects. In sum, evidence-based teaching and learning provides a practical way for teacher-scholars to develop new pedagogies that are informed by research, test their effectiveness using experimental classroom research, and augment student educational experiences.