General Resources for the Teaching of Personality Psychology
Note: The entire Personality Pedagogy Site is searchable. Enter search term at left and click Go.
APA Publication Manual, 6th Edition An overview of what's new in the 6th edition of the APA style manual. Includes free tutorials on What's new in the Sixth Edition" and The Basics of APA Style. Good resources for you and your students.
APA Writing Guide Online This online workshop developed by Karen S. Mooney with graphics by Erin Karper at Purdue University is a very thorough guide to APA sytle. In addition to its many online examples and explanations, it includes a list of books and websites for more information.
The Assessment CyberGuide for Learning Goals and Outcomes in the Undergraduate Psychology Major. The Assessment CyberGuide for Learning Goals and Outcomes in the Undergraduate Psychology Major by the Task Force on Undergraduate Psychology Major Competencies, Board of Educational Affairs American Psychological Association. This guide includes best practices, principles for assessing student learning, bibliography of assessment resources, overview of strategies, evaluation of strategies, Bloom's taxonomy and much more.
Association for Research in Personality This new scientific society, founded in 2001, brings together researchers who work on personality processes, structure, and development.
Careers in Psychology Web resources for psychology majors.
The Citation Machine walks users through the parts of a reference and then format the information in APA format for citations and references. A fun tool for beginners.
Claremont Graduate University Online Video Library. Claremont Graduate University, Clarmont, CA, maintains an online video library of selected talks and panel discussions at the University. Check out their how page with a listing of topics, talks, and speakers.
Classics in The History of Psychology Find excerpts and complete works in electronic format from the classic personality theorists in this site maintained by Christopher D. Green, York University, Toronto.
Clickers in the Classroom The Society for the Teaching of Psychology, Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology provides their newest guide: Student Response Systems (Clickers'') in the Psychology Classroom: A Beginner's Guide (2009)” by K. G. Kelly. This 19-page guide discusses topics instructors should consider before adopting a clicker system for their classes. Available in PDF or RTF form.
Clips for Class From the website: We launched an extensive search for videos on the internet that could be used both in class and by students at home. The videos range from news clips, to popular television shows, to student projects, and represent many psychological fields of study. This collection of creative videos for all areas of psychology includes these notable ones on personality: individualism vs. collectivism, psychosexual stages explained in the spirit of High School Musical, Self-Efficacy Theory (a la Masterpiece Theatre), a clip from the MTV show room raiders to illustrate the Five Factor model, and others.
Create Your Own Crossword Puzzle This website lets you enter vocabulary words and definitions which it then arranges into a crossword puzzle. Excellent way to help students review material and have some fun at the same time. Even better: Have students create their own puzzles.
Diversity Content in Introductory Psychology Joseph E. Trimble, Center for Cross-Cultural Research at Western Washington University, studies ethnic identity, ethnic gloss, and measurement of ethnic self-identification. His site is filled with papers and ideas for how to infuse diversity into your class, including the 39-page booklet Toward an Inclusive Psychology: Infusing the Introductory Psychology Textbook With Diversity Content. Opens in PDF format.
Educating Students About Plagiarism By Marika Lamoreaux, Kim Darnell, Elizabeth Sheehan, and Chantal Tusher (Georgia State University), this resource contains materials to help educate students about plagiarism and to help faculty understand how to handle it if it occurs. Included are an overview for faculty "Educating Students," a slide show for a lecture "Plagiarism," a worksheet for students "Recognizing Plagiarism," a plagiarism contract students sign "Plagiarism Contract," suggested answers faculty can offer to respond to common student excuses "Answers to Common Excuses," and a flowchart showing how one university handles plagiarism reports "Academic Dishonesty Flowchart."
The Educator's Reference Desk The Educator's Reference Desk, a site for elementary and high school teachers, provides links to Internet sites, educational organizations, and electronic discussion groups; lesson plans; and a question archive. They have a section on psychology for 11-12 graders.
First Day of Class Beginnings are important says Joyce T. Povlacs of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This list of 101 Things You Can Do the First Three Weeks of Class which she put together is a catalog of suggestions for college teachers who are looking for a fresh way of creating the best possible environment for learning. (Opens in PDF).
Flash Cards Remember those flash cards with terms or questions on one side and the answer on the other? Here is a website that allows a visitor to create unlimited flashcards, review others' flash cards, search for flash cards by topic, share flash cards with others, study on-line, and play a memory game. Flashcards are also available on Quizlet.
A Guide to Writing Learning Objectives for Teachers of Psychology (2012) The Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology (OTRP) is pleased to announce this new resource for teachers by Guy A. Boysen of the State University of New York at Fredonia and McKendree University. The purpose of this 18-page resource is to assist psychology teachers in (a) understanding key terms related to objectives and their assessment, (b) writing behavior-based learning objectives, and (c) evaluating objectives once they are written. The resource includes a table that illustrates how various psychology outcomes can be addressed with objectives at various levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.
Great Ideas in Personality While focusing on scientific research programs in personality psychology, this site provides many resources for instructors and students including links to references, researchers, courses, grants, journals, societies and textbooks.
High School Teachers of Psychology The American Psychological Association sponsors these resources for high school teachers of psychology. Includes teaching resources, national standards for high school psychology curricula, workshops and conferences, resources for students, and information about how teachers can join Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools (TOPSS).
How to Get the Most Out of Studying Stephen Chew, Samford University, created this series of 5 videos to help students. Grounded in his own research on using cognitive principles to improve teaching and learning, Chew presents basic principles of how people learn and tries to correct counterproductive beliefs so that students can improve their learning by designing their own effective study strategies and avoiding ineffective strategies.
How to Search APA's Research Databases Anne Breitenbach, APA Publications & Databases, put together this primer describing the host of free teaching tools for psychology research that are perfect for undergraduate students, [including] video tutorials, training webinars and reference guides that will help students learn how to efficiently search scholarly research databases, [and] website materials, podcasts and topic guides that will help them explore psychology and human behavior.
How to Study Like A Pro: 9 Evidence-Based Study Strategies The editor of the Research Digest published by the British Psychological Society compiled these 9 strategies for a special issue for students. Each of the tips are described and include a link to a summary of the published research which supports the usefulness of the strategy. Strategies include: adopt a growth mindset, sleep well, pace your studies, test yourself, and more.
Improving Learning, Teaching and Leadership Performance The mission of the Individual Development & Educational Assessment (IDEA) Center at at Kansas State University is To serve colleges and universities committed to improving learning, teaching, and leadership performance This website contains an extensive collection of resources. Of particular value are a series of 4-6 page papers on topics ranging from improving lectures and motivating students to grading, speaking skills, adult learners, assessment, and student writing.
Introductory Psychology Resources Jon Mueller, he of the Resources for Teaching Social Psychology website has also made available his course website for PSY 100: Psychology: Science of Behavior.
Journals Devoted to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. The University of West Florida, Kennesaw State University, and Developmental Psych.org maintain listings of journals (with links) which publish articles on the scholarship of teaching and learning. Both lists include journals on general topics and in specific academic disciplines.
Learn Psychology Mark Holah and Jamie Davies created this site to help Psychology A-level students prepare for their exam. The main feature of the site is an extensive glossary of psychological terms and concepts. Check out their Term of the Day or just browse featured randomly selected items. Be sure to suggest your favorite terms for inclusion!
Learning Through Digital Media Experiments in Technology and Pedagogy This combination printed book, free e-book, and web page is a collection of methodologies, social practices, and hands-on assignments by leading educators who are using digital media to enhance learning on and off college campuses. For example, recent essays included evaluation of new technologies, principles of fair use, networking in the classroom, and using technology to improve teaching and learning.
LIFE Photo Archive Hosted by Google Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google. Organized by decade, people, places, event, sports, and culture, you will certainly find an interesting image here -- of a particular figure in personality psychology, for example -- to spark discussion and enliven presentations.
Making Connections: Social Issues in the Psychology Classroom Susan Goldstein of the University of Redlands established and maintains this site to: provide teachers of psychology with resources to assist them, both pedagogically and conceptually, in making connections between current social issues and specific topics across the psychology curriculum. The site features summaries of research findings, suggestions for videos, podcasts, and other multimedia resources, pedagogy-focused resources on relevant classroom activities and teaching strategies, and links to professional organizations and scholarly web resources with information on social issues.
Movies to illustrate principles of Personality Psychology Add your own examples here.
Multicultural Teaching The Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan sponsors this page of information and strategies for multicultural teaching. Everything from course planning, teaching social justice, to responding to difficult decisions, and instructor identity.
National Standards for High School Psychology Curricula In August 2005 the American Psychological Association designed these standards to enhance quality curricula, to express learning goals for students, and to promote change in the teaching of the high school introductory psychology course.
Online Textbook George Boeree of Shippensburg University has created an electronic textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses in Personality Theories.
Online Textbook Personality Theory: An Introduction by Christopher L. Heffner is a 12 Chapter Online Synopsis of Personality Theory, Development, Psychopathology, Treatment and Change. According to AllPsych: Written with both the student and professor in mind, this text is meant to supplement the education provided at the college level. It is also aimed at facilitating learning for non-students interested in gaining knowledge about psychology and personality.
Online Video Guide From the website: OVGuide.com is the Internet's most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to online video, including TV shows, movies, user-generated content and video games... the [site] delivers an innovative, user-friendly way to search and browse relevant, high-quality video sites on the Web.
OTRP on Line The Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology (OTRP) develops and distributes teaching and advising materials and provides services to teachers of psychology at all levels on behalf of The Society for the Teaching of Psychology. Look here for everything from copies of syllabi, how to write letters of recommendation, how to host an undergraduate research conference, to ethical issues and ice breakers with everything else in between.
Participate in Online Research The Social Psychology Network, maintained by Scott Plous, Wesleyan University, lists over 150 web-based experiments, surveys, and other social psychological studies. Click on the section labels Personality and Individual differences to find links to studies on various topics such as the Five Factor Model, birth season, motivation, anxiety and more.
Personality and Consciousness A compendium of brief overviews and short excerpts from major works of various personality theorists.
The Personality Project A cooperative website presenting the latest issues and findings of theory and research on individual differences.
The Personality System John D. Mayer at the University of New Hampshire constructed and maintains this website on the Systems Framework. In his own words: The Systems Framework for personality is a framework designed to present the personality system in a powerful new way that more clearly communicates the goals, pursuits, findings, and significance of the discipline of personality psychology. The Systems Framework divides the discipline into four areas of study: 1. Identifying the personality system, 2. Understanding the parts of personality, 3. How personality is organized, and 4. How personality develops. See also the companion Online Instructor's Manual which includes PowerPoint lectures, online student study guide, practice quizzes, and more.
Plagiarism The San Jose State University Library designed this on-line tutorial to help teach students about plagiarism, proper citation styles, and ways to avoid plagiarism. Features an on-line quiz at the end.
Psi Cafe A web site of links related to psychological issues.
Psico Mundo The world of psychoanalysis...in Spanish on Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Karl Abraham, Françoise Dolto, Sandor Ferenczi, Erich Fromm, Georg Groddeck, Jacques Hassoun, Melanie Klein, Jacques Lacan, and Donald Winnicott.
PsychExchange Mark and Jamie Slapes developed PsychExchange.co.uk so that psychology teachers can share resources with each other. There are many generous teachers who are willing to share their handouts, powerpoints and so on, and hopefully this web site will make this much easier for them.
Psychlotron.org Psychlotron.org.uk is a website of teaching resources for teachers and lecturers. Though aimed at those teaching introductory psychology in the British system, there are many free resources here applicable to those teaching personality psychology including this unit on Freud and Personality.
Psychmovies.com Brooke J. Cannon, Marywood University, created and maintains this extensive site which lists movies illustrative psychological principles organized by topic, genre, and popularity ratings. Check out her suggestions for mood disorders, personality disorders, anxiety disorders, and more.
Psychological Tests for Students Use Ron Okada, York University, Toronto, put up this handy page for his students conducting research. It contains many tests relevant for both social and personality psychology. The tests are available in PDF or Word 2002 formats for the downloading. Tests available include the Attitude Towards Women Scale, Authoritarianism-Rebellion Scale, Body Esteem, Loneliness Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Procrastination Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Aggression Questionnaire, Trust Scale and much more.]]
Psychology Jeopardy Stephen Wurst, SUNY Oswego, created these Jeopardy-style games to use for review sessions with your classes. Boards are organized by theme and include: David Bowie Songs, Bruce Springsteen Songs, WordPlay, Broadway Musicals, Classic Jeopardy Categories, Dr. Strangelove and more. You play directly on the Super Teacher website by choosing the number of teams and amount of time to answer questions. Correct answers are given and the site includes a scoreboard. Note that the Super Teacher Tools website has a Jeopardy template which you can use to include your own questions.
Questionnaire Compendium Alan Reifman, Texas Tech University, created this extensive listing of links to questionnaires used in Social-Personality psychology where (a) the full instrument is shown, and (b) the instrument was put on the web by the person who created the instrument, thus ensuring that the instrument was intended to be put into the public domain.
Quotations from your favorite personality theorists...and others!
Research Channel From the website: ResearchChannel was founded by a consortium of leading research and academic institutions to share the valuable work of their researchers with the public. Viewers access programs online via a live webstream and an extensive video-on-demand library. The library houses more than 3,500 full-length programs that are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Resources for Teaching Social Psychology Jonathan Mueller at North Central College, in Naperville, Illinois, put together the extensive website (and newsletter!) Resources for Teaching Social Psychology. Check out his resources for teaching the Self as well as other topics related to both personality psychology and social psychology.
Review Fun: Grab That Spoon! Educator and simulation game guru Sivasailam (Thiagi) Thiagarajan maintains a web site with tons of ideas to get participants involved and playing with ideas. Grab That Spoon! is a quick, five-minute game with a dash of friendly competition. It's a game in which everyone participates regardless of the size of the group (5 or 500, it still works!). It's a game that allows the learners to generate the review information, to participate in it, and to discuss their own understanding of the material learned. In other words, it's a game in which the participants learn a lot in a little time!
Review Session Power Point Templates. Kim Overstreet, former District Technology Resource Teacher of the Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Kentucky designed this site and many of the teaching resources on it. You can download templates she created to bring the popular game shows Jeopardy, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Hollywood Squares to life for a review session your classes.
Royalty-free Images From the United States Government Librarians at SUNY Albany put together this list of links to collections of images from the United States Government which may be free to use. They include Federal photo collection, NASA and NOAA images, National Park Service photos and much more (opens in PDF format).
Science Fair Projects and Experiments Topics, ideas, resources, and sample projects for primary, elementary, middle and high school students and teachers compiled by Julian Rubin. Includes science fair projects types, the scientific method, the display board for many topics in Psychology and Human Behavior. Personality projects include: Myers-Briggs type indicator, addictive behavior, birth order, stress and self-esteem, mood and humor, and more. With minor modifications, some topics and projects may also be suitable for college-level laboratory classes in personality psychology.
Student Success Strategies Skip Downing, author and expert on faculty development and student success strategies maintains this site where you'll find a gold mine of resources to support your efforts for improving student academic success and retention including web sites, books, online workshops, live workshops, newsletters, exercises, activities and more. Topics include self-responsibility, self-motivation, self-management, interdependence, self-awareness, life-long learning, emotional intelligence, and self-esteem.
Super Teacher Tools This site is dedicated to providing technology tools for teaching that are quick and easy to download, learn, and start using in your classroom. Includes review games, classroom management software, and other miscellaneous tools for educators.
Teaching Clinical Psychology This site is devoted to sharing ideas and resources for teaching clinical psychology, especially undergraduate courses on abnormal psychology, psychotherapy, group dynamics, psychological testing, and clinical components of introductory psychology. This extensive website includes exercises, examples, essays, handouts and more including contributions from users.
Teaching High School Psychology Blog A blog for teachers of high school psychology, both advanced placement and introduction to psychology moderated by Kent Korek, Steve Jones, Rob McEntentarffer, Chuck Schallhorn, and Trevor Tusow. Contains resource, ideas, announcements, musings, and other cool stuff related to teaching psychology in high schools.
Teaching of Psychology Wiki. The Society for the Teaching of Psychology, Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology, just debuted this wiki. Wiki-Master Sue Frantz, Highline Community College, Des Moines, WA, explains: This brand new resource is completely dependent on you to build it. In the spirit of reciprocity, we ask that if you take something, you leave something. To be able to write to this wiki, you will need to request access from the Wiki-Master.
Teaching Tips Honolulu Community College maintains this extensive site for Faculty Development. Features Teaching Tips on practically everything from the First Day of Class, to Assessment, Motivation, Course Design, Dealing With Stress, Difficult Classroom Behaviors, Professional Ethics, Large Classes, and much more.
Teaching Psychology Through Film Check out Raymond J. Green's Teaching Tips column on Teaching Psychology Through Film, Video which ran in Psychological Science and is available online here. He discusses the whys, hows, and pitfalls of using films to teach psychological concepts.
Teach it Quick and Make it Stick. Professional trainer and speaker Sharon Bowman has a ton of ideas to keep audiences involved and learning. Check it out when you need a quick activity to liven up a content-heavy lecture, an ice breaker, or a special closing activity. Especially useful for large lecture classes.
TeachPsychScience: Resources for Teaching Research and Statistics in Psychology Gary W. Lewandowski, Natalie Ciarocco and David Strohmetz created this site containing links to peer-reviewed resources for teaching research methods and statistics including online demonstrations, descriptions of class demonstrations, class and lab activities, class assignments, lecture materials, PowerPoints, exemplar studies, and student exercises.
Teampedia: Tools for Teams Teampedia is a collaborative encyclopedia of free team building activities, free icebreakers, teamwork resources, and tools for teams that anyone can edit! This site is designed for a wide audience including: team leaders, trainers, teachers, managers, camp directors, counselors, and youth groups.
Technology for Educators Created by psychologist Sue Franz "finding new technologies so you don't have to" where she shares her discoveries of technology which enhances her teaching or the learning of her students. Includes an overview and description of tech essentials, handouts from her workshops, and handy information on everything from blogging to presentations to file management, and downloading videos.
Textbooks for Personality Psychology The Social Psychology Network maintains a list of textbooks for personality psychology along with links to publishers and examination copy request forms.
The Thiagi Group: The Source for Training Games and Interactive Experiential Strategies Educator and simulation game guru Sivasailam (Thiagi) Thiagarajan of Barnga fame, maintains a web site with tons of ideas to get participants involved and playing with ideas. According to the website: We Do Training. And we do it differently. We use games and activities that engage participants. We keep them interacting with each other and with the content. We design training faster, cheaper, and better with an irreverent process that eliminates unnecessary steps that don't add value. Come play with us! We'll have you laughing and learning. Check out their many ideas and sign up for their monthly e-mail newsletter.
35 Tools For Teachers, Tutors and Students The social networking news blog Mashable summarizes 35 of the best computer and internet tools for education including applications for grading, social networking, teaching and tutoring jobs and more.
This is Psychology The American Psychological Association presents this series of brief videos illustrating how psychological research can be applied to a broad range of issues and challenges such as bullying, children's mental health, and other issues of concern to the general public.
Tools for Teaching Davis, B. G. (1993). Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Chapters of this book by Barbara Gross Davis of the University of California, Berkeley is available online (the full text version is available from computers connected to the UC Berkeley network). According to the website:A compendium of classroom-tested strategies and suggestions designed to improve the teaching practices of all college instructors, including beginning, mid-career, and senior faculty members. The book describes 49 teaching tools that cover both traditional practical tasks--writing a course syllabus, delivering an effective lecture--as well as newer, broader concerns such as responding to diversity on campus and coping with budget constraints.
TOPIX: Teaching of Psychology Idea Exchange The site includes classroom activities, videos, and an 'In the News' section where summaries of articles from the popular press are linked to the original source and classroom-appropriate discussion questions are provided. Includes rubrics for grading APA-style papers; presentation slides that use animation to illustrate the size-distance illusion and the Stroop test, suitable for class use; videos from all over psychology, and much more.
25 Strategies for Increasing Interactivity in Virtual Classrooms The Thiagi Gameletter, produced by the Thiagi Group, Inc., which specialized in ``seriously fun activities for trainers, facilitators, performance consultants, and manager'' presents this special list of 25 fun and effective strategies to help you move away from traditional ways of providing online content. Some of their ideas include Assessment-Based Learning Activities, Brain-Pick Activity, Case Method, Interactive Video Watching, Graphics Games and much more.
The University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre conducts research on personality including the five factor model, life satisfaction, self-monitoring, and other constructs collecting data via Facebook application. They are willing to collaborate and share their data with other researchers (including grads and undergrads) who have ideas for projects. Find out more about their work (including a list of research ideas for students) by visiting MyPersonalityWiki.
Videos for Class: The Psychological Channel This website is dedicated to streaming videos from various sites (youtube, Google video, etc.) that were hand picked for their educational, therapeutic, or scientific value in the field of psychology. The site also offers videos, blogs and a message board.
Web 2.0/21st Century Tools This site provides links and reviews of web tools for educators including audio file management, bookmarking, charts/graphs, digital art, digital storytelling, file conversion, file sharing, photo editing, presentation/slideshow, project management, search engines, social networks, survey/polls, timelines, webQuests, word processing, video/screencasting and more. Most of the sites are open source and free.
WingClips: Movie Clips that Illustrate and Inspire Inspirational movie clips for use in school, church, or other organization. The sight is organized by movie title, scripture, category, theme, and is searchable. Clips can be streamed (but are imprinted with a watermark) or can be downloaded. Most are free; some are available for a small fee.
The Wonderful World of Wikis Dr. Marianne Miserandino, Associate Professor of Psychology, presented on “WWW: The Wonderful World of Wikis” at the National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology on January 5,2008 in Florida. Her presentation summarized the pros and cons of wikis, presented examples of wikis in psychology, described how instructors can create a wiki of their own, demonstrated how instructors can contribute to existing wikis, and discussed the huge potential of this technology for the instructors of psychology. Miserandino is the creator and moderator of Personality Pedagogy, a wiki for the teaching of personality psychology.
Writing and Revising Looking for a thorough writing guide for you or your students? Over the past 20 years of teaching, writing, and editing, I have compiled a set of tips, tricks, and pet peeves that I share with students and colleagues. I've decided to make this writing guide more widely available in case others will find it useful. The emphasis is on scientific writing, but the same principles apply to most non-fiction (including journalism). I will maintain a link to the most recent version of the file on this page.