On April 12, psychology exhibition staff hosted a high school teacher workshop in conjunction with the Eastern Psychological Association annual conference. The program emphasized methods for adapting scientific research to classroom activities. Participants met at AAAS to explore the exhibition and took a special guided tour of specific components with particular attention paid to hands-on learning. Guest speaker Linda Bartoshuk, PhD, Yale University School of Medicine, presented her research on the experimental psychology of taste, focusing on how to adapt this research to the classroom and modeling demonstrations teachers could try with their students. The program's second presenter, Judith Krause, PhD, St. John's University, New York, used activities from the exhibition to discuss developing interactive demonstrations. Dr. Krause, who works with incoming and at-risk students at St. John's, has experimented with both the exhibition's Discovery Unit activities as well as new activities based on exhibition themes. The program was cosponsored by the APA Education and Science Directorates, the Eastern Psychological Association, and AAAS.
For the second workshop, July 21-24, psychology exhibition staff will team up with the Smithsonian's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. Designed for teachers of science, social studies, and language arts, grades 6-12, this course uses a variety of hands-on activities to examine current findings about learning, memory, problem-solving skills, child development, and emotions and how these findings apply to classroom teaching. Course objectives and assignments are tailored to professional development requirements for teachers in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia public schools. Workshop participants will work with "PSYCHOLOGY: It's More Than You Think!" at AAAS as well as at a number of Smithsonian museum exhibitions including "Think Tank," an exhibition about primate cognition and language development at the National Zoo. For more information about either of these programs, please contact Michelle L. Craig, in the Science Directorate, at (202) 336-5928, or by email: mlc.apa@email.apa.org.
During the last 5 years, more than 400 teachers have participated in "Explore Psychology in Action!"--an interactive 2-day teacher workshop designed by the Education Directorate and Psychology Exhibition staff and hosted by each museum displaying the exhibition. The "Explore Psychology" series highlights successful teaching strategies in a range of psychological subfields. An outstanding high school teacher and a college or university professor lead the sessions, which include time to explore and study the psychology exhibition.
Both the Traveling Psychology Exhibition and "PSYCHOLOGY: It's More Than You Think!" were developed and produced by APA and the Ontario Science Centre.