Hurricane Sandy School Supply Drive

The Ed Psych and Methodology RGSO is collecting school supplies for families and students attending Waterside Children's Studio School (P.S. 317) located in Far Rockaway, a NYC area severely impacted by Hurricane Sandy.  There's a donation box in ED 233 and will be there until Thursday 12/20.  Please donate!  If you'd prefer to donate money, please contact the RGSO president Angela Lui at ms.angelalui@gmail.com.

Update! Dr. Jillmarie Murphy comes to speak about literature and attachment theory!

Here are some pictures from our Brown Bag event on November 14th when Dr. Jillmarie Murphy discussed her book Monstrous Kinships.  Dr. Murphy is an English and American literature professor at Union College.  At the event she discussed realism and attachment theory in the 19th and early 20th century novel.  Some examples of literature she presented are Frankenstein, Maggie:  A Girl of the Streets, Lolita, Pierre or the Ambiguities, An American Tragedy, and Jude the Obscure.  It was a great presentation that connected literature and psychology and now we all have some great novels to add to our reading lists!  One of Dr. Murphy's most interesting points was that much like psychologists, literary figures also want to find the truth of what motivates people in society.  She quoted Anna Freud: 

"You asked me what I consider essential personal qualities in a future psychoanalyst. The answer is comparatively simple. If you want to be a real psychoanalyst you have to have a great love of the truth, scientific truth as well as personal truth, and you have to place this appreciation of truth higher than any discomfort at meeting unpleasant facts, whether they belong to the world outside or to your own inner person...You ought to be a great reader and become acquainted with the literature of many countries and cultures. In the great literary figures you will find people who know at least as much of human nature as the psychiatrists and psychologists try to do." 

Our final brown bag of the Fall semester will be this Wednesday 12/5, 11:30-1pm in Ed 335.  Our fellow ed psychies will discuss the results of the department's alumni survey.  Hope to see you there!

Bowling and Fundraising at Playdium

We had a lot of fun this past Thursday night 10/25/12 at Playdium bowling and raising money for Club Zoe.  Club Zoe is a 501(c)(3) public charity in Albany that provides a safe environment during after-school hours for youth who must survive life on dangerous streets.  (For the organization's website click here.)  We raised over $100 from student donations.   Thanks to everyone who came out to support this cause!  

Brown Bag Event: "Readiness to Deal with the Unexpected"

Hi all!

On October 17, 2012 we had our first Brown Bag event of the Fall 2012 semester with Dr. Sigmund Tobias and Dr. J. Dexter Fletcher.  The topic of discussion was "Readiness to Deal with the Unexpected" -- how do we prepare individuals to deal with surprise and the unexpected as well as an introduction to the 12 components of cognitive readiness.  It was a great event with many students and faculty in attendance.  This is a very interesting area of research and Dr. Tobias welcomes anyone interested in this topic to contact him about research ideas and funding opportunities.  (For his contact information email our RGSO president: alui@albany.edu.)  Below are some pictures of the event.  For references and PowerPoint slides of the presentation join our Facebook group! Thank you to Dr. Tobias and Dr. Fletcher, the RGSO and everyone in attendance for making this event a success!

My Involvement Student Group Challenge Winners!!

Update:  Our RGSO has won the $100 prize from the My Involvement Student Group Challenge!  Weeee!  Hurray!  Wahoo!  We suffered major budget cuts this year and thanks to everyone's participation on our MyInvolvement page we've been able to get some of it back!  

Other announcements:

Our first Brown Bag of the Fall 2012 semester is coming up this Wednesday 10/17/12 in ED 335, from 11:30 to 1pm.  See the Save the Dates section for more details!

October is community service month and we've made a personal group goal to increase our community service hours this year.  Some of our awesome members volunteered at the Alumni Association's Annual Homecoming 5K Run/2.5K Walk at the Fallbany event on campus yesterday 10/13/12.  The proceeds benefited UAlbany Cancer Research Center's Fund for Memory and Hope. More pictures from the event are posted in our photo section but here are some goodies:

Therese Huston - Teaching What You Don't Know Well

Hello all!

Sorry this has taken me so long to blog about but you know how grad school life goes!  Last week ITLAL in partnership with our Ed Psych RGSO, the School of Ed, and the GSO hosted a wonderful event where we welcomed Therese Huston to the University for a 2-day workshop entitled "Teaching What You Don't Know Well -- And Staying Just Ahead of Your Students."  Therese is the author of the book Teaching What You Don't Know (http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-What-You-Dont-Know/dp/0674035801), a must read for any current or future teachers.  In fact, I believe it is a required text for our EPSY 780.  I highly recommend reading it, and I am proud to say that I now own a signed copy :)  

Therese is really a great speaker and commands the attention of her audience.  She has a great attitude, is very personable and just exudes a sense of confidence and comfort I hope to have one day when I am in front of an audience.  And her workshop definitely gave me some tools and strategies to get me on my way!  She opened Thursday's workshop by presenting 3 questions that would be answered by the end:  

1. Why might I have to teach topics I don't know well?  

2. When does expertise help and when does it get in the way?  

3. How can I do this kind of teaching well and enjoy it? 

Now I'm not going to give all the details of the workshop away (GO READ HER BOOK!) but we talked about what the current job market looks like for faculty and how general education programs are changing and how at some point, whether we like it or not, we're probably going to have to teach something we don't feel like we are experts in.  We talked about the positives and negatives of being put in this position - why some people hate it and why others might welcome it.  She also discussed different stages of mastery and how being an expert in something might actually have some disadvantages for teaching (e.g. it may interfere with your ability to effectively communicate because you are unconscious of your level of competence).  It was at this moment that I really felt some of the pressure lift off my shoulders (You mean we don't have to be a content expert and know everything about everything before we teach?  Whew!  We're just graduate student instructors and don't know everything!).  Therese pointed out that content novices actually have a lot of advantages:  they make more accurate estimates about time on task, task difficulty, and first-timer's mistakes; they offer concrete explanations; and they use more student-friendly examples.  The disadvantage is that they tend to use fewer abstract concepts which makes it harder to transfer ideas to new problems.  So!  A big note to self - as a content novice, abstract concepts and knowledge transfer is an area to focus on to improve your teaching.  Therese provided great stories of some of the people she interviewed when doing research for her book.  She also described how she characterized the people she studied (AGAIN GO READ HER BOOK!) and gave us strategies for how to be in the "Poised and Confident" group (e.g. think past being a "knowledge dispenser", take control of the choices you can, talk with a content expert, tell someone you're still learning).  We also talked about time management, how to answer questions you don't really know the answers to, and student perceptions of teacher credibility.  I was personally very surprised to learn that a lot of perceptions of credibility are things tied to the learning environment itself -- not necessarily your content expertise (e.g. have a clear syllabus and follow it, show up on time, remind students of due dates, be clear of your expectations of your students, ask if your students understand).  

Definitely a superb event!  Great guest, great food, great discussion and activities to get us involved.  Many of us feel much better about teaching undergraduate classes now that we have these strategies and tips and to know that we're not alone in our anxiety (which has been significantly reduced thanks to this workshop!).  A big thank you to Mary Beth, Zach, the GSO, ITLAL, the Ed Psych RGSO, and most importantly, Therese Huston.  We hope to have more events like this in the future!  Check out the photos from this event on the Event Photos page on this blog, as well as the MyInvolvement page:  https://albany.collegiatelink.net/organization/edpsychrgso

MyInvolvement Student Group Challenge

Greetings Ed Psychies,

The Ed Psych RGSO has entered into the Student Group Challenge on MyInvolvement.  1st place prize is $400, 2nd place $300, 3rd place $100 to be used by the RGSO for future events. We need to update our site on MyInvolvement and get as many people to join and use the site as possible!  So if you haven't already please join by going to the following link:  https://albany.collegiatelink.net/organization/edpsychrgso.  If you've never been on MyInvolvement before you might have to register and create a profile first but then make sure you join Educational Psychology and Methodology Graduate Student Organization!  And start posting on the wall (e.g. introduce yourself and say hi!).

As part of the challenge we need to create a header image/logo/banner that will appear at the top of our MyInvolvement page (much like a Facebook cover photo).  If you would like to submit a banner please email it to me at hmeredith03@gmail.com by October 1st!  You will be helping us meet the criteria for the 1st and 2nd place prizes of the Student Group Challenge if we have multiple banners.  The dimensions are as follows:

Image size limits: 960px x 150px (if smaller, image will be left justified)
File size limit: 100KB
Supported file types: JPG (RGB only), PNG, GIF

We are open to any and all ideas that represent the Ed Psych program/RGSO!

Labor Day

This is my first post as the new Social Web Manager. Hi. I'm Holly. I am new to blogging so please bear with me. As we start our second week of classes with Labor Day off, I hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend and sunshine!!

Last week our division held the Welcome/Welcome Back Orientation and it was great to see so many familiar faces as well as meet many of the new students! 30+ people - including faculty and students - were in attendance and I hope everyone will continue to come to these events!  

We held our division RGSO elections at the orientation and I would like to extend congratulations to the following Ed Psychies who have been elected as the 2012-2013 Ed Psych RGSO officers:


President: Angela Lui
VP: Mary Beth Arcidiacono
Secretary: Hirah Mir
Treasurer: Jenna McLain
Representatives:
   Justin Chase
   Holly Meredith
   Jessica Lamendola
   Shufen Wang
   Fusun Sahin

They are being put straight to work as the first RGSO meeting of the semester is being held tomorrow!  Looking forward to a great year working with you all :)

Last but certainly not least, at the orientation we talked about an exciting ITLAL event coming up that I urge everyone to attend if they can!  Therese Huston is coming to UAlbany on Thursday September 20, 3:00-5:00pm, and also Friday September 21, 10:30am-12:00pm.  She is the author of the book: "Teaching What You Don't Know" which is an excellent resource for graduate students and professors about university teaching and learning.  The Thursday event is geared more towards graduate students while the Friday event is more for faculty, but you can attend either/both!  Regardless of your status and experience and how long you've been in the Ed Psych program, you should check it out!  In order to attend, you have to register first through the ITLAL website.  Here's the link to register:

/http://www.albany.edu/teachingandlearning/events/

Spots may fill up quickly as we anticipate this to be a popular event so sign up ASAP!

Welcome and Welcome Back!

Welcome and Welcome Back New and Returning Ed Psychers!

To all new students: welcome to the Educational Psychology and Methodology Division! We are thrilled to have you here! To all returning students, welcome back! Hope you've all enjoyed your summer "vacations" and are ready to tackle this new semester :).

As you all probably know already, the division’s orientation will take place this Wednesday, August 29, 2012 from 1pm-3pm in ED 335. This, from my experience, is one of the rare opportunities when most (if not all) of the faculty members and students gather together in one room, so we encourage everyone to be there if possible. At this event, you’ll have the chance to know everyone, the division, and the RGSO a little better through introductions, presentations and activities. Oh, and of course, there will be refreshments! Simply said, this is an event worth your time, so I urge you to attend.

And if you have not done so already, please send RGSO nominations to Mary Beth at mbarchid@msn.com. Election for officers will happen on Wednesday as well.

That's all folks. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me. Look forward to meeting/seeing you all!

Vote for Nan Qiu for GSO's MCAA!

Our very own Nan Qiu has been nominated for GSO's Multicultural Affirmative Action (MCAA) Chair!

Let's spread our ed psych talents into the Graduate Assistant Organization and help Nan gain this position. Voting begins at midnight on 4/16 and will end at 11:59pm on 4/17.

Click here for more information!

Brown Bag #4: Tiger Mom's Revisit with Dr. Joan Newman and Dr. Dai

The Educational Psychology and Methodology Graduate Student Organization

Brown Bag Speaking Series Presents:

Tiger Mom's Revisit

The book, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" provoked hot discussion on issues of parenting, begging the question, "Is tough parenting really the answer?

Join Drs. Joan Newman and David Dai as they revisit this controversial topic and how it relates to cultural parenting practices.

Thursday, April 19th, 2012

5:30pm to 7 p.m. Education Building 335

If you have any questions please contact Mary Beth Arcidiacono marcidiacono@albany.edu

Light dinner will be provided.

Your GSO Funds at Work!

Brown Bag #3: Academic Writing with the Saddlers!

Academic Writing:

Things that make you say, "hmmmmmm?"

Are you puzzled by aspects of the writing process?

Do you have questions about publishing or simply need some pointers on the uniqueness of academic writing?

Join our Brown Bag Discussion on Academic Writing

Presented by

Dr. Bruce Saddler and Dr. Kristie Saddler

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Education Building 335

If you have any questions please contact Mary Beth Arcidiacono marcidiacono@albany.edu

Brown Bag #2: Advancing and Assessing Collective Knowledge Online with Dr. Jian Wei Zhang

The Educational Psychology and Methodology Graduate Student Organization Presents:

Advancing and assessing collective knowledge online

Wednesday, March 21th, 2012

11:30 am to 1 pm

Education Building 335

Jianwei Zhang, from ETAP, explores technology-enabled learning designs to engage students in sustained, creative knowledge work. A set of new research and assessment tools, such as knowledge forum has been developed to examine collaborative knowledge building online. Come and enjoy this fantastic Topic!

Light refreshments will be provided.

Please contact Mary Beth Arcidiacono mbarchid@msn.com if you have any questions!

Brown Bag #1: Future Peer Reviewers

The Educational Psychology and Methodology Graduate Student Organization Presents:

Future Peer Reviewers

Wednesday, March 7th, 2012

11:30 am to 1 pm

Education Building 335

How's your research going?

Do you have any issues that are stumping you?

Need to figure out your next step?

As one another's future "peer reviewers",

let's help one another solve some of these difficult questions.

Join us to informally discuss the progress of your research,

get feedback on your next step,

and offer input and assistance to your peers.

Bring your questions, concerns and helpful suggestions.

Light refreshments will be provided.

Note: Faculty is ALWAYS welcome, however this will be a student driven brown bag.

Please contact Mary Beth Arcidiacono mbarchid@msn.com if you have any questions!

Your GSO Funds at Work!

EdPsy Students and Turkas presented Babies!

Greetings Fellow Ed Psychers,

Thanks to the Turkish Student Association, we have pictures from our Movie Night presenting Babies! Please check them out by clicking here!

Looks like there were lots of great fun and delicious food...sad I had to miss it! To those who have gone, please share what you guys thought of the movie, and/or your discussions on the multicultural perspectives on parenting styles and family values here or on our facebook page!

Ed Psy Facebook Page!

Hello All,

We have a facebook page! A more convenient way to get updates on events and activities, but more importantly, a place to ask questions, share information and provide/receive support.

Please go ahead and add yourself to the group: Ed Psy Students @ UAlbany. We are aiming to populate the group with n=100 by the end of this week!

Welcome to the Spr 2012 Semester!

Hello Ed-Psychers!

Hope you've all enjoyed your breaks and are ready to tackle a new semester filled once again, with many intellectually stimulating events. Here's a little recap of what we did last semester, followed by an overview of what's in store for you this semester!

The Brown Bag events in Fall 2011 were simply amazing, with the wealth of knowledge that faculty members and fellow colleagues openly shared....a lively discussion about self-regulated learning with Drs. Sig Tobias and Heidi Andrade; a heated discussion on the parenting styles of Tiger Moms with Drs. Joan Newman and David Dai; an informative presentation on growth and value-added modeling with Zach Warner; and an inspiring panel discussion on grant writing with Drs. Debi May, Bruce Saddler and Kristie Saddler. Additionally, the annual Apple Picking Fall Picnic was held in collaboration with the Turkish Student Association at Indian Ladder Farms and Thatcher State. Alongside, the RGSO also organized a "Help Schoharie" community service to collect school supply donations. Whew, a lot eh?!

Expect no less this semester, as our RGSO has made plans for more exciting events...including a future peer review session, giving a place for students to share and talk about research ideas; a session on collective knowledge with Dr. Zhang; a presentation on academic writing process with Drs. Saddler; and revisiting the heated discussion on Tiger Moms with Drs. Joan Newman and David Dai. As for a more non-academic event, there's a movie night in the planning!

Well, that's about all for now...stay tuned for specifics (so don't forget to check back here soon!)

P.S. Oh...the next time you see an RGSO member, stop them and give them a thanks..for all their hard work in making these experiences and opportunities possible!