As I continue exploring all the great things STP has to offer, I check out the OTRP pages quite a bit. Within OTRP (Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology), there are tons of resources for psychology teachers at all levels. Well, maybe not tons, but an impressive number (To be accurate, tons would require me to print them all off and weigh them, which I'm not willing to do). I want to share with you one particular resource that may not be on your radar, but should be.
From the Mentoring Services webpage -- http://teachpsych.org/otrp/mentoring/index.php -- the purpose of the Service is to "…enable teachers of psychology who have questions about pedagogical topics, methods, issues, or specific classes to identify and communicate with more experienced colleagues who are willing to provide them with answers to these questions and/or refer them to other sources of information." After reading that, who wouldn't find this service useful? I'll be the first to admit I don't know everything about the teaching of psychology. So why not turn to a friendly colleague through the Mentoring Service if I have questions about, say, starting a Psychology Club at my school? Sure, I could fumble around and take a stab at it myself, probably having some avoidable failures and false starts along the way. On the other hand, I could contact Peter, Martha, Liz, David, or Jeanne, who have each volunteered to be a mentor for this topic.
The reason I said the OTRP Mentoring Services may not be on your radar is that folks might think "mentoring" and assume it's only for early-career teachers, to help them get comfortable in the classroom. True, OTRP Mentoring Services can match you to that type of mentoring if that's what you're looking for, but the Service is there for things outside the classroom, too. Go ahead, check out the Mentoring Services website. Scroll down through all the mentoring links, especially the "Mentoring of topics, methods, and issues" link and the "Mentoring of courses" link. Like me, you may find yourself saying, "Wow! I wish I'd known about that".
Who knows, you might even decide to offer your own expertise to the Mentoring Services resource!
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