STP Early Career Psychologist Council

 STP is now accepting nominations (including self-nominations) for this new Council. Nominees must be members of STP, within 7 years of having completed their doctoral degrees, and willing to commit to a three-year term to work with the VP for RRR to promote the interests of early career professionals. Nominations should include a CV, the name of two references who agree to be contacted, and a one-page statement of interest in the position. Please reply by February 14th to Regan A. R. Gurung or Diane Finley.

The Early Career Professionals (ECP) Council is comprised of four members who are engaged in establishing their professional careers. The Vice President of Recruitment, Retention, and Public Relations will serve as ex-officio member. The Council is charged with spearheading activities and opportunities to aid Early Career Professionals through education, training and networking, and as well as representing ECP interests in division matters. Possible projects might include a workshop for the APA/STP program or maybe for the STP hospitality suite or building a web link for early career professionals on the STP homepage.

Chair and Members

This Council is comprised of a Chair and members, all of whom are within 7 years of having completed their doctoral degrees. The Council Chair oversees the activities of the Council and will be appointed by the VP and STP-Executive Council. Each Council member, including the Chair, will serve a three-year term. Terms will be staggered.

Activities, Responsibilities, Policies, and Procedures.

The ECP Council works to promote the contributions and concerns of Early Career Professionals in Division matters. This is accomplished through two avenues. First, members of the ECP Council are assigned to Division Councils or Committees of particular interest to the ECP membership. Committee assignments are based on representation, need, relevance to ECP issues, and the respective member's interests. Second, the ECP Council will promote training and professional development through organization and implementation of focused programs at the Annual Meeting and other endeavors consistent with these goals.

Responsibilities of specific ECP Council members include the following:

Early Career Professionals Council Chair. Maintain contact with and coordinate activities of the ECP Council members; prepare and submit two reports each year to the VP for RRR (prior to mid-winter and APA convention Board meetings).

Liaison to APA Early Career Professionals Network. Report to the Division leadership about activities and needs.

Budget
The Council will have a budget of $1000.00 to support incidental expenses related to any initiatives the committee comes up with or to facilitate council meetings (conference calls, meetings).

Why Would You Want to be a DCS Consultant?

If you are reading this blog (which you are!), you probably already have a good idea of what DCS is about. You may have even used DCS as a resource when locating a consultant for your own department. But have you considered becoming a consultant for DCS?

First, you should know that DCS does not pay consultants. Not even a dime! But the departments that contract with consultants do pay. So one reason to consider becoming listed as a DCS consultant is that it can provide opportunities to add to your income. Departments are expected to cover your travel expenses plus an honorarium, the honorarium being negotiated between you and the department.

You may also enjoy serving as a consultant because of the intellectual adventure involved in learning about a department and providing recommendations. You may find it satisfying to help a department make progress toward its goals, solve a problem, or validate its excellence.

Another benefit is the opportunity to learn about different departments and meet diverse faculty and staff. You may find that you learn things from other departments that you can apply to your own department.

If this sounds good to you, I hope you will consider applying to be listed as a DCS consultant. The basic requirements are that you must have some experience as an administrator (e.g. department chair, assistant dean), you must have experience as a program evaluator, and you must have expertise in multiple consultation areas (e.g., curriculum, faculty development, advising, assessment). The most common request that we get is for an overall department evaluation or self-assessment. We do have a fairly rigorous review process involving review by current DCS consultants and by the APA's Board of Educational Affairs.

We review applications at the beginning of the fall and spring semesters. The deadline for spring, 2011 applications is January 28. If you are interested in applying, please contact me at kreiner@ucmo.edu.

Identifying Problems You Don’t Know Your Department Has

One of the most common requests that we receive is for a consultant to do a general evaluation of the department or to help the department conduct a self-assessment. In previous posts, I outlined some issues that come up in two common situations: (1) you think your department is in excellent shape; and (2) you know that your department has problems. In the last post of this series, I will address what happens if your department is somewhere in between. In other words, you have a general awareness that your department could be in better shape, but you're not sure what particular problems might exist. This is an excellent time to seek out an experienced external consultant to help you identify those problems.

It might help to consider some of the more likely culprits, those issues that tend to present difficulties to many departments. Of course, the specifics associated with any of these areas may well be unique to your institution.

• Do you have clearly defined goals for each of your degree programs?
  
• Do the goals of your programs fit with the mission of your department and your institution?
  
• Could the design of your programs be improved? Have you compared against APA recommendations and benchmarked against other departments?
  
• Are you doing a good job of advising and mentoring your students? Are they aware of the opportunities in your department? Are they prepared for the workplace and/or graduate school?
  
• Do you have assessment activities that provide useful information about whether you are meeting your goals?
  

Depending on where you are in evaluating your department, you may want to develop a list of questions like these, but tailor them specifically to your department. Your department could then ask one or more external consultants to help you answer your questions. If the answer is that your department could improve, consultants can help you plan a path to make changes. If your department is not at the point of being able to formulate specific questions, then consultants can guide you through that process.

If you are interested in hiring one or more external consultants, DCS can provide you (at no charge!) with a list of recommendations for potential consultants. If you have any questions about our services, please contact me at kreiner@ucmo.edu.

ToPIX Weekly Update for (2/24 to 3/3/10)

ToPIX had over 300 unique visitors in the last week.  If you'd like to add your favorite teaching resources, activities, or videos to ToPIX, send me an email for information on how to get started: topix@teachpsych.org.  Looking forward to hearing from you!

Must-see:

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/APA-Style-Videos

If you liked Eric Landrum's SPSS videos, check out his APA-style videos!

New content:

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Statistics-Video

For those who viewed Eric Landrum's SPSS videos, the dataset he used in those videos is now available for download as both an SPSS file and csv file.  (Thanks to Michael Britt for suggesting that the dataset be available, and thanks to Eric Landrum for providing it!)

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Neuroscience-Video

Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk: Stroke of Insight. Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist, talks of what it was like to have a stroke.

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/APA-Rules

We now have official rules of use for ToPIX.

ToPIX Weekly Update (2/17-2/23)

Must-see.

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Statistics-Video

Using SPSS. (Courtesy of Eric Landrum, 1/2010)

• Starting Up and Navigating an SPSS File [8.8 MB]
  
• Data Entry in SPSS [7.7 MB]
  
• Descriptive Statistics in SPSS [14.3 MB]
  
• Correlations in SPSS [9.1 MB]
  
• Independent Samples t Tests in SPSS [8.8 MB]
  
• One-way ANOVA (between groups variable) in SPSS [9.7 MB]
  
• Two-way ANOVA (both between groups variables) in SPSS [10.8 MB]
  
• Chi-square in SPSS [6.3 MB]
  

New ToPIX content for 2/17 to 2/23

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com

TOPSS Speakers Bureau (a speakers bureau category has been added to the main page)

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Gestalt-Principles-of-Perception

Reversible figure-ground in the iPhone/iPod game "Shift" (Recommended by Michael Britt via PsychTeacher)

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Human-Factors-in-the-Classroom

Games To Explain Human Factors: Come, Participate, Learn & Have Fun!!! (Ron Shapiro)

Human Factors/Ergonomics: How Can It Influence Your Students?  (Ron Shapiro)

National Ergonomics Month (Ron Shapiro)

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Human-Factors-in-the-News

Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Bulletin (Ron Shapiro)

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Taste-Demos

Taste buds from PsychKits

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Neuroscience-in-the-News

Story of Book-Writing Coma Patient Debunked (NPR, 2/17/2010)

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Memory-in-the-Classroom

Peter's Friends (coutesy of Bill Altman, via PsychTeacher, 2/14/2010)

Web-based Gary Wells eyewitness test (courtesy of Joe Melcher, via PsychTeacher, 2/14/2010)

Web-based street scene eyewitness test (courtesy of Nick Schmitt via PsychTeacher, 2/14/2010)
Standard vs. cognitive interview (courtesy of Keiron Walsh via PsychTeacher, 2/15/2010 

The case of the missing briefcase (courtesy of Chuck Behensky via PsychTeacher, 2/15/2010)

Details (courtesy of Ron Shapiro, 2/18/2010)

http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Psychological-Disorders-Video

Bring Change 2 Mind (Dan Segrist, via PsychTeacher listserv, 2/17/2010)

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The Teaching of Psychology Idea Exchange (ToPIX) is a product of  the Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology, an offering of APA Division 2: Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP).   If you find ToPIX to be a useful resource, consider supporting it by joining STP, if you're not already a member.  You do not need to be a member of APA to join; dues are only $25/year.  If you're already a member of STP, thanks for your support!

 

 

ToPIX: Most Recent Additions (2/9/2010 – 2/16/2010)

New ToPIX features:

"In the News" category for psychology-related news.

Top-of-the-page navigation has been added to main page navigation and to the 'navigator' window on the left.

New ToPIX content in the last 7 days:

Must-see:

Create your own customized view of 3-D Brain (and Body) Parts: http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Neuroscience-in-the-Classroom (Jeff Stowell)

Video:

Medical study: Autism-vaccine study flawed: http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Development-Video (Bethany Fleck)

Albert Bandura Bobo doll video: http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Learning-Video (Sue Frantz)

In the News:

How to train the aging brain: http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Development-In-the-News (Sheryl Hartman)

H.M.'s brain and the history of memory: http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Memory-in-the-News (Sue Frantz)

Color vision: How our eyes reflect primate evolution: http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Sensation-in-the-News (Sue Frantz)

Dementia risk seen in players in NFL study: http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Neuroscience-in-the-News (Sue Frantz)

Monkeys, candy, and cognitive dissonance: http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Social-in-the-News (Sue Frantz)

Our politics may be all in our heads: http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Personality-in-the-News (Sue Frantz)

Soda: A sin we sip instead of smoke? : http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Learning-in-the-News (Sue Frantz)

New poll shows support for repeal of 'don't ask don't tell': http://teachpsych.pbworks.com/Research-Methods-in-the-News (Sue Frantz)

Introducing ToPIX

The STP Teaching Resources Wiki is now the Teaching of Psychology Idea Exchange (TOPIX) -- http://teachpsych.pbworks.com, renamed to better reflect the purpose of the site. Launched in late fall, the site continues to grow, now averaging 150 visitors per week. Although the site is still in its infancy, there is much content to browse. We have posted, for example, 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, including TED videos of Oliver Sacks, Daniel Goleman, and Dan Gilbert; and resources created by other APA divisions, such as the "Curriculum Guide for Education on Child Maltreatment" courtesy of Div. 37: Society for Child and Family Policy and Practice. The core of the site revolves around classroom activities, videos, and our newest addition, 'In the News,' where summaries of articles from the popular press are linked to the original source and classroom-appropriate discussion questions are provided.  If the news article refers to a journal article, look for the article citation and DOI in the summary. Anyone can visit ToPIX, but only members of the site can add content or offer comments.  Click 'edit' on any page to join. If you find something useful to your teaching, please leave something for those who follow. We're looking forward to your contributions!