About:
The website you are visiting originated as an informal discussion among several operatives at Fayetteville State University (FSU) in 2006. This group of individuals included Dr. Clara B. Jones (Department of Psychology), Dr. Jeffrey Cassisi (Department of Psychology), Dr. Peter Valenti (Director, FSU Teaching and Learning Center), and Mrs. Progyamita (Banerjee) Bhattacharya (Instructional Technologist, FSU-TLC). At this meeting, a preliminary plan for what we called the e-project was devised. At a later date, Dr. Daniel Montoya (Department of Psychology) joined our group. Administrative support was received for our project, and it was agreed that Dr. Jones would apply to the Association for Psychological Science (APS, Washington, DC) for funding. The envisioned website was planned to serve the multicultural and multinational community of psychology educators and to serve as a model for other psychology courses and other disciplines. Thus terminated Phase I of our project.
Phase II of the FSU bilingual psychology e-project entailed website design by Mrs. Bhattacharya whose expertise permitted the creation of a site to maximize utility for instructors drawing upon the collective experience of Drs. Jones and Montoya, our faculty colleagues, and the published literature. We anticipated a website that would be not only visually pleasing but also one that instructors would want to return to again and again and to share with their colleagues. Our e-project was designed to have the potential to serve as a model for other psychology courses and for other disciplines. Phase III of our e-project entailed editing of Dr. Jones’ introductory psychology study guides and the creation of three additional study guides for social psychology, psychology of gender, and multicultural psychology. We envisioned that access to these study guides would expose many teachers of introductory psychology to a novel teaching method permitting more flexibility in the scheduling of classroom formats and activities (e.g., greater use of classroom time for “hands on” activities, discussion, etc., rather than traditional lecture format). The use of study guides also has been found to facilitate creativity by teachers by encouraging supplementary teaching aids related to specific subject matter (e.g., pertinent DVDs; study and/or discussion questions).
Phase IV of the project entailed Dr. Montoya’s translations of the study guides and other text related to the webpage. Dr. José Franco (Foreign Language Department) was hired as a consultant for style and grammar. We planned our website to be accessible to Spanish- and English-speaking teachers of introductory psychology locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. Our website, we think, has the potential to create networks of instructors with common interests related to introductory psychology and with FSU, a university with a special mission to serve underrepresented groups. Finally, Phase V of our e-project entailed assembly of the final product which you are accessing now via your computer or other electronic source. This final product represents a completed bilingual website for the dissemination of resources for the teaching of introductory psychology and for the facilitation of communication and networking among psychology instructors.
We welcome you, then, to this website and wish to express our gratitude to the Association for Psychological Science (APS) for funding our e-initiative effective 30 March 2007. Particular appreciation is extended to Dr. Robert Henderson, Chair, Steering Committee, APS Fund for Teaching and Public Understanding of Psychological Science and to his assistant Sarah Brookhart, APS Deputy Director. These individuals were responsible for oversight of the review process that ultimately led to acceptance of our proposal. Thanks are also due to Ms. Xenia Lopez, Administrative Assistant, Department of Psychology, who was responsible for most administrative details related to our e-project.
If you wish additional information about our e-project, including discussion of ideas that you may have for your own virtual page for a psychology course, please contact Dr. Jones or Dr. Montoya.
Caveat: Although Dr. Clara B. Jones makes her study guides freely available to all reputable scholarly parties, users should understand that copyright laws apply, nonetheless, to use of these materials.
