The 3rd annual meeting of ONTOP was held on September 25,
2009 at
the Renaissance Hotel and Cox Convention Center in downtown Oklahoma City. There were approximately 130 attendees,
representing institutions around the state where psychology is taught,
including 6 high schools. Among our attendees were faculty members and graduate
students from Kansas Emporia State University.
There were three keynote presentations.
Professor Douglas Bernstein who is from University of South Florida and is
founder of the National Institute on Teaching of Psychology shared ten
important principles for teaching. Dr. Carol
Travis who is well known author
and speaker whose recent book with Elliot Aronson is entitled Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad
Decisions, and Hurtful Acts. She discussed cognitive
dissonance and its applications in the classroom and everyday life. Professor John Chaney discussed challenges in
teaching multicultural psychology in Oklahoma and the history of the American
Indians Into Psychology Program at OSU. In the afternoon, there were three break-out
workshops: 1) teaching of psychology in secondary schools (TOPSS), which was
led by Shirley Collins from Jenks High School, who is Oklahoma’s TOPSS
coordinator; 2) teaching of psychology at community colleges, which was led by
John Phelan from Western Oklahoma College, and 3) Preparing Future Faculty in
Psychology, which was led by Dr. Sue C. Jacobs from OSU and featured a panel
discussion of keynote speakers. ONTOP
also featured a poster session, which included presentations by faculty,
graduate students, as well as undergraduates.
The conference was financially supported by APA, Society for Teaching of
Psychology, Worth Publishers, Pearson Higher Education, Cengage
Learning, and the Department of Psychology at Oklahoma State University, the
School of Applied Health and Educational Psychology at OSU, and the Department
of Psychology at the University of Central Oklahoma.
ONTOP was
established in 2006 by Shelia Kennison, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology and is co-director by Dr. Kennison and Sue
C. Jacobs, Ph.D., Associate Professor
in the School of Applied Health and Educational Psychology. The purpose of ONTOP was to facilitate communication among educators involved in teaching of
psychology in the State of Oklahoma
at all educational levels. At the 45 institutions of higher education in Oklahoma,
there are hundreds faculty members and dozens of graduate students involved in the teaching of psychology.
Many faculty members work in small
institutions with few colleagues in psychology and little or no institution
support for attending national conferences
on the teaching of psychology. The
long-term goal of ONTOP is to improve the health and well-being of all
Oklahomans through educational outreach.
Pictures