Creating Instructor Resources as a Student Project

Abstract

A media psychology course for third- and fourth-year (upper division) undergraduates was designed around a semester-long active learning project aimed at developing instructor resources. Fifteen students worked both independently and collaboratively to create lecture and discussion modules on 30 topics in media psychology, each supplemented by a set of multimedia resources and a classroom activity with handouts. Students presented their materials to the class and participated in in-depth peer reviews. Through the process of developing instructor resources, students were expected to become familiar with the literature of a specific subdiscipline, and to learn how to (1) evaluate the relative importance of research topics within an academic literature, (2) assess the validity of information sources, (3) simplify complex concepts and research findings for a student audience, (4) make effective presentations, (5) give constructive feedback to peers, (6) identify and avoid subtle forms of plagiarism, and (7) apply advanced aspects of American Psychological Association (APA) format. Students evaluated the project quite favourably and were unanimous in their preference for developing instructor resources over writing a standard term paper.