Teaching

Educational/Pedagogical Projects

CinemaPsych Podcast: A biweekly podcast hosted by me and a guest host (fellow psychology educator). We discuss popular Hollywood films and their use of psychological concepts. Because me and my guest host are both teachers, we tackle each film from a pedagogical perspective. We hope this podcast can serve as a useful teaching tool for our fellow psychology instructors and entertaining to film and psychology enthusiasts everywhere.

Alexander Swan YouTube Channel: A one-stop shop for videos on everything I know how to do, including psychology, statistics, research methods, and technology/apps. Need to know how to work with Jamovi or JASP? What about making graphs in Excel? Do you want to take an online course in Health Psychology or Social Psychology? My YouTube channel has a ton of videos to watch to learn about a whole lot of things!

Cognition in Class: A cognitive/educational psychology blog site, where students are the blog post writers! I use this site every year in my PSY 215/Cognitive Psychology course, and have been using it since 2017. Students take cognitive psychological theory and apply it to practical studying and learning situations for new college students.

Teaching Philosophy: Sharing psychological science with students (and anyone, really) brings me immeasurable joy. The human mind and body is fascinating. Thus, my goal for teaching is to share this joy and enthusiasm into my students. The crucial pedagogical principles I believe influence my teaching approach are as follows: appreciation for the scientific method, critical thinking, active learning [1], humor [2], and flexibility and compassion.

[1] Fiorella, L., & Mayer, R. E. (2015). Learning as a generative activity: Eight learning strategies that promote understanding. New York: Cambridge University Press.
[2] Garner, R. L. (2006). Humor in pedagogy: How ha-ha can lead to aha! College Teaching, 54(1), 177-180.

Courses Taught/Sample Teaching Materials

I am always in the process of compiling my teaching materials. Compiling is an ongoing basis and you should assume this page is always a little behind—enjoy the links provided here.

Eureka College

A work in progress: documents/files coming soon!

Mount Mary University

Marquette University

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)

Useful Teaching Links & Videos

Want to create APA Tables and Figures in Excel? Take a look at these videos!

Want to learn how to use JASP Statistics?

Society for Teaching of Psychology (STP; APA Division 2)
STP: ToPIX (Teaching of Psychology Idea Exchange): Such a great resource for activities, demos, videos, etc for most things about psychology.
Monmouth University: Teach Psych Science: Full of resources for research methods and statistics for psychological science.
The Learning Scientists: A cognitive psychology blog written by psychologists, for both teachers and students. Posts are geared toward effective learning!
Jon Mueller, North Central College, Resources for the Teaching of Social Psychology: Excellent repository of activities and demonstrations of social psychological principles
Indiana University’s Cognitive Science Movie Index: A big list of movies that have topics related to cognitive science; the public can rate the accuracy, quality, and relevance of these films to the related psych concepts!

Student Links & Resources

How to Study Video Series, Stephen Chew, Samford University
10 Things College Professors Hate, Business Insider
How to build a relationship with your professors, Teen Vogue
Tips for Office Hours, College of William and Mary
College lingo (useful if you are first-gen college student), University Language