Abstracts of recent articles published in Psychology Teaching Review

Abstract

Restrictions on in-person teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic severely challenged higher education practices worldwide. While didactic delivery of course content is easily achievable with virtual teaching technologies, promoting critical engagement with this material can be more dif fi cult, particularly with classes of larger size and lower experience. Yet despite these practical challenges, for teachers of social psychology the pandemic context offered an unprecedented pedagogical opportunity to highlight both the relevance and limitations of social psychological research for tackling societal challenges. This paper outlines a strategy developed to sustain socially critical learning objectives within remote delivery of a large introductory social psychology module. This revolved around establishing asynchronous, peer-led online discussion forums wherein students independently considered how the concepts they encountered in weekly pre-recorded lec-tures could be applied to understand societal responses to the pandemic. The present article describes the structure of this pedagogical activity and the bene fi ts it offered to students, teaching staff and the wider community. recent months has inevitably been on developing online methods of teaching and attempts to develop psychological literacy have of necessity received less attention. However, we argue that the developments enforced by Covid-19 actually open up a range of new possibilities and that psychological literacy can bene fi t from these changes. In particular, we suggest that much of the transmission of psychological knowledge can continue to take place online and that universities should become places where the focus is on the application of that knowledge. Higher education (HE) is fairly accommodating of sexual diversity in many countries. However, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and other sexual minority (LGBT + ) students and staff still face many challenges regarding acceptance and integration which may impact learning and teaching experiences. This article discusses the relevance of LGBT + inclusivity in pedagogy and the ways by which it can be incorporated into HE with examples from teaching in Psychology. It also discusses some of the advantages and risks associated with ‘ coming out ’ for LGBT + aca-demics to broaden visibility at university. Queer pedagogical perspectives, which question the use of identity-based LGBT + representations in education and propose alternative ways of queering the curriculum, are also reviewed. The article concludes by attempting to bridge identity-based and critical perspectives to positively contribute to LGBT + inclusivity in HE, and by af fi rming the importance of joint work from universities ’ senior leadership and aca-demics to achieve that aim. Drug and alcohol neonate simulators were used to highlight the effects of substance misuse on prenatal development within lifespan development modules to 61 Psychology undergraduates and 12 sixth-form Health and Social Care students. A mixed method approach was used con-sidering both knowledge development and perceptions of experiential hands-on learning. Student knowledge of the effects of drugs and alcohol on prenatal development was assessed before and after an interactive session on teratogenesis utilising neonate simulators demonstrating these effects. With this experiential learning approach, the statistical analysis combining both groups showed increased knowledge after the interactive session, and the students perceived this enhanced understanding to be a direct result of hands-on interaction with the neonate simulators. The researchers encourage the use of neonate simulators as good practice that can be effectively incorporated into the psychology and other health-related teaching contexts to facili-tate knowledge on teratogenesis.