Dr. Karl Nelson, assistant professor of psychology, is an avid educator not only for teaching undergraduate psychology, but also for researching teaching- and learning-related topics. Because of his strong interest in teaching and learning, he has recently been awarded several teaching awards. Especially, this year, he was awarded FACET, Founders’ Day, and Trustee’s. In addition, he has been collaborating with several departments such as CISTL, Geosciences, and History and contributing to Writing Across Curriculum and College Teachers for Undergraduate Psychology.

Regarding teaching philosophy, Dr. Karl Nelson believes learning takes place through conversations in a variety of formats. As ideas move between individuals, those engaged in the learning process begin to understand key ideas, apply new concepts, and experience individual transformation and development. Knowledge and understanding develop through active discussion.  “Passive” learning, such as sitting and listening, or reading, without questioning, challenging, and discussing ideas does not provide a coherent body of knowledge. 

In addition, Dr. Karl Nelson has applied his teaching philosophy into actual classroom instructions. First, before any class begins, he prepares the groundwork for the conversation and puts a combined set of handouts and chapter outlines online.  This provides a framework for organizing future discussion and reduces the amount of note taking during classes. Second, he encourages students to enter the dialogue by allowing time at the beginning of each class for student questions.  Encouraging such questioning results in closer analysis of readings and increased exploration of materials presented in class.

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Third, he provides rewards (Bonus Points) for asking good questions. It provides an easy, safe way for students to enter the conversation.  Over the course of the semester, student questions gradually probe deeper into the class material and start to draw in information from other classes, such as other psychology classes or classes in other disciplines, into our conversation about psychological phenomena. Fourth, he regularly asks questions of students in the class. His questions emphasize the relationship of current material to previously presented material and ask for student opinions on course-relevant questions.  These questions allow him to determine current student knowledge and remind students about how they left the conversation in previous classes. Fifth, he role-plays figures from the history of psychology, or other characters, to help students understand specific ideas.  This allows the students to engage in a conversation to improve understanding of certain ideas.  When students do not understand psychoanalysis, answering questions as Freud can help.  On issues of psychological diagnoses, students often have trouble understanding why a disorder would cause problems.  Role-playing the television character Monk can help students understand the impact of Obsessive-Compulsive disorder. Lastly, he provides ongoing feedback about learning through daily quizzes.  The class discussion offers one source of feedback.  However, small quizzes seem to better motivate students to keep up with current material so that students can actively engage in the discussion.  To heighten the impact of quizzes on student learning, we discuss the answers to all quiz questions immediately after the quiz, and he asks students to provide the answers.