Re: philosophy of teaching intro psych

[RICKER]

Peter Lawson writes:

>I don't believe that the most important things we do to help
>our students learn are really "things," but ways of approaching
>life and people.

I would be very interested in knowing precisely what you mean by this. The fact
is that the majority of my intro-psych students do not learn many "things"
(which I am interpreting to mean "knowledge of general theoretical approaches
and specific theories in psychology), but I do hope to teach them the basics of
a scientific approach to life--what it means to be skeptical about knowledge
claims, and how to test these claims--especially with regard to psychological
matters. Is this what you mean by "ways of approaching life and people" or do
you have something else in mind?

Jeff Ricker
Scottsdale Community College
Scottsdale AZ
[EMAIL PROTECTED]