How to Use This Resource
Welcome to the Social Psychology Instructor Guide. This resource is designed as a teaching supplement to the Principles of Social Psychology – 1st International H5P Edition open textbook.
Each module aligns with a chapter in the textbook and contains the following resources:
Instructor notes
These are notes are adapted from the Principles of Social Psychology textbook and contain the topics as well as some ideas of learning activities for your classroom.
Readings
This section will provide a link to the corresponding chapter in Principles of Social Psychology – 1st International H5P Edition.
Teaching Materials
This section contains a number of “Major Points” with videos and learning activities to support the topics. Each module contains an abundance of content. As an instructor, you will want to choose just 1 or 2 videos and perhaps just a few of the “Major Points” to cover. Below, you’ll find a number of suggestions that pertain to the course as a whole please feel free to use or adapt these suggestions as you craft your course.
Suggestion: Videos
While previewing/selecting your video clips, consider creating study questions for the learners to focus on while watching. These questions can also be adopted or adapted by instructors for exams. Rather than summarize key takeaways in each video, provide learners with guiding questions that act like ‘flashlights’ that help learners search and find the answers to the questions that may appear on quizzes.
Selecting Videos and Other Resources for your Course
Let’s face it, many of the teaching resources on YouTube and elsewhere are majority white and male reflecting the gender imbalance in the wider academic and scientific communities.
It takes discernment and a lot of time to balance the voices offered in a course. Below is a equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) audit that you can use for when selecting videos and articles for your course. Try to evenly balance the frequencies of voices/videos/articles into the table.
It requires an exhaustive – and exhausting – search!
Sometimes these voices are not yet present. If there are no BIPOC or other minority voices for a particular subject, be on the lookout for future publications and releases to reconcile your course’s EDI balance.
Should we add non-binary to this? – also unsure about use of other minority – maybe Chanelle can help with wording and/or an audit table?
| SME/Person’s identification | Female-identified | Male-identified |
| BIPOC and/or other Minority | ||
| White |
In addition to the videos identified in each module, here are two other series that may be of interest to you to include:
- The 25 Practical Psychology: Social Psychology videos. These are superb “doodle” style mini-lectures. An excellent foundation that instructors’ can build upon.
- Use all four Hank Green “Crash Course” videos
Bonus Suggestion
Seed the description of each video resource with study questions for learners. These questions can then be adopted by the instructor for exams. Rather than summarize key takeaways in each video, provide learners with guiding questions that act like ‘flashlights’ that help learners search and find the answers to the questions that MIGHT appear on quizzes.
Student Tasks
In this section, you’ll find the student activities including discussion prompts, assignments and links to request the chapter quizzes.
Suggestion: Discussion Boards
Looking for a way to switch up the traditional discussion board prompt of “Respond to TWO other posts indicating if you agree or disagree and why”?
Try moving up Bloom’s taxonomy of learning and have learners find the one post that describes an experience or opinion most like theirs and the one post most unlike theirs.It takes more cognitive work and deeper learning to look for “most similar” and “least similar” than it is to “agree” or “disagree.” It also may be more enjoyable to find others who have had the same – or very different – experiences.
Agreeing and disagreeing can be accomplished without ever reading the textbook and only reading the first two posts. Finding “most like” and “most unlike” requires scanning through several posts and knowing what you are looking for.
Suggestion: Assignments
Many of the suggested assignments in this resource are writing activities. Look for ways that learners can demonstrate their learning in other ways. Consider including “open format” assignments where learners can answer the prompt or demonstrate their learning in a more creative format. For example, learners may create a poster, a comic page, audio or video media, an advertisement, a short podcast or create a game. You can learn more about assessment choice in this University of Guelph research article.
Request Test Bank Questions
Some supplementary materials, such as test banks for open textbooks in the B.C. Open Textbook Collection are restricted to instructors working for a post-secondary institution. If you are an instructor who is using or evaluating an open textbook or course and would like to access faculty-only material, please complete the form found on this page.
Trauma-Informed Adaptations
Social Psychology, by necessity, requires in depth discussion of good and evil – including egregious acts of violence and neglect. Some effort should be taken to provide content alerts (a better phrase than “trigger warning” – a phrase which ironically can itself be triggering) and pre-describe the nature of the violence that will be discussed in class or viewed in assigned videos.
Learners should be given the guidance to choose a safe level of engagement with the course materials including: choosing the option to access the content outside of class time or seek professional support (provide list of mental health care providers) for reactions to disturbing content. In some cases of PTSD, learners may be offered alternative topics if they have lived experience of the topic and need to abstain from viewing the course material for medical reasons.