I think of myself as a school psychologist practicing in a university setting. I am a developmental psychologist by training, experience and inclination. I believe, with John Dewey and Lawrence Kohlberg, that development is the goal of education. I also take to heart Jean Piaget’s essential notion that students must become actively involved and interact with material in order to genuinely understand it. I feel particularly well suited to teaching psychology to students who are committed to pursuing professional careers in psychology and education.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to be able to teach graduate courses which are at the heart of my own development as a professional psychologist. In my graduate courses, I utilize a scientist- practitioner model of practice by requiring that students read refereed and peer-reviewed psychological and educational research, and apply it in assignments conducted in schools with children, teachers and parents during concurrent practica placements as student school psychologists. I purposefully introduce disequilibrium by demanding that students understand the knowledge base, or lack of existing knowledge, which supports any tool or intervention they are utilizing in the field. In this way, students will hopefully gain experience in questioning the types of activities they are asked to conduct, and appreciate the necessity of grounding professional practice in scientific knowledge. Given the dramatic pace and scope of change in educational practices, and the increased accountability demands in public schools, a key goal is for students to learn how to access information to solve problems that go beyond their current knowledge, and to be able to assess the effectiveness of the interventions they recommend or assist others to develop.

In terms of my undergraduate teaching, my goal is to create a learning environment where students will be able to translate psychological theories into useful constructs they can apply in their own professional work with children, or their lives. I ask students to write papers on a regular basis, where they pose questions that have been generated by lectures or class discussions, and report observations of children in light of theories and experiments concerning cognitive, social and emotional development. I respond in writing to student papers, and attempt to construct an ongoing dialogue with each student that encourages their involvement beyond what a 40-student lecture course usually provides. Students in my courses also typically conduct experimental interviews and observations with children to attempt to verify the presence of developmental processes in a child’s reasoning.

My current research interests include measuring outcomes in training practices in school psychology, developing appropriate assessment and intervention models for students with learning disabilities and differences, understanding reading disabilities, developing and assessing conceptual changes in school-based and consultee-centered consultation, and defining best practices in programs and services for students with emotional and behavioral disorders.