Educational Approach

Advising Bachelor, Master, and PhD Students

I enjoy guiding student projects, and mentoring students is a most pleasurable part of my job. I maintain a dynamic and interactive relationship with students and see working with them as an opportunity to inspire future generations. I offer my students regular meetings and personal guidance, and I make myself available for their concerns. Not only is my collaborative approach greatly appreciated by students, its educational and scientific value is also evidenced by the high number of student conference presentations, poster awards for student projects, and my publications with student co-authors.

During my PhD at the University of Zurich, I supervised student project groups for a total of 9 semesters, which led to the successful completion of 8 master theses. I have since maintained this student-centered hands-on approach and supervised a total of 18 master students and 38 bachelor students at four different Universities. I have always tried to motivate students to present their work at scientific conferences, and many of their studies have been accepted and presented at national and international conferences.

At the University of Fribourg, I have supervised two PhD students. After initial guidance to get acquainted with the research methods used in my lab, I expect students to conceptualize and design their own studies. I motivate and support my students to improve their teaching skills and to participate in doctoral programs and summer schools. I also provide active help with preparing manuscripts, with the aim that their dissertation papers can be published in high-ranking journals, and that they will be highly qualified researchers by the end of their PhD. My doctoral students are first authors on all of their dissertation papers and have successfully presented their work at international conferences.

At postdoctoral level, I supervised and mentored several junior scientists, supported them in applying for jobs and personal research grants, or mediated postdoctoral positions, as I believe that the promotion of young academics should not end with their graduation. I am particularly proud that one of my former master students and mentee was recently awarded an SNSF Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship and is an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Education, University College London.

Lectures

In my lectures, I try to provide a good knowledge base, while also engaging students with small group activities and illustrative material, including current research findings and practical examples. After obtaining my Venia Docendi in 2013, I have taught several introductory lectures on bachelor level. For example, Developmental Psychology I, which focuses on early development and – among other topics – covers perceptual, cognitive, motor, personality, identity, social, and moral development, as well as methods in infant and child research. I have also taught Developmental Psychology II, covering the age range of young to old adulthood, and topics such as physical and cognitive changes across the lifespan, typical age-related health problems, social and personality development, age stereotypes and ageism, and methods in lifespan psychology. I also taught Introduction to Psychology at the Swiss Distance Learning University, including topics such as theories of learning, the concept of intelligence and its measurement, memory and attention, interpersonal and social perception, prosocial behavior and stereotype threat, personality development, motivation and measurement of motifs.

Seminars

I highly value the format of seminars, as it offers an excellent environment for interactive learning, scientific discussion, and engaging students. I have taught several seminars in both German and English on topics such as cognitive development, development in later adulthood, embodied cognition, spatial cognition, and intuitive knowledge. I typically incorporate group work and student presentations, and I have also had very good experiences using a collaborative learning approach inspired by the jigsaw method, in which some students acquire more profound knowledge on one subject within an expert group, and then exchanged their knowledge within different “jigsaw” groups. I typically begin the class with a short kick-off (impulse) presentation and end it with a moderated plenary discussion, according to the method of increasing group, which allows for a progression from deeper to broader discussions, involving more perspectives and diverse aspects. This also gives me the opportunity to provide feedback and make sure that the most important points were covered. Many students highly appreciate the intensive discussions and the cooperative learning setting. Seminars that I held using this approach were evaluated very positively by the students.

Research Methods

In my opinion, research methods should be taught early, because an introduction to the tools of the trade helps students read, understand, and appropriately interpret the scientific literature they encounter during their studies. For example, learning about control groups and confounding variables facilitates scientific and critical thinking when reading research articles. Having a basic methodological knowledge can also help students to more easily grasp statistical concepts and procedures. Personally, I am very passionate about methodological questions and taught several methods classes both during and after my PhD. I embrace the challenge of developing new, nonverbal, or behavioral paradigms in developmental research. I also think that it is important to know methodologies used in different research fields, and to have a large methodological repertoire.

In my research methods classes, I prefer to use project-oriented approaches, in which the students carry out empirical studies that generate real data. In my experience, students are more engaged and motivated when they can run their own studies, and they gain insight into the whole research process, from the recruitment of participants to the presentation of results. Therefore, in my methods classes students typically run small studies in collaborative groups, learn how to enter and analyze data, and practice how to write a scientific report. I also encourage students to present their work at student conferences. Many have used this opportunity, and it was always a motivating and rewarding experience for them (and me) to see their work being appreciated by other scholars. Some students of my methods classes even won poster awards.

E-learning

Early in my career, I gained valuable experience in E-learning through my assistance in the project Swiss Virtual Campus, a federal program aimed at promoting internet-based learning at Swiss institutions of higher education. I created online learning materials for the course Methodological Education for the Social Sciences and participated in the early development of this project. In the fall semester of 2018, I also taught at the Swiss Distance Learning University and was responsible for the module Introduction to Psychology in the Bachelor Program. This engagement provided me with further valuable experience in hybrid education and blended learning.

Teaching Portfolio

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