What drives an award-winning professor to forge meaningful connections with their students? How can a meme set the tone for learning? This month, we’re excited to spotlight Dr. Marcus Leppanen from the Department of Psychological Sciences, whose outstanding contributions earned him both the Young Faculty Award and the Mary W. Pinschmidt Award.
Over the past year, you’ve received both the Young Faculty Award and the Mary W. Pinschmidt Award, which highlight your exceptional teaching and ability to connect with students. What keeps you motivated in the classroom, and what do you think are the keys to building meaningful connections with your students?
While it might sound cliché, what keeps me motivated in the classroom is the students. I have had many days where I was not feeling up to going to a class, but after interacting with the students I almost always end up feeling better. Their genuine interest in learning and in me as a person really motivate me to give them my best effort. I think what helps with building meaningful connections is seeing the students as people first and students second. I try to start every class asking my students how they are doing (usually with a smattering of thumbs up or thumbs down in response) but when they ask me back it energizes me to have a good class. Equity in the classroom is important and having guidelines for students to follow is important, but there are ways to maintain those things while putting individuals first. My approach to teaching is to show the students that learning is fun and interesting, and that examples do not have to be boring. I think that attitude helps me to connect with them. I also think you have to want to be approachable and students pick up on that.
In what ways do you see your research and teaching informing one another?
I am trained as a cognitive psychologist. What that means is that I am interested in how people think and how thinking affects behavior. My graduate training and much of my research career has focused on memory. The goal of instructors is for students to learn, so having an understanding of what leads to stronger memories allows me to directly put my training into practice with how I develop assessments. At the same time, I am currently doing research looking at how eye movement behaviors during test taking are related to testing anxiety and test performance. I see how many students are anxious about testing in the classroom and have used those observations to drive a new line of research. I somewhat lucked into a career where my research and my teaching are pretty much directly related.
Can you share a time when you took a risk by trying something new in the classroom? What encouraged you to try it, and what was the outcome?
For me, one of the biggest risks I have taken was in how I assess my students. I was teaching my Cognitive Neuroscience class and really needing something to assess students on besides quizzes and a paper. I had never created a novel assignment from scratch before, but was encouraged by what I know about learning to make an assignment. I developed what I called a “Share the Knowledge” assignment. For the assignment, students are asked to have informal conversations with someone about what they are learning in class and then write a reflection on how it went, but also what it taught them about their own knowledge. The outcome of the assignment has been really exciting! The reflection papers are fun to read instead of the typical assignment we dread grading as faculty. Students seem to enjoy the activity and many will anecdotally write about how much they liked the practice of talking about class content. Students “accidentally” get exposed to different viewpoints through these conversations and they often notice that happening. I have also learned that the assignment is a low-stakes way to assess student writing while also being something that discourages the use of AI. I use the assignment in multiple classes because it is not about the content, it is about the process and the skills the students are practicing.
Is there anything that stands out to you that has prepared you or continues to prepare you most for effective teaching?
What has, and continues to, prepare me for effective teaching is having a group of colleagues who also care about teaching well. I find I am able to talk about my ideas to get feedback but that I also learn new ideas from talking with them.
Who was your favorite teacher?
I have had a lot of great teachers, but my favorite was Mr. Nelson. He was my High School earth sciences teacher. He always demonstrated a passion for his content while also taking the time to be interactive with his students. He made me laugh, but I also learned a lot. Because of him I almost went to college for Geology!
What is your favorite way to start a class?
I start all of my classes with a meme. I think getting students to chuckle about something unimportant at the start of class can help put them in a better mood for learning.
8 a.m. class or 4:00 p.m. class?
As someone who commutes 35 minutes to campus, definitely a 4:00pm class!
What is your favorite UMW class to teach? Why?
I think my favorite class to teach is Cognitive Neuroscience. I have always been fascinated by the brain and getting to talk to students about how biology is related to psychology is a fun challenge.
What would be your dream class to teach?
I would love to be able to teach a semester-long class just on memory. I was able to do that during my post-doc and it was great. There are so many nuances to how memory works that you just cannot get through in one week of class, so I would really enjoy getting to dive deeper into memory again.
What is one piece of advice you’d give a brand-new faculty member?
My biggest piece of advice would be to use the resources you have available to you and be curious. Many of the connections I have on campus have come from attending workshops put on by the Center for Teaching. Wanting to learn about how other people teach is a great way to improve your own teaching, feel more supported in a new environment, and develop connections within the campus community.
What podcast would you currently recommend? (or book/show/etc.)
I hate to admit I have only been reading fictional crime novels lately! James Patterson is always one of my go-tos.
If you could take any class in the UMW catalog, what would it be?
I recently learned that there is an American Studies class being taught about baseball that sounds absolutely fascinating to me. However, I have been told I need to wait until the next iteration before I do.
What were you like as a student in college?
I was a prototypical quiet student in college. I made a point to always show up to my classes, take notes, and get my work done on time, but I never raised my hand or participated unless I absolutely had to. I liked tests and thought of them as a way to challenge myself to see how much I knew about what I was learning. While my faculty never would have known, I enjoyed being in class and hearing an expert talk about something that was new to me. Learning is fun for me and that motivated me to try hard while I was in college.