Blogs @ Baruch: Prompt 1

1. Hi! Nice meeting you! Could you introduce yourself? What department are you from? What courses are you teaching or have been teaching? What are the classes you teach like, such as format or class size? Is there anything you want to tell us about your teaching, research, or other projects? 

Hi everyone! My name is Wiston Rodriguez from the Psychology department. I am a 4th year PhD student in the Industrial-Organizational (I/O) Psychology program at The Graduate Center & Baruch College. All of the courses that I teach (or have taught) are I/O courses (e.g., Intro to I/O Psychology, Advanced Organizational Psychology, Motivation, and Leadership). All these courses have been taught as in-person, hybrid, and/or fully online (synchronous and asynchronous). Outside of teaching, my research focuses on employee well-being, the work/non-work interface, and diversity issues in the workplace.

Could you talk a little bit about that course you’ll be working on during this seminar? 

The course I will be working on during the seminar is PSY 4181 (Advanced Organizational Psychology). This course is an extension of PSY 3181 (Introduction to I/O Psychology) and discussions are structured to look like discussions that at the graduate level (e.g., discussion implications of research findings and discussing solutions to workplace issues).

What are the listed learning goals of your course? They could be ones provided by the department, or ones that you have written for your syllabus? Please list them (pasting is fine!).

1. Summarize, interpret, and critically evaluate theories, and empirical findings in organizational psychology.
2. Apply content knowledge to understand employee’s behaviors in real organizations.
3. Analytically describe how organizations can utilize psychological concepts, theories, findings, and research methods to influence their employees.
4. Demonstrate your ability to collaborate with peers in and outside of the classroom.
5. Deliver your own thoughts to others through written assignments and in-class discussions.

What class materials are you planning to develop? What goals do you have for them?

I would like to revise an assignment that already exists or see if I can come up with a new assignment for this course. The assignments I’m thinking about revising are either a) the final presentation at the end of the semester where students have to present on an organizational issue and discuss how they would solve it, or b) the class facilitation assignment that students complete as a team of 2-3 students and lead the class discussion. I’m probably learning more towards the class facilitation since students struggled with the engagement aspect of the assignment.