I have always had this extreme sense of curiosity that only learning has ever been able to truly satisfy; thus, I have a tremendous love for learning and teaching. I firmly believe that with passionate and encouraging professors, critical thinking skills, and the experience of life lessons, great students can emerge. I strive to challenge my students to question everything and enjoy learning as much as possible. I also emphasize and apply a famous motto to the classroom that was created many years ago, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
Even though I have only taught for a short amount of time, beginning in 2009, I consider my teaching approach an evolving one. I constantly evaluate and reevaluate my teaching strategies; I enjoy watching the student’s progress throughout each course and consider teaching to be an individual, yet, collective approach between constantly changing interactions between peers, students, and teacher. I believe students are capable of maturing in classrooms where the teacher displays the same amount of open-mindedness and willingness to learn that you hope and expect from the students. I believe this is best accomplished when many teaching techniques are used, rather than the ‘traditional’, passive transmission of information (i.e., lecture). These include small group interactions, project based learning, large class discussions, multimedia technology, and gaming (e.g., digital and non-digital).
Invited Teaching Talks & Teaching Publications
Teaching Talks: Stansbury, J. A (2019, May). Online Teaching Circle: Blended Course Designs Workshop. Invited presenter for Towson University’s Office of Academic Innovation and Office of Technology Services. Towson, MD
Stansbury, J. A (2019, March). FreshTech: Exploring the use of extended reality technologies. Invited teaching talk for Towson University’s Office of Academic Innovation and Office of Technology Services. Towson, MD
Stansbury, J. A (2018, March). Play on: Using games to enhance learning in the classroom. Invited teaching talk for Towson University’s Smarter Not Harder Series, College of Health Professions. Towson, MD.
Stansbury, J. A., & Earnest, D. R. (2018, March). Gamification and the publication game. Invited teaching talk for Towson University’s Office of Academic Innovation. Towson, MD.
Leigh, A. O., Stansbury, J. A., Earnest, D. R. (2017, October). Improving Student Engagement and Learning via Small Group Analysis. Invited teaching talk for Towson University’s Department of Mathematics. Towson, MD.
Stansbury, J.A. (2015, February). Playing to Learn and Learning to Play: Innovative Approaches to engage Students in Learning. Invited teaching talk for the College of Liberal Arts Teaching Session, Towson University, MD
Teaching Publications: Stansbury, J.A., & Munro, G. D., (2016). Activity: Gaming your way to an understanding of factorial designs. Play in research methods! [Teaching Resource]. TeachPsychScience.org. Resources for Teaching Research, Statistics, and Writing in Psychology. Association for Psychological Science (APS) Fund for Teaching and Public Understanding of Psychological Science. Retrieved from http://www.teachpsychscience.org/resource.asp?id=224. Stansbury, J.A. (2015). Course syllabus motivation [Syllabus]. Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology Online. Society for the Teaching of Psychology, Division 2 of American Psychological Association. Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/otrp/syllabi/index.php
Courses I teach include Research Methods in Psychology (Including Hybrid Version), Social Psychology, Motivation, and Introduction to Psychology. Please see course descriptions below.
PSYC 314 RESEARCH METHODS IN PSYCHOLOGY (4) The experimental method and its application to recent problems in psychological research; introduction to experimental design and inference. Three hours lecture, two hours of laboratory per week. Prerequisites: PSYC 101 or PSYC 102, PHIL 101 or PHIL 111, ENGL 102 or ENGL 190, PSYC 212. GenEd I.D.
PSYC 325 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (3) An introduction to the theory and research of how people think about, influence, and relate to each other. Topics include social cognition, attitudes, aggression and helping. Prerequisite: 6 hours of Psyc.
PSYC 315 [515] MOTIVATION (3) Interaction between physiological, neurological and pharmacological aspects of motivation with environmental influences, such as culture, learning and social dynamics. Issuesin human motivation and emotion which will be emphasized are aggression, sex, achievement (competence) and cognitive-social influences. Prerequisite: 6 hours of Psyc.
PSYC 101 INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY (3) Psychological theories, principles and methods, with focus on measurement and experimentation, biopsychology, sensation and perception, learning and memory, motivation and emotion, personality and adjustment, abnormality and psychotherapy, development and individual differences.