TEACHING EXPERIENCE
I have taught 37 sections of 7 distinct courses across 4 universities.
My courses have spanned from small seminars (<10 students) to large lectures (100+ students) and I have experience teaching a range of students from pre-college students to graduate students, while specializing in undergraduate education.
Courses taught
Potential future offerings
General Psychology
Social Psychology
Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences
Psychology of Competition & Peak Performance
The Power of Others: Social Influence & Persuasion
Driven to Succeed: Understanding Human Motivation
Research Methods
Health Psychology
Sports Psychology
Biopsychology
Personality Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
As a motivation researcher, I recognize that fostering students’ autonomous and approach-oriented motivation can have a powerful impact on student engagement, persistence, and depth of learning. For that reason, I intentionally ground my pedagogy in evidence-based methods and motivation theories.
Specifically, my pedagogical practices are guided by the following aims: 1) facilitate student autonomous and approach-oriented motivation, 2) encourage mastery of material and long-term learning, and 3) foster a learning environment that sparks interest and is inclusive (see below for more details).
MASTERY
Motivation
Autonomy-support: I share the rationale behind required coursework and laboratory procedures with my students. By taking the time to share the reason behind required work I find that students are generally willing to exert greater effort because they see assignments and time-consuming lab procedures as meaningful and not as mere “busy work”.
Personal relevance: To facilitate deep learning, I help students identify how the course material is personally relevant. In the classroom I regularly supply real-world examples of psychological phenomena, challenge students to think of how they can take advantage of a newly learned concept in their own lives, and design written assignments that encourage students to reflect on personal relevance of course content.
LONG-TERM
Learning
Regular quizzes: I capitalize on the testing effect by using daily, low-stakes quizzes as a tool for instruction instead of evaluation. Regular quizzes allow students to practice blank recall, recognize gaps in their knowledge, and facilitate long-term learning.
Grading: I use mastery-oriented grading schemes, designed to deter students from worrying about grades and instead to devote their time and energy to the learning process. These grading schemes encourage eventual mastery rather than penalize students if they do not immediately master the material. In other words, I favor correction over perfection.
INCLUSIVE
&
ENGAGING
Envrionment
Inquiry-based learning: To encourage student interest, I prefer to take an “ask, don’t tell” approach when introducing new material. Rather than simply informing students about a theory, results, or a concept, I have found that I can encourage more active engagement and build anticipation if I first ask students to make their own predictions.
Encourage all voices: At the start of courses, I take the time to explicitly communicate that diversity of thought is welcomed and that disagreements are an opportunity for intellectual growth instead of conflict. In each seminar class, I regularly give each individual student an opportunity to either offer an answer to a question posed to them prior to the readings or to ask a question they developed during the readings. This way, all voices are heard.
TEACHING AWARDS
PRESENTATIONS & AWARDS
2015 Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Student poster award
2019 University of Rochester's 3 minute thesis winner
"Her philosophy on learning is refreshing and much needed."
“Dr. Hangen is the best teacher I have had in my four years at Harvard and it isn't close. She made me intrinsically motivated to do the work. I did the reading for pleasure, which is unheard of for me. I was pumped for class. I spent way more time on my assignments than I have for any other class just because I wanted to.”
“Incredible teacher that is innovative and reshaping traditional teaching models."
"In terms of [Dr. Hangen's] teaching style, I really appreciate the attention she gave to all her students no matter in-class or outside of the class."
"My favorite part of class was the first segment where we'd talk about our questions from the chapter or discuss our answers/ideas about questions [Dr. Hangen] had posed to us prior to the reading."
Previous students