Recap: Academic Year 2017
Long time, no post. So, the academic year ended, the exam boards are over, students graduated, it’s summer! Lots of things happened this year and it’s time for a brief recap before the summer is over and the next academic year starts.

Research:
- I have three ongoing projects at the moment. One with Meike Kronseisen (Universität Koblenz/Landau) on the interactions between sleep and testing for later memory performance. Another one on the spacing effect in older adults (started in collaboration with Dave Balota, WashU). Data collection for this will take some time and effort, but I’m optimistic. My RA Petra Lipnik is working hard on this right now. Yet another project on the so beloved learning styles showing the dangers of their assessment for learning. Research on this started as part of a dissertation project (Paula Cairns and Clara Mulugeta) this year and I’ll be following this up with my RA Sara Oikarinen in the summer.
- I haven’t been to any conferences this year, but this will change as I will be attending this year’s ESCOP meeting in Potsdam, Germany, from 3-6- September 2017.
Scholarship:
- I joined the Learning Scientists in November 2016 and since then I have been publishing blog posts on various of topics on a regular basis. In addition, we recently launched a Learning Scientists Twitter Chat (#LrnSciChat) that will happen on a monthly basis. Plus, together with Yana Weinstein, I have given CPD workshops to teachers and students on how to teach and study more effectively. The Learning Scientists is such a rewarding scholarly outreach project and I’m happy to be part of it and to being able to communicate research to a broader audience. Here are my posts so far:
- How Social is Social Media?
- Learning Styles: A Misguided Attempt to Highlight Individual Differences in Learners
- Service Learning: An Engaging Teaching Concept
- How To Improve Your Metacognition and Why It Matters
- Bad Memory? Try the Techniques of the Ancient Greeks
- Trying to Solve a Problem? Sleep on it!
- Benefits and Perils of Using Movies in Education
- Listening to Music While Studying: A Good or a Bad Idea?
- Together with my colleague Elaine Niven and the head of the Centre for Technology and Innovation in Learning (CTIL) Natalie Lafferty, I’m working on designing a MOOC to introduce learning strategies to students and teaching strategies to instructors. This is turning out to be such much work, but so motivating at the same time.
Miscellaneous:
- I’m trying to learn R. Yes, that’s right! I’m participating in MOOCs and hope to be able to do stuff on my own soon. It’s a steep learning curve, but I’m confident that I can do it. While looking for free resources to learn R, I started to put together a Google spreadsheet with R resources that I shared with others.
Co-Leading Workshop @ Teaching, Learning, Takeover Conference / University of Southampton / 15 Oct 2016
Exciting things are happening: Together with Yana Weinstein (Assitant Prof at UMass Lowell / @doctorwhy @AceThatTest) I’m leading a workshop at the Teaching, Learning, Takeover Conference (#TLT16) taking place at the University of Southampton on 15 Oct 2016. This conference brings together an exciting crowd of people all interested in improving education using evidence-based strategies.
First Academic Year @ University of Dundee Completed!
Hooray! My first academic year at the University of Dundee is over! It has been a rollercoaster and a steep learning curve. I had to create all my lectures from scratch and get used to a new university system. Although it was incredibly stressful at times, I feel that it boosted my professional development as a teacher.
Since teaching is done for this academic year, I have some time to focus on some research projects and scholarship activities. I have two very interesting Teaching & Learning conferences lined up: One in June at the University of Stirling and one in October at the University of Southampton. At the latter one, I am co-running a workshop with Yana Weinstein from University of Massachusetts Lowell. This will be exciting! You can find more info about it here!
In order to promote Teaching & Learning research and activities, I have established a message board in our Psychology Department (see picture). You’ll find it on the forth floor of the Scrymgeour Building! If you are around, come and check it out! If you have questions, contact me any time.
Enjoy the summer!
Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Dundee
I started my lecturer position at the University of Dundee in Scotland, UK.
I’m looking forward to the new and big challenges this position brings and hope to make valuable contributions to the team.
Check out the Psychology department here!
Article published in the In-Mind Magazine
The article I wrote for a special issue on “Cognitive Psychology in Everyday Life” of the In-Mind magazine is online. Check it out! It is in German though:
Erfolgreich Lernen: Effektive Lernstrategien frisch aus der kognitionspsychologischen Forschung
Talks, Talks, Talks!
Last week, I gave a presentation on brand-new and promising spacing effect data at the Brain-Behavior-Cognition meeting at WashU. Yes, despite this old learning phenomenon Mark McDaniel and I approached this research topic from a different angle which allowed us to reveal interesting and practically relevant findings. Overall, the feedback was very positive and encouraging! Papers in preparation.
Also, I’ll be presenting new data on the sleep-memory effect at Dave Balota’s and Jan Duchek’s lab meeting on April 6. I’ll give an overview on two projects that I have been collaborating on with Edgar Erdfelder (University of Mannheim) and Meike Kroneisen (University of Mannheim), respectively. Looking forward to the feedback!
Psychonomics 2014: Posters accepted!
I’m looking forward to presenting new research at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Long Beach in November.
Come to discuss our research with us:
Friday, Nov 21, 12 – 1:30pm
- Küpper-Tetzel, C. E., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Relational and item-specific processing in the spacing effect.
Saturday, Nov 22, 12 – 1:30pm
- Kroneisen, M., & Küpper-Tetzel, C. E. (2014). Delayed testing eliminates the beneficial effect of sleep on memory.
Beitrag angenommen – DGPs Tagung in Bochum
Unsere Papiere, Erdfelder, E., & Küpper-Tetzel, C. E. (2014). Wie beeinflusst Schlaf das Gedächtnis? Eine multinomiale Verarbeitungsbaumanalyse, wurde für die diesjährige DGPs Tagung angenommen.
Der Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie findet vom 21.-25. September in Bochum statt.
Infos gibt es auf der Webseite der DGPs.