Vishal J. Thakkar
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Courses in graduate training are extremely important, but the literature on graduate pedagogy can be quite limited. The limited literature could be due to smaller class sizes and more variability in curricula within and across disciplines. This poses a gap, since there can be unique challenges in designing graduate courses. For example, undergrad teaching focuses on knowledge dissemination from an instructor to student in a structured manner. In contrast, graduate teaching involves a shift, such that the instructor serves more as a mentor and helps students learn how to apply knowledge in a unique way. Rather than exams, learning often involves application and writing that gives more feedback and flexibility in the curriculum. Graduate students often want to apply concepts directly to their specific interests, which requires different presentations of material. Despite these differences in learner profile, there are methods to improve overall student learning, which can be similar from undergraduate students to graduate students.

The Teaching Context

Cognitive and Affective Aspects of Behavior is a required class for first-year doctoral students in clinical psychology at a large, research-intensive academic medical center. The course meets weekly for three hours in the 16-week spring semester and covers a survey approach to cognition and affect. Each class includes about 10-14 students. In my syllabus for the course, I present learning outcomes/competencies: (a) Compare and contrast key theories from cognitive psychology, (b) Evaluate when emotions are considered normal or abnormal in pathology, (c) Analyze where research findings translate to the clinical domain, and (d) Explain cross-cultural similarities and differences in memory and affect.

Across the semester, we discussed topics determined as discipline-specific knowledge topics by the American Psychological Association (Commission on Accreditation, 2015), such as applications of memory, language and reading, neuromodulation, and emotions (e.g., anger, fear, disgust). Importantly, students’ grades were calculated through weekly reflections (30%), a term paper that is submitted and revised (40%), a podcast project (15%), and a cumulative semester exam (15%). Assignment guidelines and rubrics can be obtained by emailing me directly.

During each week of class, we followed a similar flow that started with a set of review questions from the last week or two. As an example, I demonstrate this standard flow with the topic of Psychology and Law. Learning objectives for that day were presented, along with an instructor-led discussion of the topic. For this topic, there was a discussion of theories of forgetting, autobiographical memory, and retrieval failure. The discussion included key terms and definitions, examples of prior empirical research studies, and discussion questions. Slides with discussion questions had a visual cue on them, so that students remembered to pause and reflect on the question being asked. At the end, we also went through a research application (e.g., Deese-Roediger-McDermott Paradigm), a clinical application (e.g., court cases and forensic psychology), and a 45-minute discussion of a modern journal article about that day’s topic, such as one about memory specificity and memory details (Roberts et al., 2021). Most journal articles met the criteria of being empirical, no longer than ten pages, published within the last five years, had at least one author that identified as Black, Indigenous, Person of Color (BIPOC; Wojcik, 2020), and were not published by myself or someone I knew.

Examples of Best Practices in Practice

In the pedagogy literature, there are numerous evidence-based approaches that can be used to improve student learning, such as retrieval practice (Agarwal, Nunes, & Blunt, 2021) and interleaving (Yan & Sana, 2021). Retrieval practice is the act of recalling information without reference to notes and resources, often in a low-stakes environment (e.g., not graded), and interleaving is the act of reviewing related topics mixed, rather than practicing one skill exclusively before moving on to the next. While instructors often encourage students to use these to guide their study behaviors, there are relatively easy ways to incorporate this during class time. For example, in a cognitive psychology class, retrieval practice can be employed by starting each class with a review session about the previous class period or prior chapter’s content. Interleaving can be incorporated by talking about short-term memory at one point, going through other topics, then revisiting when talking about its importance in language, reading, fluency, and comprehension. Of note, one of the biggest differences I have noticed in undergraduate teaching to graduate teaching is that a lot more of my review questions and assessment questions come from journal articles, class discussions, and clinical applications, whereas undergraduate teaching can sometimes be more reliant on class lecture and discussion. In graduate teaching, we focus on more granular details presented in peer-reviewed journal articles and clinical cases. This is an important difference, since graduate students will be focused on how class material helps them with key milestones in their program, such as a competency exam or defense. So, while the methods of best practices can translate from undergraduate to graduate teaching, the can be applied in a different way.

Retrieval Practice

In my class, the review questions were a way to use retrieval practice in the classroom. About 3-4 questions, that were multiple-choice or short answer, would be presented on a PowerPoint slide at the beginning of class. Questions were chosen to map on to weekly learning objectives, which were given to students at the start of each class. Students were given about 6-8 minutes to answer these on their own, before we reviewed them together as a class. They were encouraged to try and answer them without using notes, and responses were not collected or graded, to try and limit potential hesitancy to share when a student did not feel confident in their response. In addition, while most questions were reviewing material from the previous class session, some would also go back to an earlier topic in the semester. In sum, this review session took no more than 15 minutes of the three hours each class period. I have not previously collected metacognitive data (e.g., a confidence judgment) from students, but students have consistently highlighted this exercise as beneficial on end-of-course evaluations.

During the Spring 2026 semester, ten students enrolled in the course completed a set of multiple-choice questions. These were administered in an ungraded fashion on the first day of class and part of a larger final exam at the end of the semester. These questions were presented to all students in the same order at both time points and scored as incorrect (0) or correct (1), with scores ranging from 0-20. The questions were written by me, the instructor of record. Questions were based on learning objectives presented at the start of each class, with approximately one or two questions from each topic (week of class).

On the first day of class, students’ scores ranged from 8-15, and only two students earning at least 70% correct. Looking at individual questions, there were eight questions where half of the class or more got it incorrect, and there were no questions that all students got correct. On the day of the final exam, scores ranged from 16-19, with all students earning at least 70%. Looking at individual questions, there were twelve questions that the entire class got correct and only one question that half of the students got incorrect. Importantly, scores on this multiple-choice assessment significantly increased from the first day of class (M = 11.50, SE = .72) to the day of the final exam (M = 17.60, SE = .31), as seen by a paired-samples t-test, t(9) = 8.64, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 2.73.

Interleaving and Self-Regulated Learning

In addition, to facilitate critical thinking skills, there was a discussion of an empirical journal article relevant to the topic at the end of each class. Discussion was carried out in small groups or as a whole class, and sample discussion questions were provided, and other questions or points of discussion were highly encouraged. Sometimes, an activity was built into the discussion to keep students engaged and moving around the classroom. For example, students were occasionally asked to “teach” the article to the class after a short preparation period (Tauber, Thakkar, & Pleshek, 2022) or were challenged to translate the take-home messages of the paper to a lay audience, to encourage scientific communication skills.

Interleaving was also incorporated into the journal article discussion sessions, since some discussion questions explicitly pulled from topics covered earlier in the semester. Since this class covered cognition and affect, the goal was to consistently incorporate cognition and affect together, rather than treating them as separate ideas. However, unlike the retrieval practice and test questions, I do not have data to share on the benefits of interleaving in this class.

Student Perceptions of the Class

Each year, students also completed end-of-semester course evaluations and consistently rated the class highly. Relevant to best practices, they commented on appreciating the flow of the course, selected topics (e.g., neuromodulation and methods in cognitive and affective research), and having a review at the start of each class period. To date, there have been 27 out of 37 students across four years of teaching the class.

Podcast Project

Aside from best practices already established in the literature, as described above, I also employed a podcast project for the first time in the Spring 2026 semester. As part of this project, students worked in pairs and worked on developing a 15-minute podcast episode on a topic of their choice, that was not explicitly already discussed in class. The goal was to improve scientific communication skills and explain scientific work to a lay audience. Each group was required to submit a podcast episode that was well-organized, engaging, with an obvious application to research and clinical work, and reference to at least three sources of information. In graduate training, our program also has an oral exam milestone apart from a defense, so the goal of this project was to give students practice in verbal communication and presentation. Since this was the first semester this project was used, I do not have data on success or student perceptions of the project.s

Conclusion

Taken together, I share multiple ways where evidence-based pedagogy techniques can be translated to a graduate course in a specialized area (clinical psychology). While there is a slimmer literature in graduate teaching compared to undergraduate teaching, many techniques can be easily incorporated into a graduate class.

Reflecting on the last four years teaching the class, I have a few considerations for future iterations of the class. First, since graduate teaching requires flexibility, I want to ask students what topics they are most interested in and try to spend more time on those. Since I teach in a clinical psychology doctoral program, there are ways to appeal to their interests, such as picking journal articles that tie cognition and affect into specific subfields (e.g., the importance of diverse participant enrollment in psychological research or effects of non-invasive neuromodulation in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder). Second, acknowledging that learning content is still important and that graduate students are more goal-oriented and not always tested by exams, I would like to do more student-led discussions. To do this, I would have students prepare a presentation for each topic and teach it to the class, and I would supplement the material that they present. This would be in contrast to me spending more time lecturing or speaking in class. Third, I want to reconsider best practices as they related to artificial intelligence (AI) being a popular tool for graduate students. In a future iteration of the class, I hope to integrate AI in a way where I can demonstrate its use without replacing students’ critical thinking skills or formulating their own opinions about content and drawing conclusions.

References

Agarwal, P. K., Nunes, L. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2021). Retrieval practice consistently benefits student learning: A systematic review of applied research in schools and classrooms. Educational Psychology Review, 33, 1409-1453. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09595-9

Commission on Accreditation. (2015, November). C-7 D. Discipline-specific knowledge.

Roberts, J. E., Kyung, Y., Koscinski, B., Rosenfeld, E., & Lee, H-J. (2021). Response styles to sad mood and self-esteem as predictors of autobiographical memory: Distinctions between memory specificity and detail. Personality and Individual Differences, 169, Article 110142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110142

Tauber, S. K., Thakkar, V. J., & Pleshek, M. A. (2022). How does the type of expected evaluation impact students’ self-regulated learning. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 11(1), 106-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.08.002

Wojcik, E. (2020). BIPOC psych papers spreadsheet. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i7Eacoyv9VVg2lBbCV-KJZg4nSGvR_VZFOysOyOGG8g/edit?gid=666010790#gid=666010790

Yan, V. X., & Sana, F. (2021). The robustness of the interleaving benefit. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 10(4), 289-602. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.05.002