Steve Joordens

Steve Joordens is Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto Scarborough.

Joordens teaches Introductory Psychology and a seminar course on the Scientific Study of Conscious and Unconscious Influences.

Joordens has several research areas including the study of conscious and unconscious influences, memory, and the effective use of technology for education.

Education and career

Joordens earned his bachelor's degree in Psychology at University of New Brunswick in 1989 and gained his PhD in Psychology at University of Waterloo in 1994 and postdoc at McMaster University on models and empirical studies of human memory.^[1] He is also part of the Teaching Academy at the University of Toronto.^[2]

Joordens has been a faculty member of the University of Toronto Scarborough since 1995. He is an active researcher in Cognitive Psychology and Educational Psychology. In the field of cognitive psychology, he primarily researches issues related to human memory and consciousness. In the field of Educational Psychology, he primarily researches issues related to peer-assessment, critical thinking, engagement, and the effective use of technology for education.^[3]

With his Ph.D. Student Dwayne Pare, he co-developed peerScholar, an internet-based tool to support the development of critical thought and clear communication in any course context. peerScholar won the 2009 National Technology Innovation Award, and is now a commercial product licensed to Pearson Education.^[4]

In 2006 CUPE 3902, the trade union representing TAs and sessional lecturers at the UofT, filed a grievance alleging that Joordens was used this programme to create a pool of "cheap labour" as a means of avoiding hiring teaching assistants to grade term work for his introductory Psychology class. In January 2009, an arbitrator upheld the grievance—noting, incidentally, that Joordens was actually looking for "free" labour—and ruled that the University of Toronto needed to set aside $283,000 to compensate the more than 1500 students who had been forced by Joordens to work for free.^[5]

MOOC

In 2013, Joordens taught Introduction to Psychology to more than 68,000 registered students on Coursera.^[6] This course was developed as part of a $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.^[7] Joordens also teaches Memory and Human Lifespan Course on The Great Courses.^[8]

Educational technology innovator

Joordens has been involved in using innovative technology measures to help students with online learning experiences. His online courses offer a wide range of psychology concepts free for students to explore, incorporated with technology measures such as Digital Lab Coat, mTuner, peerScholar and using Wikipedia as an educational tool.^[9][10][11]

Activism

Joordens is a frequent speaker at professional conferences, where he consistently earns "best in session" honors.^[12] He is also a musician, vegetarian and an activist on the ethics of animal research and gang violence.^[13][14]

Society memberships

• Social Sciences Committee for Tuning Learning Outcomes – Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario^[15]
• Joordens is a member of the editorial board of Noetica, an electronic journal devoted to cognitive science issues.^[16]

Teaching awards

2012 – Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations Teaching Award.^[17]

2011 – Scarborough Campus Student Union (SCSU) Best Teacher Award.^[18]

2010 – President’s Teaching Award, the highest teaching honour at the University of Toronto.^[19]

2009/10 – One of Ontario's top 10 post-secondary lecturers as part of Television Ontario's "Best Lecturer" competition^[20]

2009 – Joordens and Pare win 2009 National Technology Innovation Award for peerScholar.^[21]

2008/9 – One of Ontario's top 20 post-secondary lecturers as part of Television Ontario's "Best Lecturer" competition^[22]

Media appearance

Prof. Joordens has made many appearances in the media, including Canadian national TV channels and news publications.

Interviews

• CTV News, Ariel Castro Fathered Child With Alleged Victim - Ohio Kidnapping Suspect Could Face Charges for Alleged Forced Miscarriages.^[23]
• CTV News, Survivor Found in Bangladesh - Seamstress Spent 17 Days In Rubble of Collapsed Garment Factory.^[24]
• TVO, The Agenda with Steve Paikin: Steve Joordens: Critical Thinking on the Web.^[25]
• Voice America, Memory and Memories.^[26]
• Toronto Star, Why do parents buck trends when naming babies?.^[27]

Articles

• University of Toronto, Wikipedia goes to university - U of T first Canadian university involved in foundation’s classroom initiative.^[28]
• Academic Matters Journal, Zen and the Art of Metacognition: Quality-Based Discrimination, Peer Assessment & Technology.^[29]
• Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Peering into large lectures: examining peer and expert mark agreement using peerScholar, an online peer assessment tool.^[30]
• UTSC, Software enhances critical thinking through peer-assessment.^[31]
• Computers & Education, Online lecture accessibility and its influence on performance in skills-based courses.^[32]
• Contact North / Contact Nord, Peer Assessment and More with peerScholar.^[33]
• University of Toronto, Active Learning Online – More Ideas from Prof. Steve Joordens.^[34]
• Academic Matter Journal, You Can Lead Students To Knowledge, But How Do You Make Them Think?.^[35]
• Academic Matters Journal, Influencing Universities to Embrace Learning Outcomes: Why JOBS is a Dirty Four Letter Word.^[36]
• University of Toronto Teaching Academy, TEACHING MATTERS: HABITS OF MIND.^[37]
• Academic Matters Journal, Speak, Listen, Think, Repeat ….^[38]
• Academic Matters Journal, Why not have mandatory “toolbox” training?.^[39]

Videos

• Guiding Assessment - Quality Based Discrimination.^[40]
• Assessing Peer Assessment.^[41]
• Content & Cognition.^[42]
• What Are Cognitive Skills & How do you Teach Them?^[43]
• Setting Up Assessment Expectations in the First Class^[44]
• Critical Thinking Utilizing Peer Assessment^[45]
• Combining Peer Assessment and Quality Based Discrimination^[46]
• Importance of Providing Students with a Rationale for Assessment^[47]

Selected publications

• Milliken, B., & Joordens, S. Negative priming without overt prime selection. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology
• Merikle, P. M., & Joordens, S. Measuring unconscious influences. J. D. Cohen & J. W. Schooler (Eds.), Scientific Approaches to the Question of Consciousness: 25th Carnegie Symposium on Cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Merikle, P. M., Joordens, S., & Stolz, J. A. Measuring the relative magnitude of unconscious influences. Consciousness and Cognition.
• Merikle, P. M., & Joordens, S. (1997). Parallels between Perception without Attention and Perception without Awareness. Consciousness and Cognition 6, 219–236. ARTICLE NO. CC970310.^[48]
• Besner, D., & Joordens, S. (1995). Wrestling with ambiguity: Further reflections. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 515–519
• Joordens, S., & Besner, D. (1994). When banking on meaning is not (yet) money in the bank: Explorations in connectionist modeling. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 1–12.
• Buchanan, L., Joordens, S., Thagard, P., & Fleck, R. (1993). Visual analogies and mental rotation. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Sciences Society.
• Joordens, S., & Merikle, P. M. (1993). Independence or Redundancy? Two models of conscious and unconscious influences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 122, 462–467.
• Joordens, S., & Besner, D. (1992). Priming effects that span an intervening unrelated word: Implications for models of memory representation and retrieval. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18, 483–491.
• Joordens, S., & Merikle, P. M. (1992). False recognition and perception without awareness. Memory & Cognition, 20, 151–159.

References

External links

• Official University of Toronto Scarborough Page
• University of Toronto Profile
• Coursera Profile
• Biomed Experts
• Twitter
• peerScholar