A Master in Psychology – Taliatha Palmer Helps HutchCC Students Become More Engaged in Class

By Bianca Salazar
Staff writer
IG: bancasalazar_bts

As students walk through Lockman Hall, they might hear the enthusiastic clapping of a general psychology class.

Looking into the classroom, they would see students engaging in answering questions based on what they think is right by clapping their hands on the answer the teacher points to. As the class goes on, the classroom stays engaged and seems to have fun working together.

This is all the work of Taliatha Palmer, also known as Miss T.

Palmer is a psychology instructor at Hutchinson Community College. She started as a part-time teacher in 2016, and then she began full-time teaching at HutchCC in the fall of 2019.

Palmer began with a Bachelor’s degree in art history from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and then switched to being a stay-at-home mom. When it was time for her to start working, she knew HutchCC was going to be called home.

“I knew I wanted to be a professor, and I knew I wanted to work at HutchCC because I really liked the people I knew who worked here, and I’d heard it was an excellent work environment, but I wasn’t sure which subject I would want to teach,” Palmer said.

Palmer’s priority was teaching college-level classes. She didn’t quite know what she wanted to teach, but she knew she wanted to make an impact on the lives of students because of her past teachers. When Palmer finally came down to her final decision, she chose to pursue psychology.

“I was able to look through the list of faculty and identified which departments would likely have faculty retiring within a few years, and of those options, psychology was the subject that interested me most,” said Palmer. “So, I started a master’s program in school psychology from Fort Hays State University, and by the time I finished that degree, positions as a psychology professor at HutchCC started opening up.”

As Palmer continued to teach, she implemented more hands-on learning for students to grasp more complex concepts.

“I think our brain biology unit is tricky for some students, so I try to break those lessons down to the simplest form I can and incorporate a variety of activities and media,” Palmer said. “For example, we do physical activities where all the students link together to form one long brain cell. We make models out of Play-Doh, pipe cleaners, and beads, and groups of students think up gestures to help their classmates remember different brain functions. For me, it’s also important that students get to know each other and form relationships with their classmates, to help our class be a place they look forward to.”

Palmer’s impact is felt by her students. Some of her students are helped in remembering how things work in psychology. Emporia freshman Rayne Joy said Palmer’s teaching style is engaging and thought-provoking.

“She differs from other teachers in that she tries to help students understand through real-world scenarios presented in a cheesy way,” Joy said. “Oftentimes, when giving an example to demonstrate, it’s a maybe-not-likely-to-happen example. However, it works in helping you remember the material.”

Hutchinson freshman Gillian Schletzbaum said she appreciated Palmer’s teaching style.

“I feel like Miss T is very interactive with her students,” Schletzbaum said. “You can tell she tries very hard to create a relationship with us. I honestly knew that she was going to be a fun teacher when she walked in and started talking to us.”

As the semester went on, these students learned a vast amount of information about psychology, especially some tricky topics like brain biology.

“The day she took us outside to demonstrate how cells work stands out to me the most,” Joy said. “It was a fun, engaging way to show us in a very hands-on sort of way how an axon works.”

The structure of an axon and how it works is crucial to know in psychology. The axons in the brain transmit information to the nervous system rapidly. This information is important for the human person to think, learn, feel, and process.

The activity included going outside and having people line up and grab onto each other’s shoulder. One end the line will start after a tennis ball is successfully caught and begin with a chain reaction of squeezing the other person in front’s shoulder. The goal is to finish the chain reaction in less than five seconds.

Schletzbaum said she also felt the ease of learning about difficult topics with the help of Palmer.

“Miss T is very good at breaking hard topics down and making them so we can understand. She had us do fun projects to understand difficult topics,” Schletzbaum said.

As students plan out what classes they will want to take, Joy gives a little advice on how to prepare to take her class.

“Be prepared to engage in class,” said Joy. “You can’t expect to go in and sit at the back and sleep. I don’t think you could anyway because class is so engaging, either with her, your study guide, or your classmates.”

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