Bethany’s Psychology Department hosted an academic poster session on Tuesday, November 6, 2018, in the busy Old Main lobby. Nineteen students showed their work and visited with attendees during the poster session, with the presentations highlighting a variety of topics including recent student projects, research opportunities, and internships.

Associate Professor of Psychology Jennifer Wosmek organizes two poster sessions each academic year. She explained there are several reasons why academic poster sessions are important to a college education.

“Poster sessions are important for students preparing for graduate school and those going into fields involving research. They learn how to compile and summarize their research and polish their own communication and presentation skills while preparing for the session. The participation in a poster session is also valuable on their own resumes.”

Noah Battenfeld is a senior education major from Waseca, Minnesota. His poster carried the title Can Creativity be Trained? Battenfeld recently took the Bethany course Psychology of Early Childhood Development, and was interested in learning more about the topic of creativity in children because of a life experience of his own.

He explained, “From early on, I was often doing some of my school assignments differently than other students. I always wondered why that was, had I learned differently? Creativity in kids has been researched since the 1950s, and this project helped me to look into other useful and interesting research about the topic of childhood creativity and how kids learn. It’s information that will help me in my own classroom when I begin my teaching career.”

A steady stream of peers and faculty grabbed a clipboard with questions and directly evaluated the posters while discussing each student’s research. For all involved, the sessions allowed the ambitious students the opportunity to receive community recognition for the hard work they put into their educational experiences and research.