D I N A. L. A N S E L M I

The following feature story appeared in the campus publication MOSAIC in April, 1998.

Discovering the world through collaboration

For Associate Professor of Psychology Dina L. Anselmi, seeing really is believing. A developmental psychologist, Anselmi teaches her students the theories of two great titans of her field, Jean Piaget and Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, and witnesses the proof of their theories unfold in her classes.

"Piaget believed that children come to understand the world by constructing it and discovering it," she explains. "That's what I see happening with my students. They're not all going to discover the world at exactly the same moment. The same `aha' experience is going to occur at different times, but they're all going to discover the world of ideas." Those discoveries, Anselmi goes on to say, will not occur in a vacuum. "Vygotsky's notion is that all learning occurs in some sort of social context. In my own mind as a teacher, I have been able to merge Vygotsky and Piaget because, while I believe that students, like children, discover ideas, I also believe that they discover those ideas in relationship with others -- with me, with other students in the class, and with other individuals in a community of learning."

Since joining Trinity's faculty in 1980, Anselmi has earned a reputation as a passionate, popular, and demanding teacher while teaching courses in child development, the psychology of gender differences, and advanced courses in development and culture. She holds a doctoral degree from the University of New Hampshire and is the co-author of two books, including the recently published Questions of Gender: Perspectives and Paradoxes with Anne Law, a colleague at Rider University.

Because Anselmi believes that learning occurs in a social context, collaboration is important not only in her research but also in her classroom. "I think that knowledge is created with others," she explains. "It comes from the simplest level of having students exchange and critique each other's papers, to doing collaborative research projects, all the way to doing joint research with me." Through collaboration, Anselmi gets to the heart of her discipline. "For me, the excitement of teaching psychology is the opportunity to examine and develop answers to real, tangible questions," she says.

Community learning
Finding the answers to such questions often occurs outside the confines of Anselmi's classroom. Students in her child development courses observe children's behavior in the campus day care center and participate in field-based community learning projects in Hartford. But the city is more than a mere laboratory to her. Students enrolled in her "Risk and Resilience Senior Seminar," for example, not only serve as volunteers in Hartford-based organizations that help children in crisis, but they also apply the theories and research they are learning in the classroom to create structural solutions to the problems they witness. Anselmi's students become resources for the organizations when they use their access to the Internet to find model intervention programs for children at risk that are in operation in other states.

A superb educator
Charles A. Dana Research Professor of Psychology Priscilla Kehoe, who chairs the neuroscience program, department, says of Anselmi, "Dina is a superb educator, always pushing her students to reach higher levels of cognitive functioning. The students find her provocative and always interesting. She has been a terrific colleague, always willing to listen and lend a hand. She is an integral part of our department and Trinity in general, offering many hours of service to both." The College echoed Kehoe's sentiments and recognized Anselmi's excellence in teaching by awarding her the prestigious Brownell Prize in 1994. Interested in sharing her teaching philosophy, Anselmi, along with Professor of Economics Diane Zannoni, has conducted workshops at colleges and universities throughout the country on how to encourage active learning in and outside the classroom.

Students praise Anselmi's pedagogical approach. Courtney H. Bragar '98 is an American Studies major who says one of Anselmi's strengths is her enthusiasm for her topic. "Going to one of Professor Anselmi's classes is not a passive experience," she notes. "She expects you to participate actively." Psychology major Raymund M. Cuadro '98, who has taken several courses with Anselmi, says, "Professor Anselmi is very tough and very demanding, but there have been few classes where I've learned more." Fellow psychology major and Individualized Degree Program (IDP) student Toni I. Dolan `98 concurs with Cuadro's assessment of her adviser. "When you get an 'A' from Professor Anselmi, it's like gold because it doesn't come easily." Another one of Anselmi's strengths, Dolan observes, is her ability to function as a coach in the classroom. "In her classes, Professor Anselmi always makes you feel like you're contributing something and that you've got the answer to one of her questions in you." Psychology major Meredith Stedman '98 concurs, saying, "Professor Anselmi is good at rephrasing your thoughts to get you to think more." Taking classes taught by Anselmi, Stedman says, "has reinforced how much I like kids." Stedman, who will attend Boston University's School of Education after graduation, hopes to become a teacher in a program for talented and gifted children.

How does Anselmi sum up her own talents as a teacher? "I think I'm passionate," she says. "I always want students to push themselves as hard as they can and never settle for their first, second, or third try. I want them to understand that the way they talk about things, the way they write about things, represents themselves. In that sense, they need to have pride in themselves and in their ideas."

-Suzanne Zack