Dr. Sarah Grison chose a humanistic approach by teaching psychology at Parkland College. Through selecting smaller classes, she pathed way for more opportunities to connect with students and address their unique challenges.
For Dr. Sarah Grison, effective teaching in introductory psychology is to encourage her students toward introspection and real-world application. She achieves this by fostering genuine academic connections, offering care and expertise for students’ academic needs, and providing innovative teaching approaches that inspire growth.
Growth happening within Grison’s classroom extends outside of her course, advising Parkland’s psychology honors society, Psi Beta and the Psychology Club, as well as sharing effective teaching methods with fellow professors. She actively cultivates opportunities for students to explore psychology deeply, and promotes constructive learning styles across campus. Grison’s holistic approaches reflect her vision, and her dedication to helping Parkland’s social and academic landscape.
Life Before Parkland
Grison was born near the sunny beaches of Cape May, New Jersey to two free-spirited “hippie” parents. Throughout her childhood, she was surrounded by coastal life, enjoying seafood and beach days with her loved ones. She expressed that Cape May will always hold a special place in her heart, regardless of her far venture from New Jersey to Central Illinois. Grison speaks on her experience:
…I was an only child but spent my early life playing barefoot on the beach and eating lots of seafood with family and friends. It’s still my favorite place to visit with my own family now, [my hubby Brian and my four children Rowen, 21, Oscar, 20, Micah 18, and Saskia 17.]
Before her psychology career, Grison had a love for people and learning about culture, especially after she moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, and attended a Quaker boarding school, Westtown School. There, she learned Spanish and Hispanic culture throughout her high school years and further cemented her education after studying abroad in Celaya, Mexico.
After Grison’s high school experiences, she originally desired to pursue her painting major at Carnegie University; however, she switched to psychology her freshman year and “never looked back.” Her high school love for Spanish followed after psychology, and she studied abroad in Madrid, Spain, during her years at Carnegie University.
Eventually, in 1993, she finished her BA in psychology and Spanish. Grison then decided to travel across the Atlantic and moved to the United Kingdom to graduate at the University of Wales where she earned her PhD in cognitive neuroscience.
Throughout Grison’s collegiate years, apart from obtaining her degrees, she gained experiences from diverse groups of people inside and outside the United States, shaping the people-oriented professor she is today.
Why Parkland?
Throughout Grison’s diverse academic journey, there were a couple of key details she described that inspired Parkland as her final destination: teaching approaches and exploring different levels of education.
In 2006, Grison taught as a psychology director at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. She describes why working with 200 – 300 students did not align with her teaching approach:
… I felt like I couldn’t be as effective, because I had too many students to get to know, to understand their minds–who they are– and so I’m willing to get into a teaching environment that had smaller classes where I could take this hard approach as a humanistic approach of understanding students.
Grison’s compassion for a student’s learning environment is described as a “heart and head” outlook, where she balances textbook knowledge, application and understanding students’ learning styles.
In 2013, she migrated her profession to Parkland College which suited her “heart and head” approach, leaving a trail of many unforgettable sprouts under her pursuing footsteps.
Community Involvement
When asked about current professional projects, Grison spoke about her most exciting future contribution.
“Okay so, so one of the things I’ve been doing for a while–which I think you know– is I’ve been working on trying to support some initiatives to support student success here at Parkland, because we do have a lot of students from very different backgrounds.” She says, “They need a lot of support, so these IMPACT strategies [are] for success.”
Grison had won a sabbatical for spring 2026 to further research these “IMPACT” strategies. She went on to speak more in-depth on how she will implement this tool: “I will use that time to research what kind of assessment tools I can create, where students can self-assess on these 6 impact skills.”
The strategies she mentions are initiatives for additional support, which include:
- Improving (Growth Mindset)
- Monitoring (Self-Regulated Learning)
- Practicing (Repeated Practice)
- Attending (Attention Skills)
- Connecting (Relevance to Life)
- Thinking Deeply (Elaborative Rehearsal)
According to Grison, “I” is for implementing a learning-friendly mindset and reinforcing ways to believe in educational growth. “M” is for monitoring and finding ways to plan workloads and setting personal goals to be met throughout the week.
“P” is repeated practiced to reinforce what was learned in class. For example, “…reading your textbook and doing a little comprehension check questions a few times a week…”
“A” is attending, and she describes it in depth, saying, “We all know without attention there’s no memory but attention is a skill, and it can be improved and it can be taught.” So, for those struggling with attention, she believes promoting attendance as a tool can strengthen attention and mindfulness.
“C” is connecting, and Grison further explains by utilizing her psychology background, “Your retrieval cues – your own experiences – are supposed to link to the new information so you can retrieve them for better memory.”
“T” is to think deeply, and that is to analyze, inquire and explain.
Grison emphasizes that the students are half the learning process, and it is also important to include professors in this student success initiative, her thought process being “…what kind of activities can I find that teachers can use to cultivate these skills?”
She follows up saying, “What I intend to do is develop these assessments and these teaching tools, and then whatever teachers are interested in Beta testing them in their classes, they can pick these modules up.”
Grison has encouraged professors to try “IMPACT,” she says. “Professor Littleton has been incorporating the improving growth mindset in her communications class. She’s seeing that a lot of students are really starting to develop this growth mindset and believing they can do better at reducing their anxiety and public speaking.”
Believing in ultimate failure is a real thing, and this strategy focuses on promoting improvement rather than the idea of failure. Professors showing awareness and sensitivity to academic pressure can help students climb higher toward their goals.
Advice and Ambitions
When asked about a memorable growth moment in college education, Sarah Grison described an interaction she had with former Psi Beta and Psychology Club president, Hannah Moore.
Talking about the interaction, Grison recounted Moore saying, “The fact that [applying for president] – makes me afraid – makes me know that it’s something I shouldn’t avoid, because whenever you’re afraid of something you should try to do it in order to get over it.”
Grison describes Moore’s obstacles and continues narrating the former president’s story,
Moore said, ‘Look, I would really like to be the President, and I know that who I am now –I’m imperfect– … and it scares me that I even put my name in for this. But, if you will have me as imperfect as I am, I would like to try to do what I can as President for this group.’ It was just such an amazing growing moment. She did get elected to be President, and I was so proud of her.
Grison’s story shows there is no wrong place to choose, only new lessons to explore, whether it be a new mindset, clubs, activities or classes. By teaching at Parkland, Grison hopes to apply her extensive background in psychology to encourage students to step outside their comfort zone, and discover their interests, strengths and a supportive community.