Skyline psychology teacher wows IB evaluators

Every student in Skyline teacher Loren Krogstad's International Baccalaureate (IB) psychology class who took the standardized final exam last year passed with flying colors. Considering IB classes are globally renowned for rigor and college-level curriculum, this was quite an accomplishment.

But his students' success went even further. Standing apart from thousands of international peers who took the exam, they collectively showed such a deep understanding and ability to demonstrate the psychology material that the official IB scoring evaluators took notice. This fall, the IB Board offered Krogstad the opportunity to become an evaluator himself-an honor extended to only those few teachers whose work shines through their student's aptitude.

"They were obviously impressed by his work as reflected through his students' exams," said Marion Makin, Skyline's IB coordinator. What's more-this is only Krogstad's second year teaching the IB psychology course, she added.

Krogstad gives all of the credit to his "terrific students who made him look good" as well as fellow IB teachers at Skyline.

"They do a terrific job of teaching the IB concepts as a whole," Krogstad said. "It is definitely a team effort here!"

Krogstad's IB psychology class covers three basic approaches to the discipline: biological, learning, and cognitive. As part of their lessons, students replicate a psychological study and submit a report. For instance, some test the "Stroop Effect," which explains that people have a slower reaction time recognizing and speaking a word that's a color ("blue") when the word itself is printed in a color different than the word's semantic meaning (e.g., "blue" printed in red ink).

While Krogstad gave serious thought to the offer of becoming an IB evaluator, he has decided to decline so he can continue to give his best attention to his own classes.

Before coming to Skyline, Krogstad taught psychology courses in a high school near Rapid City, South Dakota, for 7 of his 15 years there. Teaching psychology has its unique advantages, Krogstad said, like being able to wow his students with demonstrations of "special ESP abilities." (You will never get the secret out of him.)