What educators (and mere mortals) need to know about using social media for health and learning 
3 April 2012
4pm
Venue: J2 Lecture Theatre, Gate 3, 74 Epsom Ave, Epsom, Auckland (View map). Free Parking available at Gate 2
Presented by Professor Regan A. R. Gurung, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay
Facebook is ubiquitous and its use has implications for both health and well-being. In fact, social media may provide new avenues for educators to reach their students. Whereas the health hazards of social media are overblown, the pedagogical uses have not yet been fully utilized. In this talk I shall review the trends in social media use with a focus on Facebook and texting, and discuss how these media can be used by educators to optimize student learning.
Professor Regan A. R. Gurung
Ben J. and Joyce Rosenberg Professor of Human Development and Psychology, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay
Born and raised in Bombay, India, Regan Gurung received a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton College (Minnesota)
in Psychology, then spent five years in Seattle at the University of Washington where he gained his MS and PhD
degrees in social and personality psychology. Regan completed postdoctoral work in Health Psychology at UCLA
as a National Institute of Mental Health research fellow prior to joining the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Regan has served as Associate Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Chair of Psychology, and Chair of Human
Development, at UW-Green Bay and on the national front has served as President of the Society for the Teaching
of Psychology (APA-Div 2). and Chair of the Education and Training Council (Health Psychology, APA-Div 38).
Regan’s academic interests lie in teaching and pedagogy. Regan is passionate about teaching, writing, and
talking about psychology, with a particular fascination with how psychology can help make life better. He is
particularly interested in how students use their textbooks and have published articles on pedagogical aids and
textbook rating scales. He is currently focusing on how students study and on designing interventions to increase
metacognition. His other pedagogical interests include fostering the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL),
developing disciplinary signature pedagogies, including cultural diversity in the curriculum, and the role of social
networking and technology in the classroom.
He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, serves
on the Div.2 (Teaching of Psychology) Taskforce for Diversity and is Chair of the Div. 38 (Health Psychology)
Education and Training Council.
Regan is author, co-author, or editor of 9 books. In 2010 Regan published the second edition of his book Health
Psychology: A cultural approach and is currently working on a third edition. He wrote Optimizing Teaching and
Learning: Pedagogical research in practice in 2009 with Beth Schwartz. Regan has co-edited three books
published in 2009: Exploring signature pedagogies: Approaches to teaching disciplinary habits of mind, Getting
Culture: Incorporating diversity across the curriculum, and Culture & Mental Health: Sociocultural influences on
mental health. He recently published an Easyguide to APA style (2011, with Landrum and Schwartz), and has four
other books on their way to publication.
Regan has published articles in a variety of journals, including the International Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Psychological Review, and Teaching of Psychology. He is also an award winning teacher winning the Carnegie Association’s U.S. Professor of the Year Program Wisconsin Teacher Award (2011), the University of Wisconsin Regent’s Teaching Excellence Award (2011) and all his own university’s Teaching Awards.
