APA offers complimentary unit lesson plans to high school psychology teachers. Lesson plans are 3- to 7-day units that include a procedural timeline, a content outline, suggested resources, and activities and references.
These materials were produced by Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools (TOPSS), which represents the needs of psychology teachers at the high school level.
Please contact TOPSS if you have questions about these lesson plans.
TOPSS has a searchable database of over 100 classroom activities available to teachers. Also posted are 2-day lesson plans from past award winning teachers.
Developed to align with the five pillars of the National Standards for High School Psychology Curricula, these resources, which include research summaries, psychologist profiles, and guiding questions, aim to help educators infuse diversity and representation into their lessons.
* The lesson plans on Cognition and Positive Psychology were published just prior to the revision of the 2022 National Standards for High School Psychology Curricula. We are making them available here, but encourage teachers to use the 2022 National Standards for lesson planning.
The APA TOPSS Committee has archived the following lesson plans, most of which are aligned to the 2011 version of APA’s National Standards for High School Psychology Curricula and not the most current (2022) revision. Teachers are encouraged to use the 2022 National Standards for lesson planning. Teachers should note that these lesson plans have not been updated and may not reflect current research in psychological science. They are provided here as background information for teachers to use as needed.