TEACHING

Dr. Onyewuenyi’s teaching invites students to examine how psychological and developmental processes are shaped by culture, identity, institutions, and systems of inequality. Across courses in psychology, human development, African American Studies, and research methods, she emphasizes critical inquiry, active learning, methodological rigor, and the application of scholarship to consequential questions about people’s lives and communities.

Her courses are designed as collaborative learning environments in which students engage with research, question assumptions, analyze multiple perspectives, and develop their own evidence-based arguments. Whether students are examining racial and ethnic identity development, immigration, social inequality, or research methodology, the goal is not simply to learn what the field already knows, but to understand how knowledge is produced, whose experiences are represented, and what questions remain unanswered.

Teaching Approach

Dr. Onyewuenyi uses discussion, collaborative problem solving, case analysis, research activities, and applied projects to help students connect theory and evidence to complex social issues. Her teaching emphasizes several interconnected practices:

  • Active and collaborative learning: Students learn through discussion, small-group inquiry, application, and opportunities to learn with and from one another.

  • Critical engagement with scholarship: Students examine the assumptions underlying theories, methods, and dominant narratives while considering whose experiences may be overlooked.

  • Research as a way of thinking: Students develop skills in asking meaningful questions, evaluating evidence, interpreting data, and communicating claims responsibly.

  • Connecting scholarship and lived experience: Coursework encourages students to consider how psychological and developmental processes unfold within cultural, historical, and institutional contexts.

  • Intentional engagement with emerging technologies: Students critically consider when technologies such as generative AI can support learning and inquiry—and when their use may undermine the learning process, human judgment, or other course goals.

View courses Dr. Onyewuenyi is currently instructing at the College of New Jersey:

  • This course introduces students to psychology as a discipline, field of study, and professional pathway. The course also helps students navigate the psychology major, identify academic and career opportunities, and begin connecting their interests, experiences, and goals to potential pathways within and beyond psychology.

  • Methods and Tools of Psychology introduces students to asking and answering questions from a psychological perspective. The primary aim of PSY 121 is to teach students to be consumers of psychological science. It is an experiential course in which students focus on learning the basics of creating and evaluating knowledge in psychology. Students learn to appreciate the strengths as well as to understand the limitations of various research methods. Students will read research articles, formulate hypotheses, interpret data, and learn to write according to APA style.

  • This course explores human development from infancy through later adulthood, examining how biological, cognitive, social, and cultural processes interact across the lifespan. Students engage major developmental theories and research while considering how development varies across individuals and contexts and how families, schools, communities, culture, and broader social conditions shape developmental trajectories.

  • Drawing from an interdisciplinary framework (psychology, education, sociology, philosophy, etc.), this course is designed to introduce students to theory and research on racial and ethnic identity development across the lifespan. We will also explore immigrant, mixed-race, and bicultural identity development. We will spend a considerable amount of time in understanding, dissecting, and extending the theories and methodologies employed in the study of racial and ethnic identity.

  • The Developmental Seminar’s focus varys across semesters with respect to both age (children/adolescents/adults) and topic (e.g., Peer Relationships, Child Therapy, Children and the Media). Students may repeat the seminar as topics change.

  • This course examines immigration through a psychological and developmental lens, focusing on how migration shapes identity, adaptation, relationships, belonging, education, and well-being. Students critically examine theories of acculturation and immigrant adaptation while considering how race, ethnicity, generation, documentation, language, and receiving contexts shape immigrant experiences. Particular attention is given to the diversity of immigrant populations and to the institutional and structural conditions surrounding migration.Item description

Teaching & Learning Initiatives

  • Beyond her courses, Dr. Onyewuenyi contributes to broader initiatives focused on teaching, learning, and the thoughtful integration of emerging technologies in higher education. Her work emphasizes faculty development, student-centered approaches to generative AI, and creating learning environments that support critical inquiry and meaningful engagement.

  • Emerging Technologies for Teaching & Learning

    • As TCNJ’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Faculty Fellow for Emerging Technologies for Teaching and Learning, Dr. Onyewuenyi supports faculty in navigating the rapidly changing role of generative AI and other emerging technologies in higher education. Her work focuses on helping instructors move beyond questions of whether AI should or should not be used toward more intentional consideration of when, why, and how particular uses of AI support—or interfere with—course learning goals

  • Faculty Futures AI Studio

    • As a Faculty Fellow with the NJ AI Hub Faculty Futures AI Studio, Dr. Onyewuenyi contributes to faculty-centered exploration of how generative AI is reshaping teaching and learning. Her work focuses on developing AI-aware pedagogical practices that preserve meaningful opportunities for students to think, create, make judgments, and develop disciplinary expertise while also preparing them to critically and responsibly engage emerging technologies.

  • Student-Centered AI-Aware Pedagogy

    • Dr. Onyewuenyi’s teaching and faculty-development work also explores how students can become active participants in decisions about AI in their learning. Rather than treating AI policies solely as rules established by instructors, she develops approaches that invite students to consider appropriate use and non-use, transparency and disclosure, disciplinary norms, and the relationship between AI use and learning. This includes activities in which students and instructors collaboratively establish expectations for AI use and non-use within particular courses.

Mentorship Beyond the Classroom

  • Teaching extends beyond Dr. Onyewuenyi’s courses. Through the Identity Development Across the African Diaspora (IDAD) Lab, she mentors undergraduate researchers through multiple stages of the research process—from developing questions and reviewing literature to collecting and analyzing data, presenting findings, and contributing to scholarly publications.

  • Her approach to mentorship emphasizes increasing independence and intellectual ownership. Students are encouraged to see themselves not simply as research assistants, but as developing scholars capable of asking important questions, making methodological decisions, and contributing new knowledge.