Newspaper Advice Column Letters as Teaching Cases for Developmental Psychology

We describe newspaper advice column letters as case problems in developmental psychology. Students wrote weekly papers and led class discussions based on them to (a) analyze and propose solutions to problems from letters they found and (b) connect problems to course concepts. Students reported that the assignments benefitted topical learning, professional development, and writing skills. Students enjoyed and learned from the assignments; those who had completed more course work tended to find more value in the assignments.