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Psychology

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scientific study of behavior and mental processes

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Educational Psychology

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branch of psychology that specializes in understanding teaching and learning in educational settings

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William James

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Published the first psychology textbook, Principles of Psychology; gave a series of lectures called "Talks to Teachers"; He argued that laboratory psychology experiments often can't tell us how to effectively teach children; He emphasized the importance of observing teaching and learning in classrooms for improving education; one of his recommendations was to start a lesson just beyond the child's level of knowledge and understanding to stretch the child's mind.

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John Dewey

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Became the driving force in the practical application of psychology; established the first major educational psychology laboratory in the US; view of a child as an active learner; children learn best by doing; education should focus on the whole child and emphasize the child's adaptation to the environment; children should be reflective problem solvers; children deserve to have a competent education - girls, boys, different socioeconomic groups, and ethnic groups.

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E.L. Thorndike

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Argued that one of schooling's most important task is to hone children's reasoning skills, and he excelled at doing exacting scientific studies of teaching and learning; promoted the idea of educational psychology must have a scientific base and should focus strongly on measurement.

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Mamie and Kenneth Clark

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Conducted research on African American children's self-conceptions and identity; Kenneth Clark became the first African American president of the American Psychology Association.

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George Sanchez

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Latino; conducted research showing that intelligence tests were culturally biased against ethnic minority children

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Leta Hollingworth

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She was the first individual to use the term gifted to describe children who scored exceptionally high on intelligence tests.

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B.F. Skinner

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Behavioral approach involved attempts to precisely determine the best conditions for learning; he argued that the mental processes proposed by psychologists such as James and Dewey were not observable and therefore could not be appropriate subject matter for a scientific study of psychology, which he defined as the science of observable behavior and its controlling conditions; developed the concept of programmed learning, which involved reinforcing the student's behavior after each of a series of steps until the student reached a learning goal; he created a teaching machine to serve as a tutor and reinforce student's behavior for correct answers.

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Benjamin Bloom

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Created a taxonomy of cognitive skills that includes remembering comprehending, synthesizing and evaluating which he suggested teachers should help students develop.

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Effective Teaching

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professional knowledge and skills, and commitment, motivation, and caring

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Constructivist Approach

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Learner-centered approach that emphasizes the importance of individuals actively constructing their knowledge and understanding with guidance from the teacher; teachers should not attempt to simply pro information in the children's mind; children should be encouraged to explore their world, discover knowledge, reflect, and think critically with careful monitoring and meaningful guidance from the teacher.

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Collaboration

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Children working with each other in their efforts to know and understand

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Direct Instruction Approach

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A structured, teacher-centered approach characterized by teacher direction and control, high teacher expectations for students' progress, maximum time spent by students on academic tasks, and efforts by the teacher to keep negative affect to a minimum

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Critical Thinking

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involves thinking reflectively and productively and evaluating the evidence

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Thinking Skills

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Effective teachers model and communicate good thinking skills, thinking critically means being open minded and curious on the one hand, yet being careful to avoid key mistakes in interpretation on the other

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Goal Setting & Instructional Planning

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Teachers set high goals for their teaching and organize plans for reaching those goals; they also develop specific criteria for success; they spend considerable amount of time in instructional planning, organizing their lessons to maximize students' learning; as they plan effective teachers reflect and think about how they can make learning both challenging and interesting.

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Developmentally Appropriate Teaching Practices

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Comptent teachers have a good understanding of children's development and know how to create instruction materials appropriate for their developmental levels

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Classroom Management Skills

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Keeping the class as a whole working together and oriented toward classroom tasks; effective teachers establish and maintain an environment in which learning can occur; teachers need a repertoire of strategies for establishing rules and procedures, organizing groups, monitoring and pacing classroom activities, and handling misbehavior.

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Motivation Skills

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Effective teachers have good strategies for helping students become self-motivated and take responsibility for their learning; best accomplished by providing real-world learning opportunities of optimal difficulty and novelty for each student; teachers need to establish high expectations for students' achievements.

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Communication Skills

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Also indispensable to teaching are skills in speaking, listening, overcoming barriers to verbal communication, turning in to students' nonverbal communication, and constructively resolving conflicts; also essential in communicating to parents; talk 'with' rather than 'to' students.

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Paying more than lip service to Individual Variations

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It is important to take variations into account when teaching, but this is not always easy to do; your students will have varying levels of intelligence, use different thinking and learning styles, and have different temperaments and personality traits; you are also likely to have some students who are gifted and others with disabilities of various types.

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Differentiated Instruction

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Recognizing individual variations in students' knowledge, readiness, interests, and other characteristics, then taking these differences into account in planning curriculum and engaging in instruction; aims to tailor assignments to meet students' needs and abilities; discovering "zones" or "ball parks" in which students in a classroom cluster, thus providing three or four types/levels of instruction rather than 20 to 30.

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Working Effectively with Students from Culturally Diverse Backgrounds

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Today one of every five children in the United States is from an immigrant family; effective teachers must be knowledgeable about people from different cultural backgrounds and sensitive to their needs; encourage students to have positive personal contact with other students of diverse backgrounds and think of ways to create settings in which such interaction can occur; effective teachers will guide students in thinking critically about cultural and ethnic issues while taking actions to forestall or reduce student bias and cultivate acceptance; need to serve as mediators.

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Assessment Knowledge and Skills

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Competent teachers also have good assessment knowledge and skills; you will need to decide what types of assessments you want to use to document your students' performance after instruction; you will also need to use assessment effectively before and during assessment; other assessments involve state-mandated tests to assess students' achievements and teachers' knowledge and skills.

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No Child Left Behind

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Legislation requires states to test students annually in mathematics, English/language arts, and science, and holds states accountable for the success and failure of their students.

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Standards-based Instruction

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Standards of excellence and what it takes to get students to pass external, large-scale tests.

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Technological Skills

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Technology itself does not necessarily improve students' ability to learn, but it can support learning; students will benefit from teachers who increase their technology knowledge and skills, and integrate computers appropriately into classroom learning; effective teachers are knowledgable about various assistive devices to support the learning of students with disabilities.

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Commitment, Motivation, and Caring

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Being a effective teacher requires commitment , motivation, and caring, qualities that include having a good attitude; the investment of time and effort needed to be an effective teacher is huge.

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Characteristics of Best Teachers

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Have a sense of humor, make the class interesting, have knowledge of their subjects, explain things clearly, spend time with their students, are fair to their students, treat students like adults, relate well to students, are considerate of students' feelings, don't show favoritism toward students

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Characteristics of Worst Teachers

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Are dull/have a boring class, don't explain things clearly, show favoritism toward students, have a poor attitude, expect too much from their students, don't relate to students, give too much homework, are too strict, don't give help/individual attention, lack control

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Why Research is Important

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It is sometimes said that experience is the best teacher; your own experiences and experiences that other teachers, administrators, and experts share with you will make you a better teacher; however by providing you with valid information about the best way to teach children, research also can make you a better teacher.

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Descriptive Research

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Purpose of observing and recording behavior

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Observation

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Knowing what you are looking for, conducting observations in an unbiased manner, accurately recording and categorizing what you see, and effectively communicating your observations.

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Laboratory

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Controlled setting from which many of the complex factors of the real world have been removed; they have been criticized as being artificial.

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Naturalistic Observation

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Behavior is observed out in the real world rather than a laboratory; in classrooms, museums, on playgrounds, etc.

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Participation Observation

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Observation conducted at the same time the teacher-researcher is actively involved as a participant in the activity or setting; the observer usually makes these observations and writes down notes over a period of days, weeks or months, and looks for patterns in the observations.

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Interviews and Questionnaires

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Sometimes the quickest and best way to get information about students and teachers is to ask them for it; use interviews and questionnaires (surveys) to find out about children;s and teacher's experiences, beliefs, and feelings; most interviews take place face to face, although they can be done in other ways; good interviews and surveys involve concrete, specific and unambiguous questions and some means checking the authenticity of the respondents' replies; not without problems , many individuals give socially desirable answers, responding in a way they think is most socially acceptable and desirable rather than how they truly think or feel.

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Standardized Tests

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Tests with uniform procedures for administration and scoring; they assess students' performance in different domains and allow a students' performance to be compared with the performance of other students at the same age or grade level on a national basis.

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Accountability

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Holding teachers and students responsible for student performance

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Case Study

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An in-depth look at an individual; often used when unique circumstances in a person's life cannot be duplicated, for either practical or ethnical reasons; do not always lend themselves to statistical analysis and may not generalize to other people.

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Ethnographic Studies

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In-depth description and interpretation of behavior in an ethnic or a cultural group that includes direct involvement with the participants; might include observations in naturalistic settings as well as interviews; many ethnographic studies are long-term projects.

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Focus Groups

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People interviewed in a group setting, usually to obtain information about a particular topic or issue; these groups typically consist of five to nine people in which a group facilitator asks a series of open-ended questions; can be used to assess the value of a product, service, or program, such as a newly developed school website to the benefits.

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Personal Journals and Diaries

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Individuals may be asked to keep personal journals or diaries to document quantitive aspects of their activities (such as how frequently the individual uses the internet) or qualitative aspects of their lives (such as their attitudes and beliefs about a particular topic or issue.

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Correlative Research

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Research that describes the strength of the relation between two or more events or characteristics; useful because the more strongly two events are correlated (related or associated) the more effectively we can predict one from the other; correlation by itself however, does not equal causation.

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Experimental Research

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Research that allows the determination of the causes of behavior; involves conducting an experiment, which is a carefully regulated procedure in which one or more of the factors believed to influence the behavior being studied is manipulated and all others are held constant.

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Cause

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The event that is being manipulated.

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Effect

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Behavior that changes because of the manipulation.

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Independent Variable

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The manipulated, influential, experimental factor in an experiment.

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Dependent Variable

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The factor that is measured in an experiment; values of this variable depend on what happens to the participants in the experiment as the independent variable is manipulated.

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Experimental Group

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The group whose experience is manipulated in the experiment.

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Controlled Group

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The group whose experience is treated in every way like the experimental group except for the manipulated factor.

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Random Assignment

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In experimental research, the assignment of participants to experimental controlled groups by chance.

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Program Evaluation Research

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Research designed to make decisions about the effectiveness of a particular program; it usually focuses on a specific school or school system, in which case results are not intended to be generalized to other settings.

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Action Research

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Research used to solve specific classroom or school program, improve teaching and other educational strategies, or make a decision at an specific level; action research is carried out by teachers and administrators rather than educational psychology researchers.

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The Teacher as Researcher

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Also called teacher-researcher, this concept involves classroom teachers conducting their own studies to improve their teaching practice; use methods such as participation observation, interviews and case studies.

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Quantitative Research

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Employs numerical calculations in an effort to discover information about a particular topic.

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Qualitative Research

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Involves obtaining information using descriptive measures such as interviews, case studies, personal journals and diaries, and focus groups but not statistically analyzing the information.

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Mixed Methods Research

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Involves research that blends different research designs and/or methods; consists of using both a quantitative measure, and also using a qualitative measure.

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