1. Chapter 1 Educational Psychology: A Tool for Effective Teaching
Sesilia Monika

2. Outline: Exploring Educational Psychology Effective Teaching
Historical Background
Teaching: art and science
Effective Teaching
Professional knowledge and skills
Commitment and motivation
Research in Educational Psychology
Why research is important
Research methods
Program evaluation research, action research, and the teacher as researcher
Quantitative and Qualitative Research

3. 1. Exploring educational psychology
Educational psychology: the branch of psychology that specializes in understanding teaching and learning in educational settings

4. 1.1 Historical background
Three pioneers:
William James: Talks to teacher
John Dewey: children learn best by doing, adapt the world outside school, competent education for all children
E.L. Thorndike: focus strongly on measurement
Diversity and early educational psychology
Mamie & Kenneth Clark: African-American  self conception
George Sanchez: Latino psychologist  intelligence test
Leta Hollingworth: gifted
The behavioral approach
Skinner: programmed learning - reinforcing students
The cognitive revolution
Benjamin Bloom: taxonomy  remembering, comprehending, synthesizing, evaluating
Cognitive psychology: memory, thinking, reasoning, etc

5. 1.2 Teaching: art and science
Teaching: requiring improvisation and spontaneity

6. 2. Effective teaching 2.1 Professional knowledge and skills (1)
Subject matter competence
Facts, terms, general concepts, organizing ideas, patterns of change within a discipline, beliefs about a discipline, and the ability to carry ideas from one discipline to another.

7. Instructional strategies
Constructivist approach: a learner-centered approach to learning that emphasizes the importance of individuals actively constructing knowledge and understanding with guidance from the teacher
Direct instruction approach: 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 effort by teacher to keep negative affect to minimum (goal: maximizing student learning time)

8. Goal setting and instructional planning skills
Thinking skills
Critical thinking: thinking reflectively and productively and evaluating the evidence
Goal setting and instructional planning skills
Instructional planning, organizing the lessons
Developmentally appropriate teaching practices
Understands the children’s development
Create materials appropriate for their developmental level
Classroom management skills
Establishing rules and procedures, organizing groups, monitoring and pacing classroom activities, and handling misbehaviors

9. Paying more than lip service to individual variations
Motivational skills
Help the students become self-motivated and take responsibility for their learning
Communication skills
Skills in speaking, listening, overcoming barriers to verbal communication, tuning in to students’ nonverbal communication, and constructively resolving conflicts, also interacting with parents
Paying more than lip service to individual variations
Differentiated instruction: involves recognizing individual variations in students’ knowledge, readiness, interests, and other characteristics, and taking these differences into account when planning curriculum and engaging in instruction

10. Working effectively with students from culturally diverse backgrounds
Encourage students to have positive personal contact with diverse students and think of ways to create such settings
Assessment knowledge and skills
Decide type of tests  before, during, and after instruction
Develop a grading system that communicate meaningful information about students’ performance
Technological skills
To support learning

11. 2.2 Commitment, motivation, and caring
Good attitude and caring about students
Have confidence in their own self-efficacy,
Don’t let negative emotions diminish their motivation
Bring a positive attitude and enthusiasm to the classroom
Characteristics of best teachers:
Have a sense of humor, make the class interesting, have knowledge of their subjects, explain things clearly, spend time to help students, are fair to the students, treats students like adults, relate well to students, are considerate of students’ feelings, don’t show favoritism toward students

12. 3. Research in educational psychology
3.1 Why research is important?? The sharing experiences of teachers, administrators, and experts will make a better teacher How can you tell which one to believe?  Look closely at research on the topics

13. Personal experience and information from experts can help you become an effective teacher.
The information from research will help you sort through various strategies and determine which are most and least effective.
Research helps to eliminate errors in judgement that result from relying exclusively on personal experience.

14. 3.2 Research methods (1) 3.2.1 Descriptive research: Observation
Laboratory: a control setting from which many of the complex factors of the real world have been removed
Naturalistic observation: observation outside of a laboratory in the real world
Participant observation: observation conducted at the same time the teacher/researcher is actively involved as a participant in activity or setting
Interviews and questionnaires
Concrete, specific, and unambiguous questions and some means of checking the authenticity of the respondents’ replies

15. Standardized tests: tests with uniform procedures for administrations and scoring. They assess students’ performance in different domains and allow a student’s performance to be compared with the performance of other students at the same age or grade level on a national basis
Case studies: an in-depth look at an individual
Ethnographic studies: in-depth description and interpretation of behavior in an ethnic or a cultural group that includes direct involvement with the participants

16. Personal journals and diaries
Focus group: interviewing people in a group setting, in most cases to obtain information about particular topic or issue
Personal journals and diaries
Quantitative aspects: activities (how often use…)
Qualitative aspects: attitudes and beliefs

17. 3.2.2 Correlational research: research that describes the strength of the relation between two or more events or characteristics Experimental research: 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

18. 3.2.3 Experimental research (cont.)
Independent variable: the manipulated, influential, experimental factor in an experiment
Dependent variable: the factor that is measured in an experiment
Experimental group: the group whose experience is manipulated in an experiment
Control group: in an experiment, a group whose experience is treated in every way like the experimental group except for the manipulated factor
Random assignment: in experimental research, the assignment of participants to experimental and control groups by chance

19. 3.3 Program evaluation research, action research, and the teacher-as-researcher
Program evaluation research: research designed to make decisions about the effectiveness of a particular program
Action research: research used to solve a specific classroom or school problem, improve teaching and other educational strategies, or make a decisions at a specific level
Teacher as researcher: also called teacher-researcher, this concept involves classroom teachers conducting their own studies to improve their teaching practice

20. 3.4 Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Quantitative research: employs numerical calculation in an effort to discover information about a particular topic
Qualitative research: involves obtaining information using descriptive measures such as interviews, case studies, case studies, personal journals and diaries, and focus groups but not statistically analyzing the information
Mixed methods research: involves research that blends different research designs and/or methods

21. Thank you…