This document provides an overview of key concepts in educational psychology. It discusses how educational psychology aims to enhance teaching and learning by improving teachers' understanding of learners and promoting learning. It also notes that students are diverse and some have special needs. The document outlines concerns of beginning teachers, the importance of reflective teaching over technical teaching, recognizing diverse learners and students with special needs, and how educational psychologists use theory and research methods like descriptive, correlational, experimental, and action research.

1. EDUCATIONAL
PSYCHOLOGY

2. Introducing Educational Psychology
• Themes of this Handout
– Learning how to understand learners and
to promote their learning helps teachers
feel more comfortable and successful.
– Students are diverse and some have
special needs
– Theory and research play major roles in
educational psychology and reflective
practice

3. Guiding Questions
• What is educational psychology?
• What primary concerns do beginning
teachers have?
• What is reflective teaching, and how is it
different from technical teaching?
• How can teachers recognize, adapt, and
respond to diverse learners and students
with special needs?
• How do educational psychologists use
theory and research?

4. Goals of Educational Psychology
• Enhance theoretical knowledge of
basic psychological processes
• Improve educational practice

5. Teaching and Learning
Teaching
• A relatively permanent change in behaviour
or knowledge as a result of experience
Learning
• One person’s interpersonal effort to help
others acquire knowledge, develop skill, and
realize their potential

6. What Expert Teachers Know
• Broad and deep subject matter knowledge
• How-to instructional strategies
• Knowledge about learning environments
• Knowledge about educational materials

7. Concerns of Beginning Teachers
• Classroom discipline
• Motivating students
• Special needs
• Assessment and grading

8. Teaching Efficacy
• A teacher’s judgement of, or
confidence in, his or her capacity to
cope with the teaching situation in
ways that bring about desired
outcomes

9. Teaching Efficacy Categories
• Efficacy for classroom management
• Efficacy for student engagement
• Efficacy for instructional strategies

10. Examples of Statements
of Efficacy
• Classroom management: “I can prevent
behaviour problems in the classroom.”
• Student engagement: “I can develop interesting
tasks that students will enjoy.”
• Instructional strategies: “I can teach writing very
well.”

11. Metaphors for Teaching
Provide examples of how teachers might
describe their teaching if they adopted the
metaphor of teacher as: entertainer, coach, lion
tamer, choreographer, party host, circus master,
traffic cop, ship captain, air traffic controller
Benefits of Having Metaphors for Teaching:
• Facilitates reflection
• Serves as a standard for self-evaluation
• Helps initiate desired changes in teaching

12. Two Modes of Teaching
• Technical teaching: Teaching situation is
predictable and calls for routine action
– Classroom experience: Constructive
learning experience
• Reflective teaching: Teaching situation is
surprising and calls for conjectures,
information gathering, and decision-
making.
– Knowledge about teaching and learning:
Constructive learning experience

13. Figure : Similarities in the Day-to-Day
Work of Teachers and Researchers

14. Model for Reflective Teaching:
Reflection, Information gathering, Decision
making, Evaluation (RIDE)

15. Your Turn
• Ms Newby is afraid that she will not be
able to handle students’ misbehaviours
• How might she solve this problem using
the RIDE model?

16. Diverse Learners in Canada
• In Canada, 14% of the 8 million students
enrolled in public schools are visible
minorities
• 12% of these 8 million students have special
needs that interfere with their ability to learn
• Response to diversity
– Equality
– Accommodation

17. Instruction for Canadian Students
with Special Needs
• Individualize instruction dictated by the Education Act
• Rely on direct and explicit instructional practices
outlined in an individual education program (IEP)
required by law
• Meticulously arrange or structure the learning
environment
• Provide external supports, such as calculators, tape-
recorded textbooks, adaptive furniture, special lighting
or acoustics
• Closely monitor students’ progress and provide
systematic feedback
• Teach skill-based strategies, such as how to generate
questions while reading

18. Theory
• What is theory and why is it important?
• Theory is an intellectual framework that
organizes a vast amount of knowledge
about a phenomenon so that educators
can understand and explain better the
nature of that phenomenon

19. Research Methods
• Research methods provide evidence that assists
teachers make appropriate choices in the
classroom
• Types of research methods:
– Descriptive studies
– Correlational studies
– Experimental studies
– Action research

20. Descriptive Studies
• A research method used to describe the
educational situation as it naturally
occurs: what typically happens, how
teachers teach, and how students learn
and develop
• Example research question: “How does
Ms. Newby organize the physical layout
of her classroom?

21. Correlational Studies
• A research method used to measure two
naturally occurring variables and
summarize the nature and magnitude of
their relationship in numerical form
• Example research question: “How is
measured intelligence related to school
achievement?”

22. Experimental Studies
• A research method used to test for a
cause-and-effect relationship between
two variables
• Example research question: “Is reading
program ‘A’ better than reading
program ‘B’ for teaching first graders to
read?”

23. Action Research
• A research method carried out by
teachers in their own classrooms to
inform and refine their personal
theories of teaching and classroom
learning
• Example research question: “Do I ask
boys more questions than I ask girls?”

24. What Kind of Research?
• I want to decide if boys in the Grade 6
benefit more from cooperative learning than
girls
• I want to decide if completion of homework
is associated with better achievement
• I want to examine the number of errors
present in the Grade 8 science book
• I want Maria to tell me about her
experiences in solving a math problem

25. Critical Thinking of Teachers
• Teachers supplement their subjective
ways of knowing with objective, data-
based ways of knowing and go
beneath the surface of their idea