Over the course of this semester, I have had the opportunity to learn about educational psychology. I have always enjoyed psychology and was especially interested in how it applied to teaching in the classroom. There were five specific concepts we discussed over the semester that especially interested me. I found that homogenous and heterogeneous grouping, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, operant conditioning, cooperative learning, and divergent versus convergent thinking are five psychological concepts that every teacher should learn about in preparation for teaching.
In order to promote the utmost success of students, numerous studies have been conducted to determine the ideal organization strategies for grouping within classrooms. There are two major types of grouping, heterogeneous and homogeneous. Heterogeneous grouping can be described as randomly grouping students together. The teacher does not group based on any specific criteria and attempts to involve all types of students within each group. In further detail, there may be one student who overachieves at mathematics and a student that performs below average in mathematics within the same group. Homogeneous grouping is arranging students together based on their academic achievement in particular subjects. For instance, a homogeneous group will contain students who are all around the same reading level. There are two divisions within homogeneous grouping. One is within-class grouping. This means that the students
Grouping of students can be by learning style, interest, readiness, task, or other teacher determined criteria. Flexible grouping is one of the non-negotiables in the differentiated instruction
In the article, “Flexible Grouping in the Classroom,” Rick Wormeli explains the ways to accomplish flexible grouping in classrooms. He begins the article by referring to the Fibonacci sequence. Through this sequence, he focuses on how a group of students will not recognize that these building blocks are all around them, but many will. Rick goes on to mention that nevertheless these students will all be in our classrooms and we need to create lessons that work for both groups. He then expanded upon the idea that not all groups will be the same and that they should become adaptable because of all the diverse students in our
I am very interested in the School Psychology program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I have a strong educational background and a number of professional and educational experiences, which I feel have prepared me for this program. I enjoy working with children and developing strong rapport with parents and co-workers. I learned about the graduate program with great interest because I would like to offer my skills in the area of psychology to meet students’ psychological needs.
“It takes a village to raise a child.” I never quite understood that saying when I was growing up, but my experiences teaching and working in school settings have showed me how true it really is. Obtaining a degree in school psychology will allow me to give the support that students, families and educators need to ensure that every student will thrive.
When I declared a psychology major during the second year of my undergraduate career, my objective was to attend medical school and eventually become a psychiatrist. I enjoyed the psychology classes in which I was enrolled and found them to compliment the premed curriculum I also wanted to study. I reasoned that a major in psychology would provide insight that could later be useful in my planned studies of psychiatry. Although I decided against going to medical school, psychology remained the primary area of focus of my studies with the ultimate career goal of becoming a clinical psychologist. While my long term professional plans include achieving a PhD and becoming a clinical psychologist. Pursuing a masters degree in
In Psychology 101, you learn about a personal fable; something that I have not lost. I have always wanted to change the world that I was destined for greatness and teaching elementary school students gives me that power. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Recently single-sex schools have made a comeback, and this has raised the question of whether they are better than coeducational schools. In single-sex educational systems, male and female students are separated and taught in different school buildings or classrooms. In a historical point of view, only boys were given the opportunity to pursue formal education in the United States. Schools for women began to spread in the beginning of the nineteenth century, almost one hundred years before they were granted the right to vote. By the end of the twentieth century coeducational schooling had reached all elementary and secondary schools
Over the course of this class I have pieced together many things about my own life that before went unnoticed. I am now able to see things in a bit of a different light. Now that I have been introduced to the realm of psychology I understand some of the reasons for behavior around me. I have learned that there is a reason for most everything and a lot of our behaviors and mental processes can be explained through psychology. Studies have been conducted for many years to try and pinpoint the source of our behavior and it is not something that most people think about every day. Having a better understanding of why we operate the way we do will help me to better understand myself and the others around me.
There are many different kinds of ways that people and animals learn. People can adjust the way they learn to the different situations in which they are learning and what they have to learn. One form of learning is known as conditioning. Conditioning emphasises the relationship between stimuli and responses. The two types of conditioning found are Classical conditioning and Operant conditioning. Learning may occur in different ways. Psychologists have distinguished between different types of learning, these being Observational Learning and Insight Learning.
The different perspectives of psychology that allow us to create a complete picture have different approaches toward explaining behaviors. A Biological psychologist may attempt to explain aggressive behavior by explaining the neural pathways involved in transferring neurotransmitters that cause anger. According to Biological Psychology the brain is full of neurons that transfer the information around our brains; this allows humans to influence those by tampering with the genes that effect neuron transmission, or heredity temperament.
Tuckman, J., & Lorge, I. (1952). The influence of a course on the psychology of the adult on attitudes toward old people and older workers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 43(7), 400-407. doi:10.1037/h0062469
There are two types of people: the dogs, and the researchers. Pavlov’s Bell is the most famous psychological experiment classical conditioning, and it paved the way to further understanding learning. In the experiments, there is a researcher and a dog. The dog must simply make a association between a neutral and an unconditioned stimulus (a bowl of food and a bell ringing, respectively); however, the researcher is tasked with training the dog to find an association between the two. The different methods of learning have always fascinated me, so, in an effort to learn in an alternate way, I scheduled a research course during my senior year, but rather than researching an area of science, I requested to do research in literature. I was permitted to do so, with one stipulation: I had to design my curriculum for the trimester before my research could be approved. In learning, I had always been "the dog", simply following promptings of a teacher until a connection was made, but now I was both researcher and dog. I had to
One of the more popular areas of psychology is Educational Psychology. Educational Psychology can be explained several ways. The idea is to study theories and concepts from different parts of psychology and apply them in educational settings. These educational settings may occur in different school settings such as preschool. The goal of educational psychology is to create a positive student-teacher relationship. Educational psychology uses five different types of psychology, behavioral, cognitive, developmental, and social cognitive, and constructivist in this research paper I will be briefly discussing each type of psychology listed above.
This research article was taken from the Association for Psychological Science (APS) Journal. This specific issue had a total of ten articles, and while they are covering different topics and studies, some of them do focus on similar ideas. Psychology is all about the study of the mind, and how it has different parts intended for unique functions. It seems like a good portion of the articles for this specific journal deal with emotions and how the body interprets them. One article deals with the stress of different generations, while another deals with an individual’s willpower against sugar. There is an article about self-esteem and how that varies during a lifetime, as well as an article on cooperation. The article that will be specifically discussed in this research paper also has to deal with how the body interprets things when it comes to a stressful situation, such as a crime. It looks at how reliable eyewitness testimony is after traumatic events, specifically in regards to lineups.
Intrinsic motivation can be defined as “motivation associated with activities that are their own reward” (Perry 2003). It is motivation that stems from your inner feelings and views which feed your desires to accomplish and perform. Oppositely, extrinsic motivation is “motivation created by external factors such as rewards and punishments” (Perry 2003). When you are extrinsically motivated, you are only performing the task for what you will gain from completion. On the other hand, when we are intrinsically motivated, there is no requirement for external rewards or punishments