Overview

Taking this education psychology course will help me throughout my career as a teacher.  I found learning about the different philosopher theories helped me to look at how children develop and their behaviors in a different way and gave me a better understanding. I also found the video we watched with Richard Lavoy educational and eye opening it gave me a new perspective for  helping and working with children with learning disabilities. This course also gave me a different view as why children can act the way they do that many external and internal forces play a role in a children behavior.  I think we all know that the environment plays a role in our environment but forget about it and blame the individual.  It is important for teachers to help shape children futures and the knowledge we gained, can help us to shape that path for each individual child in the way that is best for them cause no two student is the same.     

Assessing Students Learning

Assessment is the gathering of reliable information pertaining to students knowledge and understanding of critical concepts.   This is not to be confused with evaluation which is the process of making judgment, based in part on assessment data. There are four types of assessment:
1. Before instruction assessment 
2. During instruction assessment (formative assessment), assessment for learning to provide information on how they are doing
3. After instruction assessment (Summative assessment)-Assessment of learning
4.Assessment as learning, a self assessment reflecting upon your own learning 

Three features to assessment 
1. Reliability, results that are produced are reproducible 
2.Validity, test or a assignment that measures what it is intended to measure  two types 
           A) Content Validity, assessment instruments measures the content that you`ve covered
           B) Instructional Validity, assessment of what was actually done in class

It is important for teacher to be fair when assessing students all students should have an equal opportunity to learn and demonstrate their skills.  Some current trends used to assess student include the use of at least some performance base assessment, higher order cognitive skills, use of multiple assessment methods, having high performance standards and using computers as part of assessments   
  

Managing The Classroom

It is important when teaching and dealing with students while managing a classroom we deal with problems is a matter of timing and the best timing is before the issues become a problem.  To do this teachers need to take a proactive approach to managing the classroom.  As teachers we need to strick a balance between preventive and reactive.  When a problem arises in our classrooms we need to asses the seriousness.  To do this we need to look at 3 things 
1. Consider the sevairity of the behavior 
2. Consider chronicity of the behavior, pervasiveness of behavior throughout the year 
3.Frequency, How often 
 After you have assessed the behavior you can decided what type of intervention is required;
Minor intervention include 
-non verbal cues
-keep the activity moving
-moving closer to student 
-redirecting the behavior 
-give needed instruction
-directly and assertively tell student to stop
- provide students with choices 
Teacher need to ensure they are sensitive to the development needs of students and understand that relationships with students are important.
the 2nd type of intervention is Moderate intervention this includes;
-withholding a privileged
-giving a detention 
-removing/ isolating student 
The last type of intervention is serious intervention such as:
-In school suspension
-Out school suspensions
-Expulsions 
-Involving the law 
It is important for teachers to know how to assess a situation in their classroom and how to handle the situation to maintain and manage their classrooms. 

Orientation

There is 3 types of orientation:
1) Helpless orientation, where a person feels helpless like they can`t do anything.  There is two types of helpless orientation
       a)internal attribution, is blaming one self for not being able to solve a problem
       b)external attribution, is blaming an external source for not being able to solve a problem
2)Performance orientation, motivation is based on the outcome.  The danger to this type of orientation is if the outcome is not achieved it makes us vulnerable
3)Mastery orientation, is motivated though our own desire to succeed people with mastery orientation have a sense of curiosity, of self ownership of success or failure

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow developed a model to explain how humans motivation and behaviors 

 


The bottom four in the pyramid are a persons deficiency needs; the top four are the growth needs.  Maslow states an individual without deficiency needs can not move up the pyramid towards the growth needs.



 

Co-operative Learning

Cooperative learning occurs when students work in small groups to help each other learn.  For my self personally, I find small group discussions help me to see things in different perspective; group work also help to me to remember facts when there is a discussions on the topic.  Cooperative learning emphasizes the social context of learning and the mutual construction of knowledge.  There are five components of cooperative learning.
1.Positive interdependence is dependent in the success of the whole group.  2.Positive face to face interactions helps to build on individuals team skills.  3.Interpersonal and small group interactions help students learn to take on specific roles in a group to ensure all tasks are done to complete project.
4.Individual accountability it is important to assess both the group and individuals so there is no slacking done by members of the group.
5.The last component is critical thinking this step includes taking a step back and thinking about what you learned in the group and reflecting on it in order to turn what you did into knowledge.

Memory

Memory is the interplay of encoding, storage and retrieval of information over time.  There are three stages  to the processing of  information into memory: Encoding, storage, and retrieval.  Encoding has five parts to it:
1.Rehearsal, the conscious repetition of information over time to increase the length of time that information stays in memory. 
2.Deep Processing is when you think about information deeply and the pattern makes sense.
3. Elaboration, the extensiveness of information processing involved in memory such as thinking of examples to elaborate on information. 
4.Constructing images, this is when you imagine a visual representation to help you remember and last of all,
5. Organization, when students organize information while their memory encodes it their memory benefits. 
 The way memory is stored can be classified in three types: sensory memory, short term, and long term memory.  Sensory Memory holds information from the world original moment and for only an instant.  Short Term information is retained at most for 30 seconds and long term memory hold enormous amounts of information for long periods of time.  The last stage of memory is retrieval this stage has 3 types:
1. Cue-dependent forgetting, is when you learn something you give it a label when you go to remember you have for forgotten the cue.
2. Interference theory, the new stuff you have learned is getting in the way of the old stuff you have learned. and,
3.  The decay theory, knowledge you have stored is not used so it begins to decay.