Summary Educational Psychology 200

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Summary Educational Psychology 200 LECTURES 1.So
much of what passes for educational wisdom is a
matter of belief. Most curriculum decisions such
as whole reading, new math, the open classroom,
etc. are based upon belief and not science. While
most educational decisions are supported by
research, pressure from within and outside the
system seem to be a central ingredient in
changing the curriculum. 2.Rewards and
punishments are used in every classroom I have
observed. a. Rewards change for older students.
b. Classical conditioning occurs outside the
awareness of the learner. c. Repetition is
extremely important for learning.
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• 3. Working Memory
• Working memory was viewed for the purposes of
  instruction to be limited to about 4 2
• chunks of information. All overheads, lesson
  plans should consider this limit.
• Working memory for children with respect to
  numbers and letters is not as great as for
  adults.
• b. Childrens disadvantage with respect to the
  use of working memory seems to be a function of
  their lack of experience, and not a neurological
  deficit.
• c. Older adults (ages 50) tend to have
  difficulty in reasoning with new complex
  problems.
• d. Having students elaborate and fully understand
  the material, facilitates storage and retrieval.
• e. Attention appears to be a central ingredient
  in learning.
• f. The greater the difficulty in articulating
  words and concepts, the more working memory is
  used.

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4. Childrens thinking tends to reflect their
personal realities, and fantasy and reality are
often fused. Piagets description of the
development of thinking from the idiosyncratic,
preoperational to the concrete operational seems
to be supported in the literature. Most of us
when we encounter new problems resort to trial
and error learning. 5. Most concepts are stored
in memory as prototypes. Therefore, surrounding a
concept with both positive and negative examples
facilitates the understanding of the concept and
promotes transfer. 6. Stevensons data on
achievement in mathematics points out that most
North American children seem to be behind their
Asian counterparts. However, most North American
parents and children are satisfied with their
achievement.
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7. Most students that you will teach will
probably have a performance goal orientation.
They perform well when task demands are easy
however, on difficult problems and assignments
they will tend to lack persistence. 8. Chronic
underachievement and procrastination are
extremely difficult to change, and do not respond
well to counseling and short term interventions.
It was also hypothesized that for some students
underachievement was an addiction. Most students
were classified as addicted to underachievement
at the University of Alberta obtained good marks
with little or no effort in elementary, junior
high school, and to some extent high school. They
were considered to be smart.
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9. Expertise seems to be based on effort, rather
than intelligence. Learning to work and to
tolerate the stress associated with achievement
appear to be critical for the development of
expertise. Practice separates the amateur from
the professional. 10. Self-esteem and IQ were
not seen as useful scientific concepts.