EDTE 580: Educational Psychology
EDTE 580: Educational Psychology
Embedded Files
Course Description
Course Description
This course is designed to help teaching credential candidates understand how students' cognitive, personal-social, and physical development, and cultural and linguistic backgrounds are related to effective teaching and interpersonal relations in secondary schools. Major segments of instruction include the study of how students learn, remember, and make use of the knowledge they have acquired and how students' educational growth is assessed in schools. Each candidate begins to use this knowledge to organize and manage a learning environment that supports student development, motivation, and learning.
The course is required for Single Subject Credential Candidates.
Course Modality
Course Modality
This is a completely asynchronous, online class. The course is organized in three units of five modules each. Students can access all material (lecture videos, readings, assignments, discussions, learning activities, etc.) via the Blackboard. Students are responsible to watch the video lectures, read selected articles and websites, and engage in discussion forums. Weekly discussion forums always provide options for students to demonstrate learning and higher-order thinking in a variety of ways. Virtually every module also has a non-graded, self-check quiz with automated feedback. This allows students to check their comprehension of course materials.
Course Design
Course Design
The course is designed around key components of quality online instruction: consistent layout and navigation, clear communication, student choice and voice, and prompt feedback.
Layout & Navigation: Every module is structured in the same way. Every link is embedded in modules and duplicated in side menu options to ensure access.
Clear Communication: Every module begins with an overview, list of objectives, agenda, and a to-do list. Every module ends with a check list and "next steps." Additionally, every week begins with an email to highlight important reminders.
Student Voice & Choice: Every module provides students with choices to access content and demonstrate learning. Also, students are asked to voice their opinions via a mid-term survey.
Prompt Feedback: Students are provided feedback on formative work weekly and feedback on summative assessments within a week. Email is the primary way mechanism between student and instructor. So, emails are always answered within 24 hours, but usually within a couple hours.
Student Engagement & Feedback
Student Engagement & Feedback
A key goal for the class is to increase student engagement by creating opportunities for both discussion and group work during each module. Each week students must participate in activities that require student-to-student interaction and collaboration. This interaction is usually achieved through discussion boards, but can also be accomplished through wiki pages embedded in Blackboard, videos, or online post-it notes (e.g.., note.ly or Google Jamboards). In the discussion forums, students are almost always provided with options to demonstrate learning. The options vary in cognitive technological complexity (e.g., "Propose a new theory of learning that synthesizes the best components of Behaviorism and Humanism," or "Create a digital Venn diagram of the 3 main theories of learning presented in the module"). In the wiki pages, students work together to create a shared resource of information on course topics (e.g., types of assessment, methods of instruction). Students are required to respond to their peers in ways that move beyond agreement and praise that demonstrate deeper thinking, and further the conversation.
Assessment of Student Learning
Assessment of Student Learning
Course Student Learning Outcomes
Connect the concepts, principles, and theories of learning (Behaviorist, Cognitive, and Social Cognitive) related to the cognitive, social, emotional and physical development of children and adolescents to the classroom.
Explain the importance of considering students’ prior knowledge, experience, abilities and interests in planning academic instruction.
Demonstrate an understanding of the implications of developmental and cultural differences for teaching, including diversity of values, expectations, and practices among representative groups.
Develop assessments (traditional, performance, formative) that adequately measure student learning while addressing issues of validity and reliability.
Describe the relationship among theory, research, data collection and analysis, and practice in effective classroom instruction.
Demonstrate recognition of common difficulties arising in interpersonal relationships and effective communication.
Apply different approaches to instruction and assessment (e.g., teacher-centered vs. student-centered vs. assessment-centered)
Demonstrate an understanding of the general classroom teacher’s responsibilities in planning for and teaching students with diverse needs.
Describe the professional responsibilities of teachers related to the personal, social and emotional development of children and youth, while emphasizing the teacher’s unique role in advancing each student’s academic achievements.
Additionally, students must...
Continue to develop academic writing skills in accordance with APA style. Specifically, students will demonstrate appropriate citations, support, style and tone in written assignments.
Continue to develop technological proficiency and understanding of best practices regarding technology.
Students will demonstrate the ability to work collaboratively and professionally with colleagues to meet a common goal.
Challenges & Benefits
Challenges & Benefits
There are several challenges and advantages for creating a fully asynchronous course for pre-service teachers. These benefits and challenges involve the content, the instruction methods, the platform, and interaction of all of the above. Additionally, the challenges are often on the "same coin" as the benefit.
Challenges
Maximizing the LMS and Ancillary Tools: The main challenge to creating any fully online course is to understand the learning management systems (LMS) capacity and limitations. This challenge includes recognizing that no two instructors use the same layout or navigation. So, I purposefully and explicitly teach my students how to use Blackboard (from logging in to clicking the "next" button.)
Building Community: Another challenge is to foster a sense of community to ensure students feel welcome and safe to share their experiences and thoughts. In person classes used to have an advantage when creating a community spaces, but technology has improved the variety and capacity of online ice breakers.
Modeling Good Pedagogy: Virtually all of my students teach in-person courses and want to see and experience a variety of pedagogical methods that they can use in their own teaching practice. However, this course is a "theory" course and not a "pedagogy" course. Nonetheless, I have been able to synthesize the online mode of instruction and the theoretical nature of the course content with a variety of methods such as inquiry, simulations, discussion, etc.
Accountability and Commitment: In-person classes afford social accountability through attendance and immediate conversation. Asynchronous courses lose that personal touch. Consequently, I make sure to email each student individually several times a semester to provide feedback (in addition to feedback used in the LMS), check-in, and hold students accountable.
Benefits
Access and Equity: Although online education can limit access due to quality internet access, it also provide more access and equity for students. Specifically, online courses allow students to learn at their pace on their own path. For example, if a concept is covered too quickly or slowly in a video, a student can turn on/off closed captioning and speed/slow down the video. They also can easily choose to skip, scrub, rewind, or re-watch.
Personalized and Flexible: Related to access and equity, online courses enable instructors to create multiple pathways to learning a single topic (e.g., video, text, activity, alternative viewpoints) that students can use to choose their own path to learning. Similarly, online courses dur to time and tools, allow students to express their learning in a variety of ways. Specifically, due to time and resources in a face-to-face course, all student might have to participate in the same way. In my online course students can respond to pre-made prompts, lead their own discussion, create an artifact, or even dig deeper into research articles on any given topic.
Monitoring Students: Because of the technology, online course instructors can more efficiently monitor student access, participation, and learning. For example, with the embedded analysis tools in Blackboard/Kaltura, I know whether a student watched a video or not (or even how much). Additionally, with self-check quizzes with automated feedback, I can see whether students are taking advantage of the resources available. With the built-in item analysis in Blackboard, I can determine which concepts they struggle with (as class or individually). This information can help me modify instruction.
QLT Course Design
QLT Course Design
Because of the QLT instrument, I have made three important changes to my course.
First and foremost, was making the course more accessible to all students. Specifically, I learned how to add alternative text to all images in every document and webpage of the course.
Second, I add even more self-checks for both comprehension and as checkpoints. Specifically, I added preliminary quizzes with automated feedback that students can use to monitor their knowledge before the module. Students are encouraged to use this feedback to choose their path through a module.
Third, I made sure to include links to all campus, program, and learner resources. Many of these resources are included in a "Start Here/Intro" module that precede any core course content.
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