EDUCATIONAL
PSYCHOLOGY
REFLECTION FOR ACTION
Canadian Edition
O’Donnell, D’Amico, Schmid, Reeve, Smith
CHAPTER 11
Effective Teachers and the Process
of Teaching
Chapter 11 Effective Teachers and the
Process of Teaching
• Themes of the chapter
– Thoughtful learning can be fostered by highquality teaching
– Teachers’ knowledge of the subject matter they
are teaching and their beliefs about themselves,
their students, and the processes of learning and
teaching have important influences on classroom
practices and problems
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Chapter 11 Effective Teachers and the
Process of Teaching
• Themes of the chapter (continued)
– There are different theoretical perspectives on
peer learning and the means through which
peers promote learning
– Peer learning can lead to the acquisition of
skills and knowledge in widely differing
classroom situations
– Key issues in peer learning are quality of
student discourse, kinds of tasks teachers
choose, role of the teacher, peer mediation,
and assessing outcomes of peer learning.
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Guiding Questions
• How do teachers’ beliefs, knowledge of
subject matter, and general knowledge of
teaching translate into ways to teach specific
material to students?
• How do experienced teachers differ from
novice teachers?
• What are some general teacher-centred
approaches to teaching?
• What kinds of teaching tactics can teachers
use?
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Guiding Questions (continued)
•
•
•
•
•
How can teachers use homework effectively?
How can teachers plan to meet the needs of
students who have special needs?
How do theoretical perspectives describe the
means by which students can learn from
peers?
How effective is tutoring and learning from
peers? What processes are involved?
What do teachers need to consider when
having students work in larger groups?
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
What Is Teaching?
Teaching – interpersonal effort to help
learners acquire knowledge, develop skill,
and realize their potential; requires:
• Expertise in the subject matter being taught
• Belief in one’s ability to teach and students’
abilities to learn
• Sensitivity to the needs of different kinds of
learners
• Planning and organizational skills
• Interpersonal and leadership skills
• A great deal of hard work
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
An Integrated Model of
Child/Teacher/Curriculum
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Beliefs about Teaching and
Learning
• Sources of beliefs
– Personal experience – activities, events, and
understandings of everyday life
– Experience with schooling and instruction –
experiences when they were students
– Experience with formal knowledge – knowledge
from academic subjects and pedagogical
knowledge from teacher education programs
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Beliefs about Teaching and
Learning
Examples of inaccurate teacher beliefs
• Preservice teachers believing in student
autonomy
• First year teachers becoming more
controlling
– Custodial: an approach to classroom
management that views the teacher’s role
as primarily maintaining an orderly
classroom
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Types of Knowledge
• Content knowledge – knowledge about
the subject matter being taught
• Pedagogical knowledge – knowledge
about how to teach
• Pedagogical content knowledge –
knowledge about how to make subject
matter understandable to students
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Experienced Teachers
– View classroom as collection of individuals
– Plan more globally and for longer periods
– Have a more complex view of instructional
options
– Run a more smoothly operating classroom
– Evaluate students more often and in ways
closely related to content of instruction
– Attribute failure to problems with planning,
organization, or execution
– Hold complex ideas about the role of students’
existing knowledge and make use of it during
instruction
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Phases of Development of
Expertise
• Decreased focus on self-as-teacher;
increased focus on the needs of
learners
• Enhanced knowledge about learners
• Automation of classroom routines and
procedures
• Growth in problem-solving skills
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Teachers’ Self-Efficacy
• Self-efficacy – one’s judgment of how
well he or she will cope with a situation,
given the skills one possesses and the
circumstances one faces
• Teaching efficacy – a teacher’s
judgment of, or confidence in, his or her
capacity to cope with the teaching
situation in ways that bring about
desired outcomes
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Developing Self-Efficacy
• Canadian Teachers’ Federation reported in
2006 that a significant number of teachers
leave the profession in the first five years
• As a result, it is important to understand the
role of self-efficacy in teacher success
– Verbal persuasion, personal history, and
vicarious experience
– Opportunities to experience successful
coping
– Observation of other teachers and imitating
their behaviours
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Self-Efficacy and Learners with
Special Needs
• Teachers with a high sense of selfefficacy are less likely to refer students
for evaluation than are teachers with a
low sense of self-efficacy
– Referral: educators’ shorthand for the
recommendation that a child be
evaluated for possible special education
classification
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Working in Culturally Different
Contexts
• Some recommendations for developing a
multicultural curriculum include:
– Create learning goals and objectives that
incorporate multicultural aspects
– Include a wide variety of ethnic groups in
curriculum materials in variety of ways
– Introduce different ethnic groups and their
contributions
– Include examples from different ethnic experiences
to explain subject matter
– Show how multicultural content, goals, and
activities intersect with subject matter standards
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Planning
• Instructional goals
• Using goals in classroom teaching
• Translating goals into plans
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Instructional Goals
• A statement of what is being worked for or
desired in instruction
• Educational objectives – explicit
statements of what students are expected
to be able to do as a result of instruction
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Instructional Goals
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational
Objectives
• Taxonomy – a classification of objects
according to a set of principles or laws
• Bloom’s Taxonomy developed to show higherorder thinking skills, i.e. skills and abilities that
go beyond just recall and comprehension
• Bloom’s Taxonomy categories include:
knowledge, comprehension, application,
analysis, evaluation synthesis
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Your Turn
• Choose an instructional topic and
compose a question on that topic for
each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Instructional Goals
Anderson & Krathwohl, colleagues of Bloom’s, revised
the taxonomy to include categories more closely related
to classroom life
Bloom
• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Evaluation
• Synthesis
Anderson/Krathwohl
• Remembering
• Understanding
• Applying
• Analyzing
• Evaluating
• Creating
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Translating Goals and Objectives
into Plans
• Planning for instruction involves:
– Setting objectives or goals
– Choosing a way to achieve those goals
– Making decisions concerning the details
of the approach
– Making changes as the plan is carried out
– Evaluating the plan after it has been
carried out in order to be better prepared
the next time around
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Translating Goals and Objectives
into Plans
Planning on and Planning for:
Instructional Time and Scheduling
• Block scheduling – an approach to
scheduling at the middle and high school
levels that allows for larger blocks of time
to be schedules for subjects, usually with
fewer blocks per week
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Translating Goals and Objectives
into Plans
Levels of Planning for Instruction
•
•
•
•
Plan for the year
Make seasonal plans for the year
Plan instructional units
Have daily lesson plans
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Translating Goals and Objectives
into Plans
Lesson Plan Evaluation
• What is the teacher trying to accomplish?
• What assumptions does this plan make about
the students?
• How does the lesson plan view students as
learners?
• Could I teach this lesson from this plan? Would I
want to?
• Are the assessment procedures adequate?
• How likely are students to respond positively to
this plan?
• How difficult would it be to carry out this plan?
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Translating Goals and Objectives
into Plans
Planning for Students with Special Needs
• Consider instructional goals and objectives
• Form a cohesive instruction plan for your goals for
the class as a whole and for the goals of the special
needs student as laid out in the IEP
• Consider the resources available for students with
special needs, e.g., teacher’s aide
• Allow students with special needs extra time to
complete assignments or to do them at home with
parents
• Modify assignments to align with the IEP
• Allow students with special needs to work with other
students, either one on one or in a group
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Approaches to Teaching
• Promoting meaningful learning
• Discovery learning
• Direct instruction
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Promoting Meaningful Learning
• Reception learning – learner acquires
knowledge of the structure of knowledge
set forth by the teacher
• Discovery-based learning – students work
on their own to grasp a concept
• Expository teaching – teacher provides an
exposition of how a particular set of
information is structured and organized
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Promoting Meaningful Learning
• Advance organizer – broad introductory
statement of the information that will be
presented in a lesson
• Comparative organizer – broad statement
that reminds the student of what he or she
already knows
• Expository organizer – broad statement of
what is to be learned in a lesson
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Discovery Learning
• Inductive reasoning – abstraction of a
general principle from a variety of
examples
• Guided discovery – students work under
the guidance of a capable partner to grasp
a concept or understand a lesson
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Direct Instruction
• A systematic form of instruction that is used for
mastery of basic skills and facts
– Review the previous material
– Present new material
– Provide guided practice
– Provide feedback
– Provide independent practice
– Review weekly and monthly
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Teaching Tactics
• Providing explanations
• Providing feedback
• Asking questions
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Providing Explanations
Four types of explanations (Leinhardt, 1993)
• Common explanations – how to do something
• Disciplinary explanations – from specific
disciplines and formal in structure
• Self-explanations – explanations you can
rehearse to yourself to make sure you
understand something
• Instructional explanations – provided by
teachers, texts, or other materials
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Your Turn
• Write an example of each kind of
explanation
• Tell how they are different and how they
are alike
• How might these different explanations
influence student learning?
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Providing Feedback
• Feedback can enhance:
– Response learning – tasks in which the
learner provides a simple response to a
stimulus
– Concept learning – learning a new rule for
classification by generating the rule from
examples
– Skill learning – acquiring a new procedure
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Asking Questions
• Teachers ask questions to
– Focus students’ attention
– Provide rehearsal of information
– Identify misconceptions
– Stimulate change
– Elaborate on information
• Participation approach – teacher asks question
and selects student to respond
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Promoting Learning through
Homework
• Teachers’ influence extend beyond the
classroom through the assignment of
homework
• Homework provides additional practice for
or extends the work done in class
• Most students do homework on a regular
basis
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
A Taxonomy of Homework
Three types of homework:
• Homework based on material taught in
class – review, practice, rehearsal
• Homework based on new material –
preparation, experience
• Homework that expands on and extends
beyond the classroom learning –
exploration, learning experience,
expression
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
A Taxonomy of Homework
Developing Homework Policies
• How much homework will I assign each
night?
• When and how should students hand it in?
• What will I do when students do not do
homework?
• How will I respond when students hand in
homework late?
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
A Taxonomy of Homework
Developing Homework Policies (continued)
• What kind of help can the student seek
with the homework?
• What is the proper role of the parent with
regard to homework?
• What help can students expect from me?
• How will I evaluate the homework?
• What should students do if they often
have difficulty with homework?
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Getting Homework Done
• Tactics to increase rates of homework
completion:
– Purpose: provide students with a purpose
for the homework
– Policy: establish and communicate
expectations
– Design: consider students and their
interests
– Support: consider what supports are
available to students
– Feedback: provide feedback about
students’ efforts
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Homework Strategies for Student
with Disabilities
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•
•
•
•
Give clear and appropriate assignments
Make home work accommodations
Ensure clear home/school communication
Teach study skills
Use a homework calendar
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Homework: Cultural and
Socioeconomic Differences
• Economic difficulties
• Extended, blended, and other types of
families need to be considered
• Language differences can hinder
communication
• Cultural differences can go hand-inhand with language differences
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Teaching Strategies Involving
Peer Learning
• Peer learning enhances critical thinking,
conceptual understanding, and other higher
order skills
• Collaborative and co-operative learning in
classrooms can provide social and emotional
support for students
• Success of peer learning influenced by:
–
–
–
–
Size/makeup of group
Rewards for completing the task
Connecting peer learning to instructional goals
How assessed
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Theoretical Orientations toward
Learning from Peers
• Interdependence – condition in which group
members’ goal accomplishments are linked
together
• Goal Structure – how students relate to others
who are also working toward a particular goal
– Negative interdependence – condition that exists
when, in order for one person to succeed in
accomplishing his or her goals, others must fail to
meet their goals
– Positive interdependence – condition that exists
when the success of each individual depends on
all group members being successful
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Theoretical Orientations toward
Learning from Peers
The Social-Motivational Perspective
• Relies on use of rewards or recognition for group
productivity, e.g., Student-Tournament-AchievementDivisions (STAD)
– Before lesson – students grouped into teams of 4 to 6
– During lesson – teacher presents information using
various instructional strategies
– Peer learning – students work together to learn
– After lesson – teacher gives each student individual test
• Problem with STAD: difficult to maintain
interdependence if students believe they are unequal
contributors to group’s performance
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Theoretical Orientations toward
Learning from Peers
The Social-Motivational Perspective (continued)
• Teacher ensures individual accountability
through improvement points
– Individual accountability: each student is
responsible for improving his or her
performance
• Use of heterogeneous groups
• Recognition and reward for group
performance
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Theoretical Orientations toward
Learning from Peers
The Social-Cohesion Perspective
• Co-operative learning
– Positive interdependence
– Face-to-face promotive interaction
– Individual accountability and personal
responsibility
– Interpersonal and small-group skills
– Group processing
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Your Turn
• What aspects of using groups would vary if
you chose a social-motivation or social
cohesion approach to peer learning?
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Tutoring
• An instructional experience in which one
student teaches another student who is less
skilled
• Some teachers don’t try group learning
because of concerns about classroom
management
– Teacher behaviours and management
techniques that result in a healthy learning
environment, generally free of behaviour
problems
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Processes Involved in Tutoring
•
•
•
•
Tutor asks a question
Student answers a question
Tutor gives feedback on the answer
Tutor and the student collaborate to
improve the quality of the answers
• Tutor assesses the student’s
understanding of the answer
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Tutoring and Students with
Special Needs
• Students with special needs benefit from
tutoring and from serving as tutors
• Peer-assisted learning strategies (PALS)
–
–
–
–
Tutor models and gradually fades
Teacher provides step-by-step feedback
Frequent verbal and written interaction
Opportunities for tutees to apply
explanations to subsequent problems
– Reciprocity in which students play both
roles
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Collaboration, Technology, and
Diversity
• WebQuests – on-line program that presents realworld issues and asks students to solve a
problem
• Computer-Supported Intentional Learning
Environment (CSILE) and Knowledge forum –
students working on networked computers with a
communal database
• Race, Ethnicity, and Language – co-operative
learning can be used to integrate children from
varying backgrounds
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Special Needs and Co-Operative
Learning
• Academically handicapped students achieved
more when they were mainstreamed into cooperative learning classes and received
support from a special education teacher who
collaborated with the general education
teacher
• Students with learning disabilities may lack
the social skills to participate well in a cooperative task
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Learning from Peers: Classroom
Practices
Discourse quality
• The kind of tasks on which students
work will influence their talk
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Learning from Peers: Classroom
Practices
Teacher’s Role
• Preparer of learning activities
• Community builder
• Task developer
• The teacher as model
• Coordinator of activities
• Evaluator
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Learning from Peers: Classroom
Practices
Classroom Tasks
• Teachers need to set goals for any task
• Group task: problem solving – an activity
in which a person uses knowledge to
reach a specific goal but in which there is
no clearly specified way of reaching the
goal
• Group worthy tasks require a lot of time
and teacher expertise
Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition
Copyright
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Educational Psychology, Canadian Edition