Educational Psychology

Diversity is an asset to society, as are teachers.  So, teaching a multicultural classroom is an important thing to learn in order to effectively teach a wide spectrum of diversity.  Multicultural education “promotes equity in the schooling of all students” (Woolfolk 2014).  I expect to encounter many forms of diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, and ability in regards to students and co-workers.

Teaching History from multiple perspectives is one way to include all of my students’ differences in the classroom.  Being a part of the white majority, it’s important to be culturally aware of other students and sensitive to their unique experiences.  I also think that personality characteristics play a huge role in how to organize the classroom, both physically and in regards to lesson plans.

The Power of Introverts TedTalk

I watched this Ted Talk in a Psychology class last year.  She discusses how classrooms are often arranged in ways that support extroverted personalities, like having the desks arranged in tables facing each other.  I can identify with the speaker in this sense because I hated having to face other students instead of the front of the room.  I felt like I was never able to work individually, which is how I thrived in school.

I imagine arranging my classroom in a way that can promote both personality types: arranging the desks in sets of two with aisles in between.  This way, students are easily able to work individually, with partners, or in small groups of four.  Working by individually and in groups is important for students so that they can learn independence and team building skills.  However, students also should feel comfortable in their learning enviroment in order for that learning to take place.

classroom arrangement

References

Cain, S. (2012, February). Retrieved March 31, 2017, from https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts

Woolfolk, A. E. (2014). Educational Psychology for teachers (12th ed.). Pearson

There are four different views of learning, and two common ones are Behavioral and Cognitive.  Behavioral learning is seen as more “teacher centered” learning, while Cognitive views learning as more “student centered” (Woolfolk 2014).  Other key differences include Behavioral learning being more study and memory based instead of application and experience based.  There are many criticisms of behavioral theory because it doesn’t always encourage students to be active learned in the classroom and puts too much attention on the instructor, however I think that these two theories can be combined in a way that helps the students even more.  Students need a balance between instruction (Behaviorist) and freedom (Cognitive) in order to perform tasks in the classroom. For example, a lesson at the beginning of a unit or chapter may be more teacher centered in order to the students to learn the concept foundations and vocabulary necessary to understand, and then later use that knowledge to apply it on their own in a more student centered lesson.  I think having a classroom that is entirely Behavioral based would bore the students and teach them that it’s okay to simply memorize the material in order to pass the test, whereas completely Cognitive based classrooms can give the students too much freedom and they can become confused, frustrated, and stray away from their assigned task.

Personally, I think I see myself fitting somewhere between the two theories, but closer towards Behavioral.  As a Social Studies teacher, it can be hard not to lecture on about History and encourage your students to memorize dates and important events and people, but I also think it’s important for students to understand why things happened they way that they did, which is where a Cognitive approach could come into play. As I mentioned earlier, the beginning of a new chapter might consist of me providing the basics- the people and the places and the dates, but then I could allow my students to engage in their own research or activity to learn more about the specifics they might be more interested in.