Psychology of Teaching and Learning

Brian G. Smith, Ph.D.

You may also check your understanding of the material on the Ablongman web site. Click on the Publisher Help Site button.

The assessments in this course are patterned after the Praxis II, Principles of Learning and Teaching tests required for licensure

Case Study - Lesson 8

Case studies are a very important part of this course of study. You may run through these scenarios an unlimited number of times. If you make errors, you will be referred to the appropriate area of the book, or an appropriate website.  The questions will be narrative, constructed responses to the issues in the study.   Upon submission of your answers, each of the narrative responses will have professionally written feedback of an ideal answer.  Carefully compare this to your answer to determine correctness There is a score associated with each case study but that score will not be recorded.  You will be given credit for participation.

Quiz - Lesson 8

You will have to take a quiz for each of the lessons. You have two opportunities to take each quiz.  The highest score will be recorded in the grade book.   Each of the quizzes will be multiple choice & true/false, open-book, open-notes.  Upon submitting each quiz, your quiz score as well as any items answered incorrectly will be available.

Homework and Quizzes are on Desire 2 Learn. Click on the Desire 2 Learn link, log in, select the Homework/Quizzes icon and choose the appropriate homework or quiz.

Learning Profiles - Lesson 8

Each lesson in this course will have a Special Education topic  associated with it.  Click on the link below to go to the content of the topic.  Each of the Special Education topics was specifically chosen to complement the psychology topic.  There will be Special Education items on each lesson's quiz. 

• Lesson 8 Disruptive Behavior Disorders

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Skinner was one of the most influential Psychologists of the 20th century concerning American education.  He has his fingerprints all over it.  He was one of the founding fathers of a movement in Psychology called Behaviorism which is a branch of Psychology that is very grounded in the pragmatics of helping people learn.  It is an approach that emphasizes only what can be observed, measured, recreated objectively.  In this approach, a researcher makes as few assumptions concerning the internal state of another human being as possible.  Instead a researcher simply collects observational data like, the frequency, duration, or the magnitude of the behavior. 

In turn then, a behaviorist only looks at observable behavior to conclude if there has been any learning taking place.  If the person has learned something new then there will also be a change in behavior.  Conversely, if there is no change in behavior then a behaviorist would say that no learning has taken place.  It is a rather extreme stance.  There are many educators who have some sustentative problems with behaviorism because of how dehumanizing the approach appears to be.  However, this approach, while not the only way to approach education, is probably one of the practices that must be handled adequately in your future classroom in order to move on to more deeply meaningful teaching & learning.

The following links will give an overview of Skinner's Operant conditioning theory:

Skinner's learning model

Types of Consequences

Reinforcement Schedules

Behaviorism Techniques