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 11

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 11

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 11

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 11 Autism Spectrum Disorder

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It is virtually impossible to capture all of the myriad perspectives concerning the term constructivism as it pertains to education.  It is first of all a very philosophical theory based on abstractions and beliefs.  It is a fairly new concept in education so there are many, many different interpretations of this learning theory.  I will try to present a spectrum of interpretations that people have proposed over the years.  The best framework that I have seen concerning all of the different versions comes from David Moshman and is summarized below.  As a common definition, I would say that most constructivists would say that it emphasizes the active role of the learner in their own learning.

I feel the need to also explain that this is a highly contested field in education.  There are many approaches on the spectrum given below that teachers from other places on the spectrum have a very healthy hatred of.  The reason that I am presenting a continuum of approaches is to validate all of the approaches.  They all work to some degree.  While some teachers seem to believe that because they have found their way of approaching teaching and learning, that approach will work for everybody.  There is always more than one way to teach. 

On the following links you will find a comparison of each of the approaches according to a set of descriptors common for teaching and learning.

Exogenous

Endogenous

Dialectical