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 13

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 13

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 13

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 13 ADHD

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An academic goal is basically the desired learning outcome that you want for your exiting students.  Setting appropriate academic goals might just be the single most important action that a teacher takes in their classrooms.  It is absolutely necessary in any approach to education.  You as the teacher must know exactly how you want your future students to change; to know exactly what they will be able to do when they leave your classroom.  Jerry Kramer, the Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame member, once said of his legendary coach, "The most unique thing about coach Lomdardi is that he could see the gap between what a player was and what he could become...with his coaching."  That is exactly what teachers do as well.  You look at a student and you can see their potential.

Academic goals are very effective motivators.  If your students accept the challenge put before them, some really good things tend to happen in the classroom.  Generally speaking the effect goals have on motivation are as follows:

1. Directs Attention:
   Because you have a goal, you are much more likely to focus on the task at hand.  The priorities of the day become very easy to set.  As one of the tasks is finished you know pretty much exactly what comes next.  Goals light the path before you. 
2. Mobilizes Effort:
   If you have a highly valued goal, you are going to set your alarm clock in the morning.  Having an attainable goal, gets you off of the couch and into the library.  You look at that pile off homework and say, "Well, It isn't going to complete itself..."  Goals get you to start a project.
3. Increases Persistence:
   No other word in the English language is more powerful, in my opinion, than "persistence."  If a student wants a goal badly enough, they will all but walk through fire to get it.  But "wanting" isn't the whole story, Bandura would say that the student must have the expectation of attaining the outcome or persistence will go down.  Bandura endorses the notion of goals needing to be highly valued but also with the expectation of completion, value/expectancy theory.
4. Promotes Invention:
   If, as stated above, your path is not clearly lit before you, then the power of having a goal will cause you to simply invent a new way up the hill.  You will cut a new path and leave it behind you for others to follow.  I had an English language student in Jakarta once that was trying with all his soul to go to graduate school in America.  He worked very, very hard with little result for months.  Then one week he began to improve he was the best test score in the class that week. The following week, he was the best in the class again.  After the third week, the rest of the class wanted to know what he was doing.  This is what he said, "I wake up early, but I get up late."  It turns out that he was lying in bed listening to Voice of America while still in that in between sleep and wakefulness state.  The mind is in a very suggestible state at that time of day.  He just invented a way to improve.

Below you will find links to some of the more common styles of goal orientation:

Learning Goals

Performance Goals

Work Avoidant

Social Goals