Psychology and Curriculum

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Session 4
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Psychology and Curriculum

• Define in your group the following
• What is Psychology
• Why do Curriculum Specialist consider it when
  developing a curriculum?

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Educational Psychology

• Educational Psychology is concerned with how
  people learn
• Issues such as
• Motivation
• Memory
• Development
• Cognition

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Educational Psychology

• IT is also concerned with include
• What can teachers do to maximize learning
• How should the curriculum be organized
• What experiences help students learn the best

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Educational Psychology

• Educational Psychology can be organized into
  several major categories
• Behaviorism-
• Phenomenological and humanistic theories which
  consider the whole child
• Cognitive- Information processing model

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Activity

• Each group will take a division of psychology and
  answer the following questions
• Develop a two to three statement description of
  this philosophy
• Who were the leaders in this field
• What are the major tenets of this division of
  psychology
• What are its impact for learning
• What are the considerations for developing
  curriculum

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• Clubs- Behaviorist
• Spades- Phenomenological and humanistic theories
• Diamonds- Cognitive, Problem Solving,
• Hearts-Developmentalist, language development

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Behaviorism

• Lets hear from the group

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Comments
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Behaviorist an the Curriculum

• Rely on
• Very prescriptive-Step by step layout
• Structured
• Relied heavily upon in Special education
• Many critics of this type of learning
• Examples- DISTAR, SQ3R, Some computer programs

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Report From the Spades Group

• Spades- Phenomenological and humanistic theories

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Comments
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Report back from

• Developmentalist, language development

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Comments
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• At the center of the Cognitive Theorist is the
  debate over nurture versus Nature,
• How much does environment play into intelligence
  and how much is it genetic?

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Feedback From

• Diamonds- Cognitive, Problem Solving,

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Lets look at Some Problems

• What factors do you need to consider when
  building a curriculum?

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Problem solving

• A person needs to know what information they need
  to store. Many times information is given tat is
  unnecessary. The elevator story, 5 people get on-
  how many stops
• the shopping story, five eggs cost, 2 gallons
  cost , how many items?

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Problem Solving Strategies

• Combine algorithms -when two or more simple rules
  are used to solve a problem( sometimes used in
  geometric problems)
• Hill climbing-when individuals make any move that
  brings them closer to a goal

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Problem Solving Strategies

• Hill climbing example
• You have 24 coins, twenty-three have the same
  weight. Your task is to find the one heaver coin,
  you have a balance scale that will tell what is
  the heaviest between sets of coins. How many
  weighings will you need?

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Problem Solving Strategies

• The problem could be solved in as many as 12
  weightings, but in as few as three
• Each step takes you closer to an answer and
  guarantees a correct answer-hill climbing

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Problem Solving Strategies

• A zoo keeper must transport three lions and three
  giraffes across a river. She has a barge that can
  only hold herself and two other animals, so she
  will have to make several trips and leave some
  animals unattended some of the time. However,
  whenever she leaves a group of animals, the
  giraffes must out number the lions otherwise the
  lions will gang up on one of the giraffes and
  kill it. How can the zookeeper transport all six
  animals across the river

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Hill Climbing

• The lions and the Giraffes is an example of when
  a hill climbing would not work
• To solve this you need to go backwards sometimes
  to reach the end

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Problem Solving Strategies

• Means-end Analysis
• When you break a problem down into two or more
  sub goals the work on each goals separately
• Here is an example
• Two sets of neighbors argue over whose barbeque
  is bigger one is 3.5 feet by 5 feet the other is
  1.5 meter by 1 meter

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Problem Solving Strategies

• First goal
• Convert one barbeque from meters to feet
• Second goal
• Calculate the area or each barbeque
• Third goal
• Compare barbeques

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Problem Solving Strategies

• Working Backwards
• Begin at the problems goal and work backwards one
  step at a time to try and solve the problem.
• Use this approach to solve the next problem

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Problem Solving Strategies

• There are 21 pennies on the table. Two players ,
  Mary and Susan take turns removing pennies from
  the table. In a given turn, a player must remove
  either one, two, or three pennies. The player who
  removes the last penny wins the game and keeps
  all 21 pennies. Mary begins by taking two
  pennies. What strategy can Susan use to ensure
  she wins the game.

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Problem Solving Strategies

• Drawing Analogies
• Analogies often help students visualize an answer
  ( 399)

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Problem Solving Strategies

• The number of quarters is seven times the number
  of dimes he has. The value of the dimes exceeds
  the value of the quarters by two dollars and
  fifty cents. How many of each coin does he have.

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Others

• Bandura
• Developed a theory about learning through
  modeling Social learning theory
• Robert Gagne developed a hierarchy of learning-
• His theory was a transition between Behaviorism
  and Cognitive psychology.

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Activity

• In your groups, what are some behaviors that can
  be learned through modeling? Develop a list of
  ten.

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• Stopped 1-31-11

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• Students are better readers when their parents
  are readers
• Students solve math problems when they see others
  solve the problems
• Are more likely to resist temptation from a
  stranger when they see it modeled by a peer
• Can deal with fear after they see someone else
  model fearless behavior
• Are more likely to be intolerant of racism when
  they see other around them are intolerant of
  racist statements
• Are more likely to violate traditional gender
  stereotypes when they see others break the
  traditional rules

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Aggression

• Research has demonstrated that- Children that
  have been modeled aggressive behavior demonstrate
  it more than those who have not seen it.
  Conversely, children that are modeled
  non-aggressive behaviors are less aggressive than
  children who have had no modeling

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Morality

• Many studies have been conducted in which
  children have made more positive moral decision
  when this behavior was modeled to them. Such
  behaviors as generosity, resistance to temptation
  are some examples of this.

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The Four Process for Learning Using Modeling

• Attention
• To learn a behavior, you must pay attention to
  the model ( common sense)
• Retention
• (More common sense) you must remember what you
  observed- How many times have you heard a funny
  joke and not been able to tell it later?

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The Four Process for Learning Using Modeling

• Motor reproduction
• You must be able to replicate the behavior that
  was demonstrated
• How many have watched Tiger woods swing but cant
  replicate it
• As teachers we may need to task analyze teach
  motoric action ????

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The Four Process for Learning Using Modeling

• Motivation
• Obviously, the observer must want to replicate
  the behavior or modeling will not work.

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Characteristics of Effective Modeling

• Model is competent
• Model has prestige and power
• Model behaves in stereotypical ways-Boys copy men
  models better than women and girls copy women
  models better.
• Models behavior is relevant to the observer

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Concept Learning

• Feature list is similar to the prototype theory
• But focuses on learning by the following
• What are the relevant features, both defining and
  correlation
• The probability that these features will present
  itself in a positive instance
• The relationship between the features- what are
  the rules for combination

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Concept Learning

• Robert Gagne developed a theory of learning that
  included eight types of learning, four basic
  types and four more complex forms of learning

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Gagnebasic learning

• Classical conditioning
• Operant conditioning
• Chaining- it is a series of S-R interactions (
  stimulus Response. Mostly physical motoric
  learning.
• Verbal associations-like chaining with verbal
  responses

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Gagnes Higher level learning

• Discrimination learning- a child learns to
  distinguish the letter b form other letters and
  say the sound bee
• Concept learning
• Has two types of concepts abstract and defined
  concepts, this type of learning involves
  learning defined concepts only. Only learning
  physical concepts

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Gagnes Higher order learning skills

• Rule learning rules allow people to respond
  effectively to a wide range of stimuli
• They involve two or more concepts
• These concepts are learned through statements
  expressing rules

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Gagnes Higher order learning skills

• Higher order rules
• When people can combine two or more rules to
  solve problems. We will discuss problem solving
  later

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• Here is how some college students interpreted
  Gagnes theory on learning

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Maria Montessori

• Another major influence in the cognitive field
• First job to teach children from and insane
  Asylum
• She was successful and concluded that any of
  their problems were not medical, but poor
  education
• Believed in activity, but unlike the behaviorist
  and Dewey who thought that the Motoric part of
  activity was important, she felt that the visual
  and auditory sense (all senses) were the reason
  children learn during activity

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Maria Montessori

• Students learn by activity, although very
  structured
• Also pointed out that children of lower SES
  communities were disadvantaged because they
  lacked stimulation in the home

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Birth Order

• IN families with multiple children. There is
  usually a three point difference in IQ from the
  first to second child, and second to third
• Usually not genetic, it is the expectations
  placed on this child
• Second and third children usually are more
  creative and have more diverse interest

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Multiple Intelligences

• Garner developed a ( or expanded) theory on the
  idea that there are several dimensions that
  comprise intelligence
• Originally there were six
• Now there are eight and there is work saying a
  ninth is coming out

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Multiple Intelligences

• Linguistic intelligence ("word smart")
• Logical-mathematical intelligence
  ("number/reasoning smart")
• Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
• Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
• Musical intelligence ("music smart")
• Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
• Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
• Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")

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Learning Styles

• Somewhat like the concept of multiple
  intelligences, Learning styles promotes and idea
  that people have different avenues that they are
  able to learn better through
• Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Tactile( physical)
• Other models
• Debate if you teach through these or teach
  against these to develop them

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Constructivism

• The learner generates meaning for concepts, They
  Construct the learning
• As they construct the learning the automatically
  make links to what is existing in their mind
• Learning is optimized when they are aware that
  they are learning

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Different types of thinking

• Critical Thinking
• Problem solving- we already explored
• Creative Thinking- They puzzle school
• Often their needs are not addressed in the
  curriculum, certainly they are not planned for
• Intuitive thinking- coming to an answer with
  little or no awareness of how

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Different types of thinking

• Reflective Thinking
• Is a model of problem solving based on the
  scientific method
• Perceive the difficulty, identify the problem,
  formulate an hypothesis, accept or reject the
  hypothesis, formulate conclusion and evaluate
• Discovery learning- from Jerome Bruner, similar
  to constructivism, where students discover
  relationships between concepts