Educational psychology within teacher education

In a context where the role of the teacher and teacher education are undergoing considerable change, the role of educational psychology in teacher preparation is discussed within a new framework. Educational psychology is now perceived as an inherent component within teacher training and professional development, having previously been an additional course and often considered irrelevant to teaching practice. The current paper discusses the relationship between educational psychology and teacher preparation. Educational psychology's contribution to teachers' professional development is delineated through the constructs of teachers' prior beliefs about teaching, reflective practice and self‐efficacy, while its contribution to the improvement of teacher–pupil interaction is viewed through the lenses of instruction theories, social and emotional learning, special educational needs and classroom management. It is argued that through a productive dialectic dialogue between educational psychology and education, educational psychology provides the knowledge defined by its field to be utilized by teachers, whereas at the same time, teachers gain a wider reconceptualization of their practice.     

Report of the Vygotsky Conference,Moscow, September 1994

Research on classroom management is reviewed, with an emphasis on lines of inquiry originating in educational psychology with implications for teacher education. Preventive, group based approaches to management provide a basis for teachers to plan and organize classroom activities and behaviors. Studies of teacher expertise and affect provide additional perspective on teacher development and on factors that influence management. Cooperative learning activities and inclusion of children with special needs illustrate particular contexts that affect management. Utilization of classroom management content in educational psychology components of teacher preparation is discussed.     

Facilitating early career leadership through pre‐service training

Current research indicates that new teachers want to be involved in school‐level decision‐making. Upon entering the profession, many novice teachers are surprised and disillusioned to find they have considerably less involvement and influence than expected. Based on strategies that have been developed, revised, and refined over a number of years in two teacher preparation programs in the eastern US, the current discussion proposes that teacher preparation programs incorporate training in school‐based management as a means to better prepare new teachers for the political realities of the profession. Intended for teacher educators, this paper describes how the research component common to most teacher education programs can be used as a venue to train teacher candidates in school‐based management.     

USING CONSULTATION TO SUPPORT ENGLISH LEARNERS: THE EXPERIENCES OF BILINGUAL SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS

Through semi‐structured interviews, this study explored 11 bilingual school psychologists’ (BSPs) consultation experiences with teachers of English learners (EL) to determine referral concerns, recommendations made, challenges encountered, preparation experiences, and skills most needed. The most common referral issue concerned students’ academic performance and teachers’ attempts to parse out language acquisition difficulties from learning problems. Principal consultation challenges included the scarcity of trained professionals, teacher bias, and the stress of competing school priorities. BSPs relied most on their interpersonal skills and relationship building skills, as well as their knowledge of EL‐focused interventions and their problem identification skills. Recommendations to their monolingual school psychology colleagues included the need to actively seek out a) language and culture resources, b) relevant professional development opportunities, and c) consultations with fellow BSPs. Study limitations and implications are discussed.     

A Mental Model of the Learner: Teaching the Basic Science of Educational Psychology to Future Teachers

Although most teacher education programs include instruction in the basic science of psychology, practicing teachers report that this preparation has low utility. Researchers have considered what sort of information from psychology about children's thinking, emotion, and motivation would be useful for teachers' practice. Here, I take a different tack. I begin by considering three varieties of statements in basic science: empirical observations, theoretical statements, and epistemic assumptions. I suggest that the first of these can support classroom application, but the latter two cannot. I use that conclusion as a starting point for considering the instruction of prospective teachers in psychology.     

Educational Psychology in Teacher Education

Over the years, educational psychology has been a part of teacher preparation, moving from a centerpiece in many programs, through periods when it was deemed irrelevant by some, to current concerns about its role in the reforming of teacher education and teaching. Today, psychological knowledge is used to ground reforms in teaching and schooling, particularly the call for teaching for understanding. Current standards for teacher certifications and licensure and suggestions for reform in teacher education assume that teachers will have a deep and generative understanding of learning, development, motivation, and individual differences. This article explores several themes that recur in the writing on reforms and teacher standards: the need to place learning at the center of teaching, the call for integrated studies, and the value of collaboration with the public schools. These themes have both positive and negative implications for the role of educational psychology in teacher education.     

CHALLENGING BEHAVIOUR: The impact of challenging student behaviour upon teachers' lives in a secondary school: teachers' perceptions

In this article, Tina Axup, an educational psychologist working in Southend‐on‐Sea, and Irvine Gersch, director of educational and child psychology programmes at the University of East London, describe a small‐scale study of teachers' attitudes regarding the impact of student behaviour on their professional lives. Anecdotal evidence within a local authority educational psychology service suggested that increasing teacher concern about student disruptive behaviour was causing significant professional anxiety. Tina Axup formulated a brief questionnaire to explore teacher perceptions of the student responses that appeared to cause them stress. Although it is difficult to generalise from the results because of the small sample size and low return, the most frequently selected behaviours seen as challenging were found to be ‘low level’, ‘verbal’, ‘work avoidance’ and ‘out of seat behaviour’. The most frequent teacher reactions were said to be ‘frustration’, ‘bewilderment’, ‘shock’ and concern about the impact on other students in the class. The key favoured coping strategies reported included behaviour management techniques, praise and trying to understand the difficult behaviour, while personally talking to peers, switching off after the lesson, taking exercise and talking to family and friends. For future help, the preferred teacher options included the employment of more specialist behaviour support staff. Tina Axup and Irvine Gersch discuss the implications of these findings and identify further areas for research.     

FOCUS ON PRACTICE: Teacher nomination of ‘mathematically gifted children with specific learning difficulties’ at three state schools in Jordan

In this article, Anies Al‐Hroub, assistant professor of educational psychology and special educational needs at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, and David Whitebread, senior lecturer in psychology and education in the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, discuss the identification, by teachers, of children who are gifted in mathematics and who also experience reading difficulties or specific learning difficulties. The findings reported here are based on research carried out in three state schools in Jordan, and reveal the extent to which teachers accurately nominated the ‘dual‐exceptional’ children studying in their classes. The paper reviews the issues and evidence relating to teacher nomination of these children and examines the quality of teacher nominations by comparing them with identification procedures using psychological and dynamic testing. Anies Al‐Hroub and David Whitebread reveal that the accuracy of the teacher nominations recorded in their research was highly variable and explore a series of factors influencing the processes of teacher nomination. They argue that teacher nomination is an essential first element in the identification process and can be easily improved. The authors call for professional development for teachers in order to raise awareness and to enable them to provide support for children with complex special educational needs more effectively.     

美国幼儿教师培养的价值取向流变

自美国幼儿教师培养伊始,其价值取向经历了四种不同的价值取向流变:其一,"福禄培尔主义"技能取向,主张在"福禄培尔主义"影响下,幼儿教师培养需侧重技能;其二,科学主义实证取向,认为在科学主义思潮下,幼儿教师培养需建立在心理学基础上学习多种知识,并懂得实证研究方法;其三,人文主义人本取向,关注在人文主义主题下,幼儿教师培养之根本在于成人的过程,关怀幼儿教师个体价值;其四,二元价值观融合的专业取向,强调科学主义与人文主义融合趋势下,幼儿教师培养需符合专业要求,并能促进儿童的学习与发展。     

Situated Learning: What Ever Happened To Educational Psychology?

This paper attempts to explore the diminishing contributions of psychology in teacher preparation programs. Using situated learning as a basis for discussion, I have argued that a student may take a course in educational psychology and then subsequently discover that subsequent preparation may ignore those psychological caveats regarding the efficacy of proposed instructional methodology such as situated learning. These include cognition, group processes, and transfer of training. However, the presence of such concerns is not confined to situated learning specifically. It may be time for educators to reconsider psychological findings as necessary contributions to the efficacy of their proposals.     

Have conceptual reforms (and one anti‐reform) in preservice teacher education improved the education of multicultural,multilingual children and youth?

This article examines three conceptual reforms in US teacher education (competency‐based teacher education (CBTE), reflective teacher education (RTE) and constructivist teacher education (CTE)) for their effects on the education of multicultural, multilingual youth, as well as considering alternative certification (AC), known here as an ‘anti‐reform’. The author suggests that although each reform made incremental improvements in the ways that preservice teachers are prepared to teach multilingual and multicultural learners, none significantly altered the education of under‐served children and youth. For instance, CTE points out the importance of prior knowledge, but fails in connecting its core concepts with culturally relevant instruction. CBTE, while also generally failing to alter teacher preparation for multicultural learners, did try to make explicit connections for preservice teachers. RTE made explicit the moral consequences of working in diverse communities but fell short when it altered the apprenticeship–mentor relationship. AC of teachers is presented as the work of neo‐liberals whose largely successful efforts to deregulate teacher preparation offer both an improvement and retrenchment for urban children and youth. Finally, the article links the field’s focus on the preparation of teachers for diverse students and the moral dimension of teacher education, concluding that such a connection may be the only way to maintain the professional school preparation of teachers.     

2 Perspectives in pedagogy

The paper discusses the dominant place of expository verbal teaching in most teaching institutions, and argues that it is deleterious to pupil learning. It goes on to propose that greater attention to pedagogy is essential to break out of current transmission modes of teaching. In particular, it is crucial to develop teaching for conceptual learning and for problem solving, and it is suggested that there is information from learning psychology that can be fruitfully related to practical teaching to achieve these developments. However, it is not suggested that teachers merely applylearning theory, but that they explore its relevance and mode of application to real teaching situations. In teacher education there is a serious problem of lack of pedagogical understanding in supervisory staff of student teachers. This is a vital deficiency that will need to be repaired before advances in teacher preparation can be realistically expected.     

What teachers don't know and why they aren't learning it: addressing the need for content and pedagogy in teacher education

This article discusses the lingering problem of poor and inappropriate preparation of professional teachers of reading and learning disabilities – why it exists and what we can do about it. Because most students classified as having learning disabilities experience primary difficulties with language-based learning, teachers must know how to teach the forms and processes of language on which literacy depends, but most teacher preparation programs fail to teach this content at a level that supports teachers' implementation of effective instruction. The evidence suggests that teachers may cling to unproductive philosophies of teaching not only because science-based instruction is neglected in many teacher training programs, but also because the requisite insights are elusive and the content is difficult for many to grasp, even with some exposure. While ideologies can be blamed for much resistance to explicit, systematic methodologies, we must ask why they develop in the first place. Although there is a substantial body of research on the relationship between teacher knowledge, practice, and student outcomes in reading on which to build reform in teacher training and mentoring, more thought should be given to how prospective teachers are taught. First, the disciplinary knowledge base required to teach students with reading and related difficulties must be unambiguously explained in the standards by which teachers are educated and evaluated, and then programs must be set up to build teachers' insight as well as their knowledge of basic reading psychology, language structure, and pedagogy. Those who teach teachers in university settings or who provide professional development must be included in a supportive educational process, as wars of ideology are having only limited positive effects.     

浅论讲课艺术

教师要把课讲好,除了有学问和精心备课之外,还要注意掌握讲课的艺术。其一,要以“讲”为主,灵活发挥,切忌照本宣科;其二,语言要幽默风趣;其三,例子要典型、有趣;其四,教态要自然、随和;其五,要站着讲课,不要坐着“作报告”;其六,要摸准学生心理,看对象讲课。     

浅论讲课艺术

教师要把课讲好,除了有学问和精心备课之外,还要注意掌握讲课的艺术。其一,要以"讲"为主,灵活发挥,切忌照本宣科;其二,语言要幽默风趣;其三,例子要典型、有趣;其四,教态要自然、随和;其五,要站着讲课,不要坐着"作报告;"其六,要摸准学生心理,看对象讲课。     

Die schulpraktische Ausbildung im Rahmen der Lehrerausbildung an den Österreichischen Universitäten

In the course of the fundamental reform of studies at the Austrian universities the education of grammar school teachers was renewed in 1971. In a long tradition (since 1855) teachers for upper secondary education, especially for grammar schools (which lead pupils to the matriculation qualification for university education) were prepared for their teacher admission examination by studies at the universities which comprised besides of subject matters theoretically introducing courses in pedagogy and psychology. Their practical training was organised in a guided probationary year at schools (apprenticeship‐type).

Since 1982 a new integrated (concurrent) preservice teacher education programme is realised at the Austrian universities, which combines subject studies (in two fields) with teachers’ professional preparation (comprising theoretical studies and practical activities and experiences in education and teaching). The new teacher education programme takes 4#fr1/2> years and leads to the academic degree of a master of arts or science, which gives full professional teacher qualification. The profession‐oriented parts include studies in education and psychology (10 semester course units: 150 hours), subject teaching studies (12‐24 semesters course units: 180‐360 hours) and a 12‐week period of practical teaching experience. Each university designs within this framework a specific study programme. An overview is given in the paper; the programme of the university of Graz is shown in more detail as an example.

At present the introduction of a one‐year‐lasting induction period as a second phase of teacher education is discussed and planned, which should be established in 1988‐89.     

Demographic differences in changing pre‐service teachers’ attitudes,sentiments and concerns about inclusive education

The preparation of teachers for regular schools has clearly needed to undergo quite significant change in recent years. One major adjustment has been the necessity to prepare teachers for progressively more diverse student populations as they will increasingly be required to teach in inclusive classrooms. Many teacher education institutions are, therefore, offering units of work that aim to tackle this. Utilizing an international data set of 603 pre‐service teachers, consideration is given to the effect of a range of demographic differences on changing pre‐service teacher attitudes toward inclusion; sentiments towards people with a disability and in reducing their concerns about inclusion when involved in a focused unit of work. Pre‐ and post‐training comparisons are made which identify a range of variables that impact on changing pre‐service teacher perceptions about inclusion. The discussion focuses on the importance of differentiating teacher preparation courses to address these different needs of pre‐service teachers.     

Psychological and Moral Development for Teacher Education

Abstract

After a brief discussion on the need for more effective teacher education programmes in the United States, the article presents a first attempt to link moral and psychological education with a teacher training curriculum. Employing a sample of pre‐service teachers, the course in educational psychology was redesigned to deliberately teach counselling techniques as a means of stimulating ego and moral development. The results indicate positive shifts on both the Loevinger test of ego development and Kohlberg post‐conventional moral maturity using the Rest, Defining Issues Test. The relation between teacher training and development is detailed. It is strongly suggested that teacher education should adopt a developmental framework for both goals and instructional strategies.