Educational Psychology

(Take Home Test)

1. Cultivating respectful student-teacher relationship.

How self-disclosing and open should teachers be with students? It is important for teachers to
develop positive relationships with students, but is there a point at which teacher become too close
with their students? Write personal reflection on this issue, incorporating thoughts about how it might
relate to your future work as a teacher.
 While teachers are considered the second parents of the children in school, it
should always be noted that it is still a profession which requires objectivity and
standards. A teacher, in his/her desire to build a positive relationship with his/her
students can be open only to a certain extent. Personal matters, such as financial
status, family problems and work conflict with other teachers, should never be
revealed and discussed among the students. A teacher can only share some of
his/her experiences as a motivation to the children. For this reason, every teacher
should discern well on when and how his/her personal experiences can relate to
his/her students.
Ironically, some teachers used to tell their life stories in class supposedly to
inspire the students, but the way they speak about themselves becomes more of a
boast than a motivation. Another example of an inappropriate relationship is when the
teacher and the students become overly familiar with each other, where they do
unnecessary and indecorous gestures with each other.
As a future teacher, I always keep in mind that a teacher is a melting pot of almost
all the profession. We are not just the people who teach them academic lessons, but
we are, most importantly, the people who teach them to live their lives with a purpose.
We care for our students but we must draw the line between the profession and
personal issues. Therefore, as we reach out to the students and make them feel that
we want them to learn, we should always act with nobility and dignity.

2. How worried are you about problem behaviors among the students you plan to teach? In view of your
own current skills, personality and values, what steps could you take now to prepare yourself for
dealing with them?

 Some students, regardless of their age group and grade level, possess various
behavioural problems which affect their capacity to learn. While a teacher should not
give advices irrationally and some behavioural problems need to be addressed by a
professional guidance counsellor, a teacher can do various ways to assist the child in
learning.
Through the years of education and employment, I have acquired further
knowledge in communication and have developed both my interpersonal and
intrapersonal skills. Although I obtained experiences that would enable me to teach
well, I have to prepare more by undergoing further trainings on the field of education.
I have to read more about child behaviour and surround myself with people who have
years of teaching experiences. These steps will definitely help me deal with future
behavioural problems of students, but I am certain that as I take on my journey as a
teacher, I will also develop new skills and learn from my students.

3. Discuss why research is important to effective teaching, and how educational psychologists and
teachers can conduct & evaluate research?

 In all types of profession and institutional endeavors, research has proven to be

an effective tool for success. More importantly, in the field of teaching, where the
methods has to be constantly updated to address the continuous changes of society,
 a regular research should be conducted. The research should focus on the
development of technology, its benefit to education, recent laws that affect the
academe as well as modern approaches to various behavioral problems.
While practicing their profession, teachers and even educational psychologists
can conduct research in different ways. They can accomplish a simple or even an
intensive research by tapping other educational stakeholders such as the
government, other institutions and the parents of their students. Evaluating a
research is actually more crucial than conducting one. This is because the teacher or
the educational psychologist must verify the facts presented.
Teachers and Educational Psychologist are not only capable of doing these
research, but they are actually obliged to continuously study about all the aspects of
education. The reason I very simple – they are the ones who shape and guide the
education realm. They are the key players in the crafting of effective methods of
teaching.

4. Meeting the Socioemotional needs of students. Think about the age of students you intend to teach.
Which Erickson’s stages is likely to be central for them? What, if anything, does Brofenbrenner’s
theory suggest about important resources for students at that age? Does his system suggest
particular challenges to students or ways that you as teacher might facilitate their success? Write
down your ideas.
 In the future, I plan to teach students who belong to Grades 11 and 12, with the
age range of 15-18 years old. In Erik Erickson’s life stages, these group of students
belong to the adolescent stage with the concept of identity vs. role confusion.
According to Erickson, up until this stage, development depends on what is done to a
person. At this point, development now depends primarily upon what a person does.
An adolescent must struggle to discover and find his or her own identity, while
negotiating and struggling with social interactions and “fitting in”, and developing a
sense of morality and right from wrong.
Some attempt to delay entrance to adulthood and withdraw from responsibilities.
Adolescents begin to develop a strong affiliation and devotion to ideals, causes, and
friends. In addition, during this stage, Brofenbrenner’s ecological theory, particularly
the microsystem and the macrosystem, affect the student’s resources and his/her
motivation in his study. Since students under this stage start to develop their own
company of friends, what affect them are the things that happen inside their house
and the situations in the community.
Because of these factors, the challenges I would have to face as a future teacher
are problem-based and the way I facilitate learning should be more practical and
should engage them directly. Group works will be utilized, but I would encourage
more individual efforts. This is the time that they develop their own personalities and
as their teachers, we should ever let them head towards the wrong direction.

5. Suppose that you were about to teach a particular group of children for the first time and were handed
intelligence test scores for every child in the class. Would you hesitate to look at the scores? Why or
why not?

 Knowing the background of the students you are going to teach is already an
advantage to us as their teacher because it gives us an idea on their strengths and
weaknesses, specially on the subject matter that we are going to teach. When an
evaluator hand me the test scores of every child, I will not hesitate to look at their
scores. Instead, I will study how every child answer the same questions and give an
objective observation. When I finally handle them, I will never take their intelligence
test scores against the students. Rather, I would use their scores as a guide on the
different methods and instructional aids I would use in teaching. Furthermore, I will
 develop and carry out objectives that address their low points and take it as a
challenge to ensure their learning under my care.

6. Considering the age group of children and the subject that you plan to teach, which of the disabilities
that we have discussed do you think will present the most difficulty for your teaching? Where should
you focus your attention in learning more about the disability?

 For the 15-18 year old students that I plan to teach the English subject, the
learning disabilities that would present the most difficulty in my teaching would be:
Dyslexia (learning disability in reading), where the student’s basic reading problems
occur when there is difficulty understanding the relationship between sounds, letters
and words. Also, his/her reading comprehension problems occur when there is an
inability to grasp the meaning of words, phrases, and paragraphs.
Another learning disability that may interfere the student’s learning is
Aphasia/Dysphasia (learning disability in language), where the student might display
problems with verbal language skills, such as the ability to retell a story and the
fluency of speech, as well as the ability to understand the meaning of words, parts of
speech, directions, etc. Lastly, Dysgraphia (learning disability in writing), where the
student might have difficulty in writing which involve the physical act of writing or the
mental activity of comprehending and synthesizing information. Expressive writing
disability indicates a struggle to organize thoughts on paper.
Given these possible hindrances, I should research more about the innovative
teaching methods that can address these disabilities. Moreover, as a future teacher, I
should focus on the student’s capabilities and challenge myself to assist him/her with
all my possible resources.

7. How can children be helped to learn metacognitive strategies and self-regulation?

 Depending on their age group, children are capable to learn metacognitive
strategies and self-regulation. Since metacognitive strategies refer to methods used
to help students understand the way they learn, which means processes designed for
students to ‘think’ about their ‘thinking’, a teacher can develop several steps to
develop the students’ metacognition. Several ways to enhance the students’ thinking
abilities include Think-Alouds (for reading comprehension and problem solving),
Organizational Tools (such as checklists, rubrics, etc. for solving word problems),
and Explicit Teacher Modelling (for math instruction). In addition, a teacher may
develop group activities such as role playing or the round robin method to cultivate
the students’ sense of self-regulation.

8. How do problem-based learning, essential questions and discovery learning each embody learner-
centered principles?
 In a learner-centered approach, the aim s to engage the students to be active in
the learning process. The lessons are not just discussed by the teachers, but are
discussed among the students through interactions and activities.
A problem-based learning focuses on real life problems and encourage the
students to seek solution for a particular problem. Here, the teacher act as a
trainer and allow the students to acquire technical skills as a solution to the
problem being discussed. On the other hand, essential questions also engage
students to express their personal opinion about certain issues while exhibiting
critical thinking about different topics. Finally, in a discovery learning approach,
the students are provided with activities that require them to find out answers and
arrive to conclusions that jibe with the lesson objectives.
9. Design a motivationally rich classroom. What materials would be available? Describe your classroom
walls and learning centers. How would you teaching proceed? What types of activities would students
participate in? Write up your classroom design.
 For the students of Grades 9 or 10, I will design a classroom with an interactive
layout. I will place bulletin boards for different subjects containing relevant topics.
In addition, I will allot one bulletin for their accomplishments, where they can put
their compositions (poems, songs, short stories, etc.). Another bulletin will be
allotted for weekly achievers for different tasks such as perfect attendance, early
comer and highest scorers for weekly quizzes.
As for the teaching process, I will utilize my learnings about the different teaching
methods well as innovative teaching practices and I will apply it to different
subjects appropriately. As a motivation, I will display their finished work on a
bulletin with proper commendations. Works with unsatisfying results will be given
back to the students with suggestions on how they can improve their works. They
will be given one week to make their works better so they can have the chance to
also showcase their works.

10. As a teacher, create a plan to improve the motivation of the following students:

A. A 7-year old Rhodora, who has low ability and low expectation for success.
 As a teacher, since I cannot give her treatments addressing possible behavioral
problems, I will strategies activities in and outside the classroom. One of the tasks
I will be giving them I role playing here Rhodora and play simple yet significant
role. Slowly yet steady, I will give her tasks that is parallel to her capacity and will
highlight her strengths. Furthermore, I will give proper recognition for every
accomplishments she and her classmates will have by announcing their names in
class in that way, not only will it boot her confidence, but it will also teach the
class that everyone has their strengths and they can succeed despite their low
abilities in some subjects.

B. A 10-year old Jerome, who works overtime to keep his self-worth at a high level but has a strong fear
of future.
 Students like Jerome are undoubtedly highly competitive. For this particular case,
I will develop activities, such as letting the students to choose their “project child”
form the Kindergarten class. They will be tasked to teach them how to read and
share the moral values of storied they will also read to the preschoolers. At the
end of the quarter, each pair will present something in the class and will share
their experiences together. The purpose of the activity is to let Jerome maintain
his strength while developing the abilities of others. Their presentation at the end
of the quarter aims to pacify his far of future failure because they will be working
in pairs. More importantly, this is to teach him that results are very important, but
the experiences and the process matter the most in all journeys.