EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

I learned many things in the lesson and also I added new information to my previous
knowledge. We talked about the education which is done in a classroom with one teacher and
a group of students, teacher standing in front of the class and transmitting information but it is
not only transmitting information but also guiding to the students. Everyone can easily get the
information but what is highly important is that teachers should also guide their students. I
have learned that I should have a cooler activity or energizing activity in my pocket in case
the students’ attention is broken. We also said that education contains learning. Next, we
talked about positivist school. Firstly, behaviourism deals with the publicly observable data.
They think that if we observe the information as an behaviour, then they count it as learning.
They give importance to Stimulus-Response (S-R) and reinforcement. One of the supporters
of the approach is B.F. Skinner. He thought that reinforcement is highly important. In fact he
is right to the some extend. I mean it shouldn’t be exaggerated. In addition his four simple
procedures might be useful depending on the context. I also learned the limitation of
behaviourism –the failure to explain the functions. I learned a new expression ‘you cannot
teach new tricks to an old dog’ in Turkish ‘ağaç yaşken eğilir’. Then we talked about
cognitive psychology which deals with the mental process, how people think or share
knowledge. In this approach students are seen active participants. They are expected to
question or analyse during the learning process in order to figure out the system of language
to be learned. Then we talked about three topics information processing, memory, and
intelligence and intelligence testing. When talking about information we gave the example of
our class. Our teacher said that we can filter the important parts that we will focus in the class.
In ınformation processing selecting relevant from irrelevant and focusing attention on how it
can be remembered and used distinguish efficient from inefficient learners. We talked about
memory. We talked about the terms short-term memory or working memory which store the
information no longer than thirty seconds and the long-term memory which stores the
knowledge for a long time. We talked about the terms like memorising, rehearsal and so on.
Lastly we talked about the intelligence and intelligence testing. Intelligence may refer to some
form of inborn, general ability that enables some learning faster than others. I learned the
terms of Vernon Intelligence A, B, and C. Intelligence A refers to the intelligence we are born
with, intelligence B refers to the our behaviours which may be context-based, and intelligence
C refers what is measured by IQ tests.

I need to focus on mnemonic strategies, linkword, and advance organisers a bit more. I have
difficulty in figuring them out.