Educational Psychology

1255 Words3 Pages

Research in psychology is necessary for the education system to properly understand and teach students who enter their classrooms. Teachers need to understand the development of these children in order to address behavior that may be occurring. Learning styles and motivation in students are vital to teachers assuring that all students can reach their full potential. They then can apply instructional theories to their classroom to find the best teaching methods for those specific students. Teachers of all age levels should have a background in this knowledge and continue to educate themselves on updated research so that they can continuously be able to self evaluate themselves.
Human development is very important for all educators to understand. As a future educator of young children, it is important for me to be educated on all of the changes that my students will be undergoing as they are at a critical age. Children of a young age are developing many cognitive skills. Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development describes schemes that children will be changing based on new knowledge. These schemes are basic ideas that children have and they then assimilate new ideas into an existing scheme. When necessary, the children will accommodate these schemes as they learn new information (Slavin, 2012, p. 32).
These students will not only be developing cognitively, but also personally and socially. According to Erikson, humans go through a series of crises that mold our personality and relationships with others. These crises include the development of trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, and identity (Slavin, 2012, p.54). Without successfully acquiring these characteristics, students will have social and emotional issues. It is impor...

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...ptations need to be met with these students and it is especially important to refer to learning techniques and behavior management strategies.
When all of this research is combined with a teacher who truly cares about impacting her students and seeing them succeed, a class has prime opportunity to reach their full potential. When thinking back to adults' favorite teachers, it is very common to hear of an elementary teacher who truly impacted a student. I feel that these teachers were the ones who took the time to use their educational philosophies in an impacting way. I hope that as I continue my education here at IUP that I will be further educated in educational psychology and bring this knowledge into my future teaching career.

Works Cited

Slavin, Robert E. (2012). Educational psychology: theory and practice. 10 ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

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