Frank W. Spencer PHD on GTP text Educational Psychology, a review

Posted August 13, on his blog (http://www.frankwspencer.com/)

"As part of the Global Text Project, Kelvin Seifert and Rosemary Sutton have written Educational Psychology: Second Edition. It is a textbook, covering such topics as student development, diversity, special needs, classroom management, instructional methods, assessment, and teaching thinking skills. It is written for teachers. I'll concentrate on the chapter, Facilitating Complex Thinking. The authors distinguish three types of thinking: critical thinking, creative thinking, and problem solving. Metacognition, or considering your own thinking, is seen as an important part of critical thinking. Creative thinking is discussed in terms of divergent thinking. Finally, problem solving is described through the use of the nine dot and four lines problem. Well-structured and ill-structured problems are distinguished, with ill-structured problems usually having more possible solutions, and requiring more creative thinking. Some strategies to teach for problem solving are problem analysis (breaking it down into parts), working backward from the final solution, and analogical thinking, or using the solutions to similar problems that you have solved in the past.

Later on in the chapter, Seifert and Sutton give a good example of using concept maps. They present a concept map of child development as drawn by a teacher and one as drawn by a professor at a university. The maps themselves and the differences between the maps are interesting illustrations of how we use connections between ideas to understand. Madeline Hunter's effective teaching model is presented, consisting of (1) prepare students, (2) present information, (3) check for understanding, (4) give guided practice, and (5) provide for independent practice. This educator (Hunter) is an interesting person to learn about. Near the end of the chapter, inquiry learning and cooperative learning are discussed. Some strategies for encouraging cooperative learning are presented. This chapter is good to read, even if you don't have time to read the whole book, and the price is right. Overall, the book gives a good introduction to the use of psychological information in the teaching process."

For more from Frank W. Spencer, a school psychologist and private practitioner, please check out his blog (http://www.frankwspencer.com/).