EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY FOR PRIMARY TEACHING

Educational Psychology for Primary Teaching



Educational Psychology for Primary Teaching

Ist case Study

This study is based on the case study of a student named Tim. He begin to dislike maths and was worried about telling his parents about the drop in grades. Initially he thought it was just bad luck that he was getting poor grades but as time went by he started to think he was dumb at maths and especially at algebra. Talking to Ms Khan helped Tim to get his thoughts together and think about how he could turn around his maths grades. He decided to talk to his friend Susan, who was very good at maths, about his trouble. He could see the benefit of Susan's approach compared to his usual habit of quitting after getting a couple of questions right. It begins at approximately 11 to 12 years of age, and continues throughout adulthood, although Piaget does point out that some people may never reach this stage of cognitive development. The changes are taking place more quickly than schools seem able to accommodate. From cognitive theorists to political leaders, individuals outside schools are pressuring educators to teach students how to frame and solve problems, to think critically, to develop a multicultural awareness, and to demonstrate mastery of basic skills. All of these demands have significant implications for teaching. Another characteristic of the individual is their ability to reason contrary to fact. That is, if they are given a statement and asked to use it as the basis of an argument they are capable of accomplishing the task. (Woolfolk 2007) It appears that this is shown mostly in younger children. They are unable to separate their own beliefs,thoughts and ideas from others. As stated previously this may be rooted in the limitations in the child's theory of mind skills. However, it does not mean that children are unable to put their selves in someone else's shoes. As far as feelings are concerned, it is shown that children exhibit empathy early on and are able to cooperate with others and be aware of their needs and wants. Jean Piaget (1896-1980) claimed that young children are egocentric. This does not mean that they are selfish, but that they do not have the mental ability to understand that other people may have different opinions and beliefs from themselves. Piaget did a test to investigate egocentrism called the mountains study. He put children in front of a simple plaster mountain range and then asked them to pick from four pictures the view that he, Piaget, would see. Younger children picked the picture of the view they themselves saw. For some reason Tim, who had been getting mostly Bs for his weekly maths quizzes, got confused during his last test, mixed up his timetable, then panicked and consequently failed. He also didn't do very well on the next two maths quizzes, which was most unlike Tim. As Tim was beginning to dislike maths and was worried about telling his ...