Psychological Foundations of Education - 3 Insights from Each Class Session

 

June 2, 2003

 

 

  1. Disequilibrium stimulates learning.
  2. A continual variety of activities helps to keep students interested and engages their five senses.
  3. There are five aspects to emotional intelligence:  self-awareness, managing moods, motivation, empathy and social skill.

 

June 9, 2003

 

 

  1. I had never heard of Rosalyn Franklin!
  2. Einstein had a larger carotid vein…is this surgery possible?
  3. “Clarification, please.” What a great way of ‘teaching’ importance of their voice and politeness.

 

June 16, 2003

 

  1. Curiosity is the single most important characteristic of an active mind.
  2. Only about forty percent of the population get to “Formal Operations”.
  3. Stimulus Variety – the more a child sees, hears, touches, tastes, the more the child will want to see, hear, touch, taste.

 

June 23, 2003

  1. John Locke wrote the book, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property”.

 

  1. Watching fish in an aquarium is one of the best ways to calm down, and is a good distraction to help unblock your mind when taking a break from working intensely.

 

  1. “The work of the child is play.” – Jean Piaget

 

 

June 30, 2003

 

  1. Vocabulary is the single best indicator of I.Q.

 

  1. After asking students a question, ‘wait time’ is 3 – 7 seconds.  As teachers we need to cue and prompt after 8 seconds.

 

  1. An ‘impulsive response style’, a child that blurts out, is an at-risk child.  We want to move children to being reflective not impulsive.  Encourage them to think first.

 

 

July 7, 2003

 

  1. Memorizing poetry builds memory.  Start with young children learning quotes and making up their own and progress from there.

 

  1. Lifting a student’s chin gently to get them to look into your eyes, helps to rewire their brains.  They are learning confident eye contact.  Say such things as, “Speak up, Erin.  You’re brilliant.”  Give children confidence to try and not be afraid of making mistakes from which they can learn.

 

  1. George Caitlin – America’s first ethnographer who documented and painted as many Native American as he could, in order to ensure a part of their heritage would survive after the tribes were extinct.  Sure enough, when Caitlin died, half of the tribes he had worked with were extinct.

 

 

July 14, 2003

 

  1. Ofoto.com is a website one can use to post pictures of students for their parents, families and friends to access.

 

  1. If a child steps into your personal space, DO NOT step back.  If you do, they will lose respect for you.

 

  1. Poor children, when asked to estimate the size of coins, will draw coins larger than they actually are compared to children from a more advantaged home.

 

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