PSYCHOLOGY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING :: EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

“Education is the manifestation of perfection already in man”, said Swami Vivekananda.

Every human being is unique and is bestowed by the greatest blessings of god. But the potentials are hidden that, human need to self-assess in order to understand and bring it to visible state. For this even the learner need to undergo a proper learning. Teacher is a very important tool in this learning process. Teacher is the pillar in the learning process and the various tools the life lines of teaching-learning process.

Education is not all about studying and getting good marks in todays view, rather it is really a means to discover new things which we don't know about and increase our knowledge. Learning is a never-ending process and it continues till grave.

An educated person should differentiate between right and wrong or good and evil. It is the foremost responsibility of a society to educate its citizens. Due to the mass explosion of knowledge, in today’s context education is just not the knowledge of book rather it includes moral values, ethics and life skills. We are talking about the holistic development of an individual.

Focus should also be on women’s education because the knowledge and empowerment of one woman can bring about a change in a family and even the society. It is the uneducated and illiterate people who think women are not entitled to education.

A person becomes perfect with education as he is not only gaining something from it, but also contributing to the growth of a nation. The seeds grow into future plants and then to trees. We need to strengthen our seeds… our future generation.

We must realise the importance of education. We must aim to ensure that each citizen of our nation is educated and independent.

In the present scenario, we need to understand as teachers, parents and as individuals or say educated individuals; the importance of education and educational psychology.

MEANING:

Educational psychology is the applied branch of psychology. The principles, laws and techniques of psychology are applied to the teaching-learning situations. The main aim of education is to bring desirable change in behaviour. 

Educational psychology combines the two fields- Education and Psychology. To solve the educational problems, we need better educational strategies and programmes so psychological principles and techniques are applied. 

Educational psychology is a study of experiences and behaviour of the learner in relation to educational environment. It is concerned with both learned and non-learned types of behaviour. Learned behaviour as the name suggests, is the changes in bahaviour after being exposed to the learning process. Non-learned type of behaviour includes the behaviour resulting from the natural processes of maturation.

 NATURE:

 1.Educational psychology is a science following the scientific approach. It has developed the procedures to identify the issues, collect the data, process the data and predict the behaviour in a scientific way.

2.Educational psychology adopts the method of systematic inquiry and scientific approach to study behaviour.

3.Educational psychology is not a perfect science, but it is a growing science.

4.Educational psychology is a positive science rather than the normative science.

5.It is related to social science as it studies the human beings and their sociability.

6.Educational Psychology is the research-based study as it studies the behavioural patterns of the individuals in the educational climate.

7.Educational psychology is an applied psychology that uses the psychological laws and principles for the development of educational practices.

8.Educational psychology puts forward a better picture to understand the teacher themselves and the learners. There by helping in formulating techniques towards development.

9.It brings up appropriate instructional strategies and systematic learning.

SCOPE:

The scope of educational psychology means that the teaching-learning process and educational environment are viewed in psychological perspective.

The focal areas of educational psychology are the learners, learning process, learning experience, learning environment, teacher and teaching process.

Therefore, this area of Psychology concentrates on the:

a) Learners (understanding the interests, attitudes, aptitudes and other abilities of the students).

b) Learning process (processes and factors of learning).

c) Learning Experience (experiences which are desirable for growth and development of the learner at different stages).

d) Learning Environment (classroom climate and classroom management).

e) Teacher and teaching (Teacher is a nucleus of the entire educational system for imparting knowledge and skills to the children. Teaching methods, strategies, developing new techniques towards the learning process).

METHODS OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY:

Educational psychology is a growing science, it is not normative in nature rather a positive science using the methods of science to study the behaviour of the learners.

The following are the methods to study the human behaviour:

Introspection:

It is the oldest method, developed by structuralists. Introspection comes from a Latin word- intro means within, aspection means looking or observation. It is like self-observation.

Observation:

Educational psychology being a growing science adopting to the scientific approaches and inquiry, brought about more objective methods of data collection in the psychological research inquiries one being observation. Observation is different from introspection by instead of self-observation, it is a method of looking outside of oneself. Observation based upon the role of observer and the observant are of different types.

1. Direct vs Indirect observation.
2. Natural vs Artificial observation.
3. Scheduled vs Unscheduled observation.
4. Participatory vs Non-participatory observation.

Experimental Method:

It is a research method in which the scientist deliberately causes changes in one variable (called the independent variable) and then observes and records the resulting changes in some other variable (called dependent variables).

Case Study:

A case study is an intensive study of one individual. Typically, a case study is based upon interviews with the subject regarding his/her background, present thinking and actions, it may also require the interviews of others who know the individual.

Additional case study material may be obtained through observation, experiments and standardized tests such as personality inventories and intelligence tests.

Case study provide a rich source of data in the possible insights. It is done by general psychologists, developmental psychologists and educational psychologists as the human life complexities are brought down to a sheer number of entities. It is a research method that focuses on the life history, attitudes behaviour and notions of a single individual.

Merits: It is highly reliable as a tool of evaluation. Helps to understand the causes of maladjustment. Helps in suggesting remedial methods for the rehabilitation of maladjusted cases. Helps teacher to gain a better concept of normal behaviour.

Limitations: The interpretation of case study information reflects the biases as well as the wisdom of the researcher, even when carefully done the conclusions apply with certainty to only one person. No confident conclusions about people in general can be drawn from a sample size of 1 or even 10 or 20, no matter how deep the study is.

IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY TO THE TEACHER:

Educational psychology helps the teacher in many ways as follows:

To understand the learner:

All learners are different from each another. Every individual is an entity to work on. Educational psychology helps the teachers to understand the learning capacity, interest, motivation, abilities, behaviour, aptitudes and developmental stages including physical, intellectual, social and emotional developments of the child.

To understand the problems of children:

It helps the teacher to understand the learning problems associated with mental, physical, social and emotional problems of children in the educational process and situation. Teacher works at the level of the learner, to understand his state of mind. The various issues related to his/her learning process.

To understand the learning process:

The teacher knows how to adopt the principles, laws and theories of learning in his teaching-learning process. Every individual being unique, needs to be treated in a different way. The same learning process might not work for all. Hence, new methods can be formulated for overcoming the blocks and accelerating the learning process. 

To understand the developmental characteristics:

An individual pass through different developmental stages such as infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Each stage has its own characteristics and hence the way to make an impact on the brain needs to be worked on. Effective instructions help in better moulding of the behaviour of pupil.

To select methods of teaching:

It helps the teacher to select the appropriate teaching method in the classroom based on the individual learner and learning environment. Help design new techniques and strategies for teaching of heterogeneous group. Understanding the basic technique which might work for a greater percentage of learners and few techniques for others.

To improve quality of teaching:

At the end of the day, it is a huge responsibility on the shoulders of the teacher to bring all the learners on a same track. It aims at helping the teacher in bringing improvement in quality of teaching.

To create conducive learning environment:

Learners way of behaviour and learning atmosphere also effect the class. Classroom climate, setting up, discipline and management are to be set for proper learning of the child. Educational psychology helps a teacher in creating such learning environment to the learners in a school.

To make socialization in classroom:

It helps in developing groups dynamics, teamwork and leadership qualities among the learners. By education we mean the holistic development of the individual. We need to improve even the intra and interpersonal skills. These skills enhances the individuals involvement within the society. 

To maintain discipline:

Educational psychology advocates self-discipline through creative and constructive activities. It helps the teacher in tackling indiscipline.

To identify the special needs children:

As per the government's inclusive education, all children have the right to education under the same roof. The special needs children are the children who need adapted learning instructions, adapted learning environment or adapted learning process. They may be physically disabled, intellectually disabled or learning disabled. These children are identified and provided special services for their learning. Educational psychology helps in identifying such children.

To enable teachers for curriculum development:

Curriculum should be designed based upon the needs and wants of the individual in the present world of development, it even needs to be age-appropraite. So, educational psychology helps the teachers to develop suitable curriculum according to the learner.

To render guidance service:

Personal, social, educational and vocational guidance are to be given by the teachers for the life betterment of the children. Educational psychology helps in carrying out such a guidance service to the students.

To know the teacher, him/herself:

The teacher gets to know about self after studying educational psychology. Him/herself in the educational situation, potentials, teaching abilities, sociability, physical comfortableness, cognitive abilities. The pillars of the teaching-learning process needs to strengthen itself before it takes up the responsibilities of the future generation. Hence, learning of the teacher is also essential.

To evaluate the performance:

It provides the psychological tests to evaluate the learning outcomes of the learner. Designing can be done in a better way, when we know each and every step of it. By proper understanding of each and every step, evaluation become more robust and hence the performance enhances.

To conduct the research:

It helps the teacher to conduct researches and have a research attitude to improve the behaviour of individuals in the educational situation. 

The whole idea is of nation building. The first teacher of a child is his/her parent and then the teacher. When it comes to education and the future of the country..... we cannot neglect things. If we plant seeds of neem, we cannot expect mangoes!!

Parents and Teachers reading my blog.... We are the leaders who can create more leaders....

Please work for the betterment of our Nation as a whole!!