Educational Psychology

Teacher Interview Watch my interview with Kathy Dennis: https://youtu.be/KQmg8dVHFG8 For my teacher interview, I chose to interview Kathy Dennis who has been working at Worthwoods Elementary School for many years as a second-grade teacher, and whom Nicole aided during her field experience. I have been able to communicate with her a bit whenever I ate lunch in the same school I am aiding in with my cooperating teacher. Kathy Dennis is high spirited and is easy to speak with. She enjoys what she does with all the students she has taught and still learns over the years when it comes to classroom management. After the interview, I have learned much more about how she goes about classroom management and was able to find connections with her experience that align with chapter 7 and 13 of Educational Psychology by Anita Woolfolk. First, in chapter 7 I saw a connection with what Kathy Dennis said about a specific reinforcement that she used with one of her students. She briefly...

Concept 1: Functional Behavioral Assessments Summary: A topic discussed in a small section of chapter 7 was functional behavioral assessments. Functional behavioral assessment, also known as FBA, is the process of understanding the “why” aspect of behavioral problems that students have as told on page 274. With this assessment, there is a procedure called A-B-C which stands for antecedents, behavior, and consequences. In this process, teachers can try to identify what might cause a behavior problem by identifying what happened right before, during, and after. Teachers can observe the student when the behavior problem arises, or they can talk one-on-one with the student, parents, and other teachers. Even if they might not know the why the behavior problem shows up in the student, Woolfolk says, “... they seem to benefit from talking to a concerned adult who was trying to understand their situation, not just reprimand them (275).” Reflection: I enjoyed reading this portion ...

Concept 1: Person-First Language and Labels Summary: Chapter 4 of Woolfolk talks heavily about learning differences and intelligence. Learning differences in students come in many shapes and sizes. Throughout the chapter, it speaks about a few different disabilities like ADHD, communications disorder, intellectual disabilities, and a few others.   Woolfolk started of by telling the differences between disability and handicap where disability is the inability to do something specific (120), and handicap is a disadvantage in specific situations. Even though these two are different, many people put people with a disability or handicap into groups and label them. Along with the labels, many will use them as an “excuse” or an “explanation” to what someone with a disability is doing. Instead of doing this, people should stop putting labels on students and others and view them as a person who has a specific disability instead of a disabled person. Reflection: Prior to this c...

Concept 1: Research Summary: In chapter 1 of Woolfolk, it discussed the idea of how research is used in education. In a classroom the research can be used to understand what works and what doesn’t to benefit the students learning and the way a lesson is being taught. On page 21 Woolfolk says, “By focusing on a specific problem and making careful observations, teachers can learn a great deal about both their teaching and their students.” This quote sums up what researching can do for the teacher and student. By researching differentiated ways of teaching, teachers can find the most effective way of teaching that their students understand and enjoy doing. Reflection: When you research, you are looking for a specific connection of the teaching strategy being used and how the students respond toward it. You will look for the student’s achievement through and after the strategy which may take a bit. You will look for any improvement in a concept by the work they do and how...