教育心理学:理论与实践:theory and practice:英文版

THEORY INTO PRACTICE How to Be an Intelligent Consumer of Educational Psychology Research Let’s say you’re in the market for a new car. Before laying out your hard-earned money, you’ll probably review the findings from various consumer research reports. You may want to know something about how various cars have performed in crash tests, which cars have the best gas mileage, or what the trade-in values of particular models are. Before embarking on this major investment, you want to feel as confident as you can about your decision. If you’ve been in this situation before, you probably remember that all of your research helped you make an informed decision. Now that you are about to enter the profession of teaching, you should apply a similar consumer orientation in your decision making (Andrews, 2014; Fleischman, 2014). As a teacher, you will be called on to make hundreds of decisions each day. Your carbuying decision is influenced by a combination of sound research findings and common sense, and your decisions about teaching and learning should follow this same pattern. Teaching and learning are complex concepts subject to a wide variety of influences, so your knowledge of relevant research will serve to guide you in making informed choices. How can knowing the simple formula research + common sense = effective teaching help you to be a more intelligent consumer of educational psychology research? The following recommendations show how you can put this formula into practice: 1. Be a consumer of relevant research. It’s obvious you can’t apply what you don’t know. As a professional, you should maintain a working knowledge of relevant research. In addition to your course texts, which will be excellent resources for you in the future, you should become familiar with the professional journals in your field. Teacher-oriented journals such as Educational Leadership and Phi Delta Kappan contain easy-to-read summaries of research, for example. Websites such as bestevidence.org summarize program evaluations in a user-friendly way. In addition, check out Annual Editions: Educational Psychology, a yearly publication that reprints articles from various professional journals. Don’t overlook the value of networking with other teachers, face to face or via the Internet. The example of Ellen Mathis and Leah Washington is an excellent illustration of how collaboration can expand your knowledge of what works. 2. Teach intentionally. As stated earlier in this chapter, there is no recipe for the ingredients that make up a commonsense approach to teaching. However, behaviors consistent with being an intentional teacher are about as close as we can get. Intentional teachers are thoughtful. Like Mr. Harris, you should consider multiple perspectives on classroom situations. When you take action, be purposeful and think about why you do what you do. Like other intentional teachers, you can follow your actions with careful reflection, evaluating whether your actions have resulted in the desired outcomes. You probably learned about the “scientific method” sometime during high school. Intentional teachers employ such a method in teaching, formulating a working hypothesis based on observations and background knowledge, collecting data to test the hypothesis, effectively organizing and analyzing the data, drawing sound conclusions based on the data, and taking a course of action based on the conclusions. For many experienced teachers, this cycle becomes automatic and internalized. When applied systematically, these practices can serve to validate research and theory and, as a result, increase your growing professional knowledge base (Schoenfeld, 2014). 3. Share your experiences. When you combine knowledge of research with your professional common sense, you will find yourself engaged in more effective practices. As you and your students experience success, share your findings. Avenues for dissemination are endless. In addition to publishing articles in traditional sources such as professional journals and organizational newsletters, don’t overlook the importance of preparing schoolwide in-service demonstrations, papers for state and national professional conferences, and presentations to school boards. In addition, the Internet offers various newsgroups where teachers engage in ongoing discussions about their work.