EDUCATIONAL PSYCYCOLOGY

SUBMITTED BY: SUBMITTED TO:

KOMAL SHEHZADI SALMA NAAZ

(B, A) 3rd semester
TEACHER GENERALLY REGARD EDUCATION PSYCHOLOGY
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECT STUDY IN THEIR
PROTESSION FOR TEACHING KEEP REASON BY THIS
OPINION MAY BE VALID?

• You ask the following: Educational psychology is the most important

subject in teacher profession." What are the reasons and why this opinion may be
valid?
What follows is a short answer to your question.
It is surely the case that educational psychology is an important subject in teacher
profession. This position was espoused, for example, for brilliant developmental
psychologists and educators, such as Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner, and Jean
Piaget.
As I see it, education is, or should be, among other things, a scientific process in a
double sense. In other words for a teacher/professor to be good professional it
should be well acquainted with his/her area of specialization. If this is not the
case, then s/he is no teacher/professor at all. Actually, no teacher/professor can
teach what s/he does not master to his/her students.
In addition to this, teachers/professors should be well versed in the details of the
individual's psychological development. If this is not the case, teachers risk
teaching to their student’s material that is much below and above their cognitive
abilities. If the latter is the case, students tend, at their best, to memorize rather
than to understand, reinvent and reconstruct what they "learn". For example, it
would be a waste of time to try to teach the proportionality concept, for example,
to a 5/6-year-old child. If the former is the case, for example, to teach the number
conservation concept to a formal student in Piagetian terms, no significant
learning occurs because the student knows, s
Ay, the point in advance. In both cases, there is no place for
assimilation/accommodation in Piagetian terms. These two examples show that
educational psychology plays a central role in teacher profession. Educational
psychology also shows us that teachers should be more mentors and organizers of
learning experiences and situations than simple transmitters of readymade and
established truths imposed on students from outside. This means that
teaching/learning is a constructive process according to which students only truly
learn when they reinvent and reconstruct what they learn. In other words,
education should aim at bring about innovators and creators, not to conformist
people,
In a nutshell, teacher profession requires two requisites.
(1) Teachers have to master what they teach, the what problem of education.
(2) Teachers should be well versed in the details of the individual's psychological
development, the how and the when problem of education.
. In educational psychology, learning theories give good insight into the way
the students learn. And once you know this, you can make the teaching-learning
process 'learner centered' in real sense. It actually helps you to understand what
are the needs of learner in the classroom, why he behaves in a specific way, why
he responds in a way different from others and different from his own behavior at
different times. Once you understand the learner, you can design instructional
strategies accordingly to make teaching-learning a successful experience.
Very simple example, when a student is not participating in the classroom
activities or is less active in class, how can you decide what’s going on in his mind?
How can you help him and make teaching-learning more meaningful for him? The
answers to such situations in class lies in educational psychology.
It is not only a physical being in a classroom but humans who are yet to
understand themselves and there is more!