EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Child Psychology / Child

Development

• The study of the psychological processes of children specifically,

how these processes differ from those of adults, how they develop
from birth to the end of adolescence, and how and why they differ
from one child to the next.
 5 IMPORTANT THINGS CHILD
PSYCHOLOGY TEACHES US ABOUT
CHILDREN

1. Development 2. Milestones

5. Socialisation

3. Behaviour 4. Emotions
 5 IMPORTANT THINGS CHILD PSYCHOLOGY TEACHES
US ABOUT CHILDREN

1. Development

Social & emotional

Physical Cognitive/intellectual development
• Occur in relative stable • Process use to gain • Learning to relate others
and predictable sequence knowledge • Involves feelings and
• Acquisition of certain • Includes language, expression of feeling
skills; fine motor and gross thought, reasoning and • Trust, fear, confidence,
motor skills imagination pride, friendship, and
humour are all part of
one’s social-emotional
For instance, writing words requires both fine-motor
development.
skills and cognitive language skills. And, just as research
has made known the different areas of development, it
also shows that development follows key patterns, or
principles.
 • Checkpoints in a child’s
2. Milestones development to determine what
the average child is able to do at a
particular age.
PHYSICAL MILESTONES
• Pertain to the development of both
the gross and fine motor skills

COGNITIVE OR MENTAL
MILESTONES
SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL
• Refer to the child’s developmental MILESTONES
aptitude for thinking, learning, and • Pertain to the child’s ability to express
solving problems emotion and respond to social
interaction

COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE

MILESTONES
• Involve the child’s developing verbal
and non-verbal communication skills.
3. Behaviour

• All children can be naughty, defiant and

impulsive from time to time
• some children have extremely difficult • Oppositional Defiant
and challenging behaviours that are Disorder (ODD),
outside the norm for their age • Conduct Disorder (CD) And
• In some cases, these behavioural Attention
issues are temporary problems due • Deficit Hyperactivity
largely to stressful situations Disorder (ADHD)
4. Emotions

• Emotional development involves learning what

feelings and emotions are,
• understanding how and why they happen,
• recognising one’s own feelings and those of others,
• and developing effective ways of managing them.
5. Socialisation
• Involves acquiring the
values, knowledge and skills
that enable children to relate
to others effectively
• To contribute in positive
ways to family, school and
the community.
• In peer relationships, children learn
how to initiate and maintain social
interactions with other children,
• acquiring skills for 
managing conflict, such as turn-
taking, compromise, and
bargaining. 
• Play also involves the mutual,
sometimes complex, coordination
of goals, actions, and
understanding.
 Psychological Principles That Will Help Your
Students Learn More Effectively

Cognition and learning: How do students think and learn?

1. Growth mindset
Success is related to effort
Students’ beliefs or perceptions about intelligence and
level; to remain focused on goal
ability affect their cognitive functioning and learning.

• Influence both conceptual

growth &conceptual change
• Conceptual growth; add to
the existing level 2. Prior knowledge
• Conceptual change;
What students already know affects their learning.
correction of mistakes and
misconception in existing
knowledge
 3. Limits of stage theories
Facilitate learning by designing Students’ cognitive development and learning are not limited by
instructions that utilize general stages of development.
scaffolding, differentiation and
mixed ability group 4. Facilitating context
Learning is based on context, so generalizing learning to
new contexts is not spontaneous, but rather needs to be
facilitated.
• Strategy to encode learned
material into long term memory
• Formative assessment ; through
5. Practice
practice problems, activities & Acquiring long-term knowledge and skill is largely dependent
sample tests. on practice.
• Conduct activities at spaced
interval; use open ended
questions

6. Feedback
Clear, explanatory and timely feedback to students is important for learning.
7. Self-regulation
Students’ self-regulation assists in learning and self-regulatory skills can
be taught.

• Skills include; attention, organization, self-control, planning and

memory strategies.
• Model organizational methods and assist std by highlighting
objectives at the end and beginning
• Highlight difficult concepts ; require most practice
• Breaking large components in small chunks (questioning,
summarizing and practice)

8. Creativity
• Critical thinking skill for technology driven
Student creativity can be fostered.
world
• Describe specific methods of structuring
assignments to increase creativity and idea
for how to model creative problem solving
 Motivation: What motivates students?

9. Intrinsic motivation
Students tend to enjoy learning and to do better when they are more
intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated to achieve.

10. Mastery goals

Students persist in the face of challenging tasks and process information more
deeply when they adopt mastery goals rather than performance goals.

11. Teacher expectations

Teachers’ expectations about their students affect students’
opportunities to learn, their motivation and their learning outcomes.

12. Goal setting

Setting goals that are short term (proximal), specific and moderately challenging enhances
motivation more than establishing goals that are long term (distal), general and overly
challenging.
 Social and emotional dimensions: Why are social context, interpersonal
relationships and emotional well-being important to student learning?

13. Social contexts

Learning is situated within multiple social contexts.

14. Interpersonal relationships

Interpersonal relationships and communication are critical to both the
teaching-learning process and the social development of students.

15. Well-being
Emotional well-being influences educational performance,
learning, and development. (self-concept, self esteem, locus of
control; motivation & personality, happiness , coping skills
(emotion & stress)

Context and learning: How can the classroom best be

managed? Discussed in session 2
 Educational Psychology: 20 Things Educators Need To Know About
How Students Learn

Visual : Worksheets and flashcards work well

Auditory: traditional methods of teaching
1. Students Learn Differently force him or her to use a physical sense that
is not as well-developed.

• Use of different resources for three

2. Reinforce
types of learner
 • Need to be allowed to try
3. Consider Kinesthetic Learners
something, watch it fail,
and learn from the
experience.

Visual: Using sight

Auditory: Using songs or rhythms
Verbal: Speaking out loud the
information
Kinesthetic: Using touch and taste to 4. There Are Seven Learning Styles
explore the information
Logical: A more mathematical approach
to concepts
Interpersonal: Learning in groups
Intrapersonal: Learning alone
• Information is only stored permanently when it
relates to day-to-day living.
• For example, math concepts must be reinforced
5. Make It Relevant
in real life examples or the student will have no
reason to absorb the information beyond the
exam.

6. Failure Is a Fabulous Teacher

• Rather than keeping each
subject separate, curriculums
that use thematic units work well
to blend knowledge together in a
7. Integrate The Curriculum
way that is useful and
memorable.
• Memorization
• Acquiring facts or procedures
• Understanding reality
• Making sense of the world
9. Care For Introverts
8. Define “Learning”
• It’s easy to assume that “group work” is
always the best approach.
• That students who raise their hands are
attentive. And that students who prefer to
work alone are loners.
• All of which, are not necessarily true.
• Creativity is the birthplace of
true learning, where a student
can initiate thoughts, ideas,
problems, and make 10. Create Space
connections between
concepts.
• Creativity requires the
activation of the right side of
the brain. Space allows the
opportunity for creativity to
ignite.
• a 30-minute lecture that is not
structured with categories, or
11. Brief And Organized “Bites”
organized into easy-to-recall
bullets, will not be as effective.
• First, the teacher explains the overarching
concept. This provides framework and
context.
• Second, he explores each part of the
process in greater detail. 12. Use Several Different Angles
• Third, he explains the whole process again,
this time encouraging students to ask
questions.
• Fourth, he asks the students to explain it
back to him.

• To learn the multiplication tables from

13. Proper Method For The Material
0-12, shallow learning is helpful (flash
cards, timed quizzes, etc.).
• However, implementing this technique
for a history lesson will not serve the
subject matter.
14. Use Technology

Teachers can instruct students to create a lesson plan for

a much younger child, even if the concept is difficult. This
forces students to simplify the theory, find relatable 15. Let Them Teach
stories and real life examples, and deconstruct the
concepts into bite size pieces.

16. Create Hunger And Curiosity

17. Brainstorming: Not Always Effective


18. Educational Psychology: Forming
Habits
Teachers can explain to students the importance
of daily study rather than cramming information
the night before.
The small, incremental, and daily rehearsing of
information paves a path in the brain that remains
permanently.

19. Feedback: Not Just What, But When

20. Teach How To Learn