Fall 2008
There is quite a bit of data collected on colleges and college students. Some useful research points to the characteristics of colleges and the behaviors of students that lead to the best learning. Much of this is collected at more traditional institutions using traditional research methods and statistical analysis (good methods, but limited). We’ll learn how to interpret such studies and develop our own resulting questions for inquiry on what Hampshire students think and do. Students work as a research team along with the professor. Data collection and analysis methods include qualitative interview, focus group, and observation; quantitative survey and observation among others. The final product will be a group report (everyone writes part) articulating our findings, and perhaps making recommendations to others. Evaluation is based on completing a series of short papers and assignments as well as presenting one’s ideas orally and in writing.
In recent years, as a result of interactions between cognitive psychology and education, we now have many ideas about classroom learning, and approaches to teaching, testing and assessment. We also have strong evidence that implementing these ideas could really improve learning for all children and youth, including those who are under- resourced. In this seminar we will try to understand the findings by reading and discussing a selection of theoretical works from cognitive psychology and examine their practical applications to education. We will also learn how to evaluate educational claims. Students will be evaluated on 2-3 shorter papers and a longer final paper. The final paper will be on a topic related to the course that leads to recommendations for a school’s instructional practice. This course can be used to satisfy the Educational Psychology requirement for licensure students (those students will have support in arranging an accompanying weekly pre-practicum).
