The current educational system is so complex to the extent that no single learning approach fits everyone. As a result, psychologists working in the field of education are currently focused on identifying the learning methods and understand how people absorb and retain knowledge. Psychologists in the field of education apply theories of human development to help understand the individual learning process and then develop an instructional process. Educational psychology helps improve education by studying the social, cognitive and emotional processes that are involved in learning and then apply them to improve the process of learning as well as the learning outcome. By analyzing what motivates the students and how best to manage the classroom, psychology remains significant improving learning.
One of the problems with the current education system is the pedagogy being used by the teachers. Different children have different learning approach, and no single teaching approach is correct for everyone. Some people are slow learners while others have a quick mastery. Irrespective of these differences, many instructors use one learning approach thus leaving some students behind. As a result, only the fast learning students tend to move with the pace of the instructors while the slow ones get lost in the process. This is however mainly contributed by a large number of students thus making the student-teacher ratio to be high. There are also issue with the curriculum development where the curriculum is developed without taking into the cognitive development and behavioral aspects of the learners. Students are fed with a lot of information at ones thus hindering their ability to retain the information and apply it into the future.
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Behaviorism theorists believe that knowledge exists independently outside the people. Learning is based on the observable behavioral changes and starts with stimuli creation which is then presented to the learner who then reacts with some response thus creating a change in the behavior change. Learning takes place when there is a new behavior change which is acquired through an association between the stimuli and response. Under the behaviorism theory, teachers can use shaping, which is a technique involving the teacher rewarding the child for successful improvements ( Zimmerman, 2013 ). It aims at taking the child through an appropriate behavior by rewarding each successive step made. Rewarding a student for a good grade or an improvement makes the student respond by working hard always to get the reward. Using verbal reinforcements whenever a learner makes a successive step can also call for the need a response from the student who will try to achieve the same success to get the appreciation.
One of the ways to improve the creativity of the learners is to introduce alternative learning materials. While textbooks and lesson plans are important for the toolkit, introducing unconventional learning materials can assist the students to think outside the box. TED talks videos can be a significant way to bring the outside voices into the classroom and make students develop an open-ended mindset ( Starko, 2013 ). Helping the students remove the stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding creativity can make the students examine their own attitude and think to alternative solutions. Encouraging discussion and brainstorming allows the students an opportunity to think for themselves the possible solutions to specific tasks. Discussions provide an arena for the students to express their new ideas and voice their opinions. Keeping the classroom layout more flexible can also help improve the creativity of the students. Include both projects, presentation and completing solo assignments during class hours.
In conclusion, educational psychology can be used to help the students improve their learning experience as well as the outcome. Due to the complexity and problems in the current education system, teachers have to use teaching techniques which tend to improve the learning outcomes among students. Using behaviorism theory can be very useful for instructors to help develop a positive behavior change and increase learning outcome. This is mainly done by rewarding or appreciating the learners for any success step made so that they can work hard always to get the rewards ( Elias & Schwab, 2014 ). Psychology has, therefore, an important application in education setting through understanding the cognitive and behavioral aspects of learning amongst the students and develop instructional process aimed at improving creativity and learning amongst students.
References
Zimmerman, B. J. (2013). Theories of self-regulated learning and academic achievement: An overview and analysis. In Self-regulated learning and academic achievement (pp. 10-45). Routledge.
Elias, M. J., & Schwab, Y. (2014). From Compliance to Responsibility: Social-Emotional Learning and Classroom Management. In Handbook of classroom management (pp. 104-125). Routledge.
Starko, A. J. (2013). Creativity in the classroom: Schools of curious delight . Routledge.
