Educational psychologists involved in teacher education are expected to develop professional teacher dispositions of preservice students. The professional disposition "teacher as change agent" is used to frame actions in service-learning field experiences in a teacher preparation program. Preservice teacher service-learning journals, self-ratings,…

The study compared the academic achievement, as measured by final examination scores, of an experimental group of undergraduate educational psychology students who were provided with concrete mechanisms designed to promote metacognition and the use of specific encoding strategies to the achievement of a control group of similar students who were…

Information from neuroscience is readily available to educators, yet instructors of educational psychology and related fields have not investigated teachers' beliefs regarding this information. The purpose of this survey study was to uncover the beliefs 62 teachers held about neuroscience and education. Results indicate there were three types of…

In this study, members (n = 48) of 2 sections of a required educational psychology course conducted 3 service-learning-type field experiences and wrote reflections on the experiences in relationship to the theories and principles addressed in the course. Participants also described their vision for teaching at the beginning and the end of the…

We examined the effects of an educational psychology course on students' beliefs about motivating students. After providing opportunities to engage in systematic intentional inquiry of their beliefs about teaching and learning, we expected that students' beliefs would become more soundly based in theory and research. Following several classes on…

Because of the importance of students' and teachers' implicit beliefs about intelligence, we designed a study to determine: (a) How is intelligence defined--as a malleable or fixed entity--in introductory educational psychology textbooks? and (b) To what extent are classroom applications of intelligence topics included in the textbooks? We…

We describe the implementation of evolving concept maps in two different graduate-level educational psychology courses: "The Adolescent Learner" and "Theories of Learning and Cognition." We provide an explicit description of how we used evolving concept maps as instructional and assessment tools in our respective classes, changes in the…

In this study the feasibility and educational value of students' writing their own textbook was explored for a particular course in which commercial textbooks had become a normal feature. The course itself was about introductory educational psychology--a common requirement for preservice teachers in training. In lieu of buying a commercial text,…

This study evaluates the impact of teaching basic qualitative methodology to preservice teachers enrolled in an educational psychology course in the quality of observation journals. Preservice teachers enrolled in an educational psychology course requiring 45 hr of field experience were given qualitative methodological training as a part of the…

Although Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory (HNT) is one of the most prevalent theories in psychology, the authors argued that it is also one of the most misinterpreted or misrepresented, particularly in educational psychology textbooks. Therefore, after carefully reading Maslow's writings on HNT they conducted a content analysis of 18 educational…

The author describes an action research project given to masters-level preservice teachers in her educational psychology classes to help them connect the theories they are learning with educational problems they have observed or experienced. Students' responses on a six-item survey indicated that they valued the better understanding of how…

Real classroom events are inherently complex and open to multiple interpretations. Narrative is therefore a vital, but underused, tool in helping future teachers understand this complexity and begin to consider the many issues involved in any one instance of teaching and learning. The author discusses how to choose rich, balanced narratives and…

This article describes the construction and development of a course assignment that uses student interviews as an instructional tool to bridge the gap between theory and practice in a graduate educational psychology course. The first part of the article describes the student interview assignment used to examine theories of motivation. The second…

Two novel technologies--digitized oral feedback on written work and the Turning Point classroom active response system--were introduced into my undergraduate educational psychology course. The cognitive and motivational academic benefits of each were compared to more traditional pedagogy over the course of one full semester. Students who received…

Although there has been research on "professional learning communities" (PLCs) in schools, little attention has been paid to them in contexts of higher education. This article chronicles the development of a PLC, involving the 18 instructors who teach educational psychology each year to 1,400 preservice teacher candidates. Through questionnaires…