Running head: Midterm Essay Exam

Midterm Essay Exam

Keshlae B. Baltrip

EDUC 5302 Educational Psychology

June 17, 2015

Version 1.0

Midterm Essay Exam

As a midterm assignment we were asked to pick two out of five scenarios to expand upon
with the things we have learned so far in the Educational Psychology course. This was a very
difficult choice to make considering how much we have learned and how we still have more to
learn. I have chosen scenario two and five to answer questions about using the course book and
opinions I have learned and gained throughout this semester.
The first scenario I have decided to answer is from question two. A particular board
member wants to introduce a new plan to ensure we are getting every dollars worth of spending
out of our students because students today are rarely challenged. I am against the proposed
Dollars worth of learning for every dollar spent program. This program does not consider
students growth outside of standardized testing, it just simply places a dollar amount on what
this school board member thinks each student is worth. It sounds like a good plan to introduce
subjects early on to students in a general sense but if this plan goes through and we allow
students to skip grades based on being in the 60th percentile with scores on standardized test,
they will be skipping fundamental classes that would prepare them for these algebra and physics
classes which would be a disservice to the students in our districts for many reasons.
The biggest reason I am against this is because we are setting these students up for either
two types of failure, subject failure and social failure. If we look at the theories and ideas of
Piagets Four Stages of Cognitive Development, according to him the stages that will be dealt
with in school are: Preoperational starts when the child starts talking until age seven where
language is developed and reading skills, Concrete Operational begins from first grade to around
11 years old when children first begin to think logically, and Formal Operational which is from
adolescence to adulthood and the thinking becomes more complex and scientific. If we look
from Eriksons point of view he names eight stages of Psychological Development a person goes
through during their lifetime. The stages we would be dealing with in the school are the third

Midterm Essay Exam

which is initiative v. guilt (3 to 6 years) the child is taking initiatives to be independent, the
fourth stage is Industry v. inferiority (6 to 12 years) school is the main concern and demand of
this age group, and the fifth stage is Identity v. role confusion (adolescence) peer relationships
are important. According to Kohlbergs Theories of Moral Development is related to both
cognitive and emotional development Woolfolk (2015). Depending on the students stage of
development coping with advanced placement and the pressures of fitting in with their new and
older classmates will prove to be too much to handle. If this happens the students will not do
well in the class or socially with other students. All three theories are good reason not to
introduce subjects that are beyond the students mind frame and thinking capabilities but also not
to move the student to a higher grade level solely based on standardized test scores.
If we are skipping students to higher grade levels based on test scores, and if we move a
child outside of their operational stage, the student does not have the mental capability to
understand their work or their older classmates. Thus effecting the students self-esteem and
self-efficacy. A students self-concept can be negatively influenced by accelerated programs.
Because the student who has been place in an accelerated program can be in a different mental
stage and they might not be interested in the same things as their new classmates, the way they
view themselves could drastically change. The student who was once so sure of themselves can
now question their abilities which can be detrimental to the students grades. Having students
grades drop would be the opposite effect of what the program was created for, meaning the
school district has wasted money because now this student will either need tutorials or summer
school to get up to passing standards. Social development will be below standards for students
who are placed in advancement placement programs because these students were not allowed the
proper time to learn how to relate or build relationships with others that are on the same
developmental stage as they are on. Maturation is a big factor in a students social development;

Midterm Essay Exam

maturation is not something that can be forced it happens naturally and it is genetically
programed.
In my opinion, I think educational systems can become more effective to the students by
keeping the students in their rightful grade, but also allowing the teachers to challenge the
students that display advanced knowledge piece by piece. I think if we want to help our students
not develop moral dilemmas, we should keep them with other students who are functioning at the
same stages they are and just give them the same coursework as the average student. The
students who are considered above average should be given extra questions, they most likely will
excel at these extra questions and the students who are at the average mark will attempt the
questions as well. This will keep the students doing the same work and their self-esteem and selfefficacy will not be affected because they see others their age doing something that they cannot
do. As a person who was put into an accelerated program that placed me into classes with
students twice my size and years older than me, I can honestly say I feel as though I missed some
fundamental class that would have helped me excel in subject that I am not where I would like to
be. Being placed in these classes against my wishes in the sixth grade, I really feel this
accelerated program hindered me from reaching full potential in all subjects I was forced to skip
beginning courses in.
In question five Mr. Butler is a high school chemistry teacher and is trying to find the best
approach to teaching his students. This year the students Mr. Butler has only half have a strong
background in science and the other halfs background is weak. Since Mr. Butler considers
himself a proponent of the constructivist theory of learning which is centered around two central
ideas: 1. Learners are active in constructing their own knowledge and 2. Social interactions are
important in this knowledge construction process (Bruning, Schraw, & Norby, 2011). Mr. Butler
also uses some elements of social cognitive of learning in his teaching which is about social

Midterm Essay Exam

influences, achievement outcomes, and self-influence. Because Mr. Butler uses these types of
instruction I believe the use of social negotiation and shared responsibility will help him create a
cohesive group among his students. Social negotiation is a part of learning that relies on
collaborating with other and respecting their different perspectives. Since Mr. Butler has a split
class of strong backgrounds and weak backgrounds in science, allowing groups to form and
discuss questions can benefit both types students by hearing why or why not students have their
opinions and being allowed to agree or disagree with their classmates. The students must be
confident in their answers and willing to hear out their classmates even if they have a different
answer. If the students are given the shared responsibility for their learning, it will motivate
them to get the best understanding as a group. The different point of view form the students will
cause the class to stay on task and thus creating a cohesive group among the students.
Cooperative learning strategies will be beneficial for Mr. Butlers class because it
will give the students an opportunity to work together to achieve shared learning goals to
complete their assignments. Since there is a noticeable difference in the students background
when it comes to science, allowing the students to do cooperative learning can work as peer
teaching. Students learn more from their peers because they see them as an equal and are able to
put things in language the other students will understand. For example, you can try and teach
student all 206 bones in the body but I guarantee they will not retain that information. Allowing
the students to work in groups and come up with different ways to teach each other the bones in
the body, will have a lasting effect on the students because they can make it their own and get it
down to a simple way all students can understand and remember. In high school I had a teacher
try and teach my class the phases of mitosis through lecture, it did not work for my class and we
were all in advanced biology, it was not until she allowed us to get in groups at our tables and
come up with the best song to teach the stages of mitosis. Because this was something that was

Midterm Essay Exam

interesting to us, we began to learn the stages of mitosis and put them into funny songs to
popular songs of that year. I believe doing these types of activities will help to overcome the
diverseness in Mr. Butlers class because the students will be put into groups with students from
both strong and weak backgrounds in science. All of this group work can get loud and be
distracting to surrounding classrooms who are not involved in cooperative learning. If I was Mr.
Butler and the teacher across the hall had a noise complaint because my students were loud when
working in group, I would explain to the complaining teacher what is happening and why my
students were loud. I would also tell her I will do my best to keep the communicating noise level
down as to not disturb her class and their learning environment. To take steps toward limiting
the noise levels, I would create a classroom rule for when working in groups that only one person
in each group is allowed to speak at a time. If the students are talking over each other then they
cannot be fully listening to each other which defeats the purpose of them collaborating in the first
place.
In conclusion, scenarios two and five were things I felt passionate about so it made it
possible for me to dig deeper than the surface area of the problems. As I have stated in the
introduction, this assignment was meant to show different scenarios and how I felt about each of
them, and how I would handle the issues that came along with it. These scenarios and questions
were not easy to answer but with all I have learned in this course and the help of the book it
made it possible.

Midterm Essay Exam

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References

Bruning, R.H., Schraw, G.J., & Norby, M. M. (2011). Cognitive psychology and instruction (5th
ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson
Woolfolk, A. (2016). Educational Psychology. Pearson.

Midterm Essay Exam

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Appendix

Categories

Points
Possible

SelfEvaluation

APA formatting / Grammar / Punctuation /

15

12

Quality, depth, and support for the first

35

33

Quality, depth, and support for the second

35

32

Introduction, conclusion and evidence of

15

15

Total Points

100

92

Average of the two scores:

Instrutor
Evaluation