Psychological Foundations of Education

Book excerpt: Psychological Foundations of Education presents some of the principles of psychology that are relevant to learning and teaching. It presents an alternative answer to the problem of the bifurcation of general and educational psychology in the curriculum of teacher preparation. While the solution is provisional and has obvious imperfections, it is offered in the hope that it may stimulate discussion of the problem and other solutions and/or explicit justifications for past practice. Key concepts discussed include teachers' attitudes and behavior, different types of learning, technology in education, forgetting and extinction, child development, and intelligence measurements. Also covered are the assessment of educational achievement, the social psychology of the classroom, and education in urban schools. This text should have a variety of uses in classes where students are preparing for teaching. It was written specifically for those situations in which the prospective teacher is introduced to psychology through a one- or two-semester integrated sequence.