Seminar, Education 121: Child Psychology and Practice
Spring 2001 Ann Renninger
krennin1
Class: Materials Center x8347
This seminar provides an in-depth sequel to the Educational Psychology course, focusing on (a) general developmental principles revealed in and applicable to contexts of practice, as well as (b) practical applications of research and theory in developmental psychology. Through field work, directed readings, and a literature review on a question of their choice, members of the seminar work together to consider topics in education (e.g., motivation, professional learning, instructional practice), topics in cognitive science (e.g. strategy use, metacognition, and individual variation), and topics in social policy (e.g., evaluation, community initiatives, and educational reform). Field work will focus on evaluation of the Web as a tool for teacher professional learning.
Week 1 (1/26)
Renninger, K. A. (1998). Developmental psychology and instruction: Issues from and for practice (pp. 211-274). In I.E. Sigel and K.A. Renninger (Eds.), Handbook of Child Development, Vol.IV Child Psychology in Practice. John Wiley and Sons.
Week 2 (2/2)
* Bring notes about your research topic to Seminar, we will review data bases available for literature searches today.
Readings
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1993). The ecology of cognitive development: Research models and fugitive findings. In R. H. Wozniak and K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Development in context: Acting and thinking in specific environments (pp. 3-44). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Reed, E. S. (1993). The intention to use a specific affordance: A conceptual framework for psychology. In R. H. Wozniak and K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Development in context: Acting and thinking in specific environments (pp.45-76). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L. & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.) (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school (pp. vii-127). Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Review readings from Introduction to Education and Educational Psychology courses, to help you identify/anchor the focus of your literature review. Identify a question (or set of questions), think about the relation between your question and the literature and why it is an important question on which to focus.
Questions
1. What are the implications of each of these readings for facilitating learning both in and out of school contexts?
2. Why might a practitioner or policy maker want to know something about research and theory ?
To do
Identify a question or set of questions with which you will work this term.
Week 3 (2/9)
Readings
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L. & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.) (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school (pp.131-284). Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Renninger, K. A. & Shumar, W. (in press). Community building with and for teachers at The Math Forum. In K. A. Renninger & W. Shumar (Eds.), Building virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Questions
1. Identify 10 concepts having to do with learning that you think practitioners and policy- makers should know something about? Why is each important?
2. How do you imagine that information about learning might most effectively be disseminated to practitioners and policy-makers?
Week 4 (2/16)
Send a draft outline for your literature review to Ann sometime this week (krennin1).
Readings
Weiss, C. H. (1998). Evaluation (second edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
The Math Forum evaluation report: mathforum.com/build/NSFreport/report.html (skim)
Questions
1. Measuring process appears to serve practitioners, while measuring outcomes serves the policy maker. Weiss talks about these as discrete foci. How might both process and outcome emphases be understood as complementary? What would this look like in evaluation generally? In our work with The Math Forum more specifically?
2. What are some common ways to study impact or what Weiss refers to as outcomes? What are some less common but possibly interesting methods that evaluators might consider?
3. How might an evaluator build a system of checks into his or her work to be sure that the assumptions being made are accurate?
4. Why is a knowledge of how people learn important to the process of evaluating: (a) policies and programs, and/or (b) working with people?
5. On p. 7, Weiss distinguishes between programs, projects, and components. What are some of the links between these distinctions and Bronfenbrenner's notions of mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem?
6. What kinds of provisions need to be made in order to enable those being evaluated to learn and those doing evaluation to grow?
Week 5 (2/23)
*Send a detailed draft of your literature review outline through email to all members of the Seminar this week.
Seminar time will focus on The Math Forum field work. Readings are intended to provide additional background information. We’ll divide those up.
Readings (to be shared)
Principles of Professional Development: http://www.ericsp.org/digests/NPEAT.htm
Stewart, T. A. (1997). Intellectual capital: the new wealth of organizations. New York: Doubleday. Part 1, The Information Age (pp. 3-51) and Part 3, The Net (169-198).
Talbert, J. E., & McLaughlin, M. W. (1993). Understanding teaching in context. In Cohen, D.K., McLaughlin, and M.W., Talbert, J. E. (Eds.), Teaching for understanding: Challenges for policy and practice (pp. 167-206). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Putnam, R.T. & Borko, H. (2000). What do new views of knowledge and thinking have to say about research on teacher learning? Educational Researcher, 29 (1), pp. 4-15.
Kraut, et. al., (1998). Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? American Psychologist, 1017- 1031.
Shumar, W. & Renninger, K. A. On conceptualizing community. In K. A. Renninger & W. Shumar (Eds.) Building Virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Schlager, M. S., Fusco, J., & Schank, P. Evolution of an on-line education community of practice. In K. A. Renninger & W. Shumar (Eds.) Building Virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Haythornwaite, C. Building social networks via computer networks: Creating and Sustaining Distributed Learning Communities. In K. A. Renninger & W. Shumar (Eds.) Building Virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Cuthbert, A.J., Clark, D.B., & Linn, M.C. WISE Learning communities: Design considerations In K. A. Renninger & W. Shumar (Eds.) Building Virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Burrows, R. & Nettleton, S. Reflexive modernization and the emergence of wired self-help
In K. A. Renninger & W. Shumar (Eds.) Building Virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hoadley, C. M. & Pea, R D. Finding the ties that bind: Tools in support of a knowledge-building community. In K. A. Renninger & W. Shumar (Eds.) Building Virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Readings, Weeks 6-9, include the following:
Harter, S. (1998). The development of self-representations (pp. 553-618). In N. Eisenberg, (Ed.), Social, Emotional, and Personality Development, in Handbook of Child Psychology (pp. 1017-1096), vol. III. New York, NY: Wiley.
Rogoff, B. (1998). Cognition as a collaborative process (pp. 679-744). In D. Kuhn and R.S.Siegler (Eds.) Cognition, Perception, and Language, in Handbook of Child Psychology, vol. II. New York, NY: Wiley.
Siegler, R. S. (1996). Emerging minds: The process of change in children’s thinking. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press.
Sansone, C. & Harackiewicz J. M. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: The search for optimal motivation and performance. New York: Academic Press.
Week 6 (3/2)
Readings
Siegler, pp. 3-84
Harter, pp. 553-574 (scanned into E-reserves, under Ed 121;
http://trires.brynmawr.edu/cgi-bin/eres/viewcourse.pl?EDUCS121_RENNINGER
password: child)
Sansone & Harackiewicz (Eds.), chapters (1), 2,7,8,9
Week 7 (3/9)
Readings
Siegler, pp. 84-143
Harter, pp. 574-600 (E-reserve)
Sansone & Harackiewicz (Eds.), chapters 10,11,12,13,14
Questions
1. What terms would go into a glossary for understanding motivation and what do they mean? (Bring something that begins to address this to Seminar with you. ) I'm thinking that they will shed light on the following questions that were also posed.
What is the benefit of avoidance mastery?
What is the relation between competence validation and intrinsic motivation? (from Butler)
2. How should we talk about change? What would be indicators that we'd study according to each of the authors?
3. What are the implications of the work of these authors for practice?
4. What would a model of learning that included motivation, self-representation, and cognition look like? (Try drawing this.)
5. What would it look like if a researcher were to take into account cognition, motivation, and self-representation in his or her studies?
Week 8 (3/23)
Siegler, pp. 143-end
Rogoff (E-reserve)
Sansone & Harackiewicz, chapter 15
Questions
1. What is the interface of cognition, motivation, and self-concept?
2. What can we say about the application of the readings we have been doing for practice- specifically the Math Forum project on which we've been working?
Week 9 (3/30)
This is a work week to be dedicated to work on literature reviews. During Seminar time, work on remaining data analysis/compilation necessary for addressing The Math Forum questions.
Week 11 (4/6)
*Literature reviews drafted, copy to Ann.
Finish up work on evaluation of Math Forum questions.
To do
Select 2-3 readings and prepare questions for others to help you think about your literature review. Copies of readings should be given to Ann.
(4/13) No seminar this week, focus on literature reviews.
Week 12 (4/20)
1. Hofan Chau
I was thinking that everyone should read Gergen and Freeman for the
purposes of the class, and perhaps skim Ritchie and Wilson.
Gergen is a good overview of how narratives may be broken down, and he
was a good launching pad for my paper. Freeman is good because he argues
that narrative is intrinsic to development, and asks us to consider
educational psychology in a narrative paradigm. The reason for including
Ritchie and Wilson is because I believe that it sheds insight on the
question of teacher development in relation to narrative. They argue that
'professional identity is inextricable from personal identity', and so
teachers need to learn and critique their self narratives, narratives of
other teachers, and the narratives of the institutions/society/culture.
starting point:
• How do people develop their 'self' or 'selves'?
Gergen, K. (1994) Realities and Relationships (pp.185-209)
• From the characteristics described in the chapter, how do you envision
self-narratives as helping or hindering development of the self?
• Can you think of two personal examples (to bring to class) of
self-narratives, identify which type it is, and say how it helped or
hindered your development?
Freeman, M. (1991) "Rewriting the Self: Development in Moral Practice." in
Tappan and Packer (eds.), Narrative and Storytelling: Implications for
Understanding and Moral Development. (pp.83-101)
• How does Freeman's critque of current developmental models similar or
different from Siegler's?
• What are the implications of viewing development from one of constant
revision rather than an omnipresent perspective?
Ritchie, J, and Wilson, D. (2000) Teacher Narrative as Critical Inquiry:
Rewriting the Script. (pp.6-18, 54-89)
• If untheorised experience is a problem, how do you think teachers can be
scaffolded to theorise about their narratives?
Week 13 (4/27)
Natania Kremer
Readings:
"Structure, Stability, and Development of Young Children's Self-Concepts: A Multicohort-Multioccasion Study" from Child Development by Herbert W. Marsh, Rhonda Craven, and Raymond Debus (1998).
"Cross-Cultural Investigations" from Michael Cole's Cultural Psychology (1996).
"Perspectives on Children's Development from Cultural Psychology" from American Psychologist by Barbara Rogoff and Gilda Morelli (1989).
Questions/comment:
After recently discussing students' notions of possibility in relation to Hofan's and Eric's papers, I'm thinking we're in a good position to look further at our understanding of self-concept. It may be helpful to first think back to Harter and what we've been reading and discussing regarding self-concept so far. Now what I'm trying to do with my literature review is pull together the literature on self-concept in young children and the literature on cross-cultural research. I'll try to give you a sense of what I've found on cross-cultural research and on self-concept in young children, and I'm hoping you guys can help me think more about how to bring together the literature and examine self-concept in young children cross-culturally. So that's the main question I'd like you to keep in mind. The first two readings are meant to provide a look at where current research is with regard to assessing and describing self concept in children (#1) and cross cultural investigations (#2). I threw the third one in there for perspective and thought it might be a good lens for discussion.
Laura Farra
Zimmerman -
- this piece provides some summary info on self-efficacy
- I am interested in looking at several motivational concepts in relation to teachers' feelings about standards-based achievement tests. So, using the Zimmerman piece and our knowledge from the motivation book, I would like to come up with some working definitions of these constructs. Also, it is important to understand how they tie together - the Zimmerman piece helps with this.
Jennings -
- This chapter talks about why there was a call for standards in this country. It helps to make a case for why we need standards and starts to suggest why teachers are not motivated/lacking feelings of self-efficacy, etc.
Paris -
- Here we get a summary of the teachers' perspectives on standardized testing in schools.
- It would be useful to think about what the teachers are saying and how that relates to the constructs - what do you hear is missing for them?
Okay, I realize that this format is very different from last week's seminar. I wanted to put you in a position to understand the issue and then think about what reforms need to happen to change things. One final question I have is: would it be better to present the issues(and these three papers) in a different order? Do you find it helpful to have the discussion of the constructs first and then talk about the actual state of affairs? Just something to think about....
Week 14 (5/4)
Readings and questions related to Seminar presentations 5 and 6.
Readings
Work to be completed
May 8: Field work completed and copy distributed to members of the Seminar
May 11: Dissemination of findings from field work.
May 14: Questions, written answers
Answers to questions on the syllabus should be submitted in written form to Ann. It is fine to answer a combination of questions from different weeks (e.g. all of those addressing dissemination questions) or within weeks as long as each question is addressed. It is also fine for the questions, or some of the questions, to have been answered collaboratively with others-- just cite your co-authors.
May 21: Literature review
Final copy of the literature review to be
submitted.