Advanced Educational Psychology - PSY 501
3 Credits
Spring 2011
Instructor - Dr. Margaret Anderson
Office - 135 Old Main
Office hours – M/W 1.30-3, T/R 3-4 or by appointment
Phone - 607-753-2048
E-Mail – margaret.anderson@cortland.edu
Course Internet address - http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/psy501/501home.htm
FAX - 607-753-5738
Readings: The required readings consist of a series of articles which have been scanned and placed on e-reserve in the library. See the class web site for more information about accessing them. Occasionally I will add readings to the reserves so if you read ahead, be sure to check the assigned readings the week they are due. I may also add links directly to the class page for topical readings, in which case I will inform you of the addition.
Course Description
Advanced study of psychological principles and theories related to education.
Prerequisite: PSY 231 or 232 or 332 or 333. If you have not completed one of
the prerequisites you may still take the course, but be aware that you may need
to put in additional time to master the basic material. There is a link from
the class site to a current, open source text on Educational Psychology.
Goals of the course:
There are a number of goals of this course. The first is to strengthen your
understanding of the core concepts and theories that make up the field of
Educational Psychology. The second goal is to build on that foundation and
explore how it relates to current issues in the field of Education. A third
goal of the course is to demonstrate a wide variety of methods and approaches
for gathering knowledge, presenting material and evaluating performance in an
educational setting. The fourth goal is to accommodate the various backgrounds,
interests, and current commitments of the students in this course. A
final, but vital, goal is to have you experience the use of computers in a
variety of ways to support distance education and to discover your reaction to
those methods, and hopefully provide models of techniques you can incorporate
into your own classes.
Structure of the course:
This course has been developed to afford you the greatest possible flexibility
in completing the various assignments. With this increased flexibility, a
greater demand is placed on students for personal commitment, organization, and
the ability to work independently. You will complete assignments at times, and
from locations that are convenient for you in order to meet specified
deadlines.
You will be given weekly assignments which you may complete and submit any time before the scheduled deadline. On Monday of each week I will post the assignment which will be due the following Sunday. Occasionally a due date may fall over a school holiday, that does not mean you must work on the holiday, simply complete your assignment any time in the week prior to the holiday. You may complete the weekly assignments from home, work, or any of computer labs on campus that have Internet capabilities.
This is a 3 credit graduate level course. The College anticipates that students will spend approximately 9 hours per week on a 3 credit course (3 hours in class and 6 hours of work out of class). Since this course does not have scheduled meeting times, you will need to allocate the equivalent amount of time to ensure that you can meet all course requirements.
If at any time you have difficulty with the assignments or the course in general you should feel free to drop me an e-mail message, stop by my office, or call me.
Course assignments:
There are four types of assignments for this course, each one is designed to
address a specific pedagogical goal.
1) The first goal is for you to demonstrate mastery of the core content. This mastery will be demonstrated through completing a set of mastery quizzes. There are mastery quizzes available for the 10 units you need to complete (see grading below for an explanation of completing the mastery quizzes).
*** There is a group of internet tutorials which are accessible from your
class web site. These tutorials have been designed to cover some of the core
components in Educational Psychology and should serve as a refresher for most
of you. Some of the tutorials are included for your own information. Others are
identified as the core of educational psychology and you must demonstrate
mastery of the material in those tutorials. In addition there is a link to a
basic text on Educational Psychology that is available on the web at no cost.
This should be used as a refresher for basic concepts, or those with which you
are unfamiliar.
2) The second goal of the course is to encourage you to become critical thinkers
and to share your opinions with your peers. To accomplish this, the second
component of the course is based on the assigned readings. You will be assigned
"discussion questions" related to the assigned readings. Your answers
to the assigned questions and responses to your peers will be posted in the
appropriate discussion area on your course web space. See class web site for
information on using the class on line journal space. While the questions for
the discussions will be based on material in the readings you will need to use
outside sources of your own to produce complete answers.
****Please note that each weekly discussion assignment will require you to
include (and use) additional references (not from the class anthology or class
tutorials) that are directly related to the assigned topic. While many
references may be applicable to a number of topics, you should not use the same
reference twice unless you also include one original one as well as the one you
had previously used. Also, while I strongly encourage you to consult
basic text books to provide a foundation for a given topic, I will not
accept text books as your additional reference. The reference you use and
cite must be from an academic journal or a reputable (i.e. peer reviewed) web
site.
3) A third goal of the course is to encourage you to apply the material you are
reading to your current educational situation and explore how you might be able
to add to the body of knowledge. As most of you are well aware, there is a
strong movement towards the use of "research based interventions",
and also towards encouraging teachers to become applied researchers. In order
to prepare you for this role you will be asked to design mini research
proposals on each of the reading units. More information will be available on
this assignment with the first such assignment.
4) The final goal of the course is to provide you with the opportunity to
synthesize the material from the course into an overall framework. In order to
accomplish this goal your final assignment will be to reflect (supported by
published works) on how the topics we cover will likely be affected by the
advent of technology and the increasing globalization. More specific
information will follow.
Please note the College policies on plagiarism in the College Handbook. Specifically “each student is expected to present his or her own work. All papers, examinations, and other assignments must be original or explicit acknowledgement must be given for the use of other persons’ ideas or language”. (p.47)
Course grades: Final course grades will be determined by a
combination of the components listed above in the following manner.
1) Mastery of core content. Each tutorial quiz is worth 10
points (based on 10 multiple choice questions). You must score at least 7
points on each tutorial quiz to demonstrate mastery, but you may retest as many
times as you wish (the computer program will randomly select 10 questions each
time) to achieve the total of 10 points per topic. That is, if you score below
a 7 on any quiz you must retest to receive any credit for that unit. However,
if you score a 7 you may hold with that, or retest to try to improve your
grade, and your knowledge of that topic. A total of 100 points may be earned in
this manner. All quizzing must be completed
by 2 May.
2) On line discussions. Each discussion will be worth 10
points (since there are two discussion assignments for each unit, plus the
introductory discussion that will be a total of 13 discussions). You will be
graded based on your demonstrated comprehension of the assigned readings and
your thoughtful comments as well as the use of appropriate writing style given
the medium. Each discussion will be graded based on your initial response to
the assigned question, your inclusion of additional references and your
responses to your peers' input. Specific guidelines will be provided for each
assignment. For a total of 130 points for all discussion activities.
3) Final summary Project. The project will be worth a total of
50 points. More specific information will follow, but basically for this
assignment you will be required to reflect (supporting your reflections with
literature based arguments) on the impact of technology and globalization on
each of the topics covered in the discussions. This project will be
sustentative as a summary of course content, research based, and will follow
basic APA guidelines for documentation.
****** All work is due ON or BEFORE the date it is assigned.
10% per day will be deducted from the possible available points for any work
turned in late - i.e. a paper that is worth 10 points on Sunday (up until
midnight) will only be worth 9 points on Monday, by Friday, that paper is worth
at most 5 points! In order to avoid the penalties, be sure to mail or post your
work early. The fact that you experienced technical or other problems at
the last minute will not excuse late work. If you know you are going to be out
of town, or unavailable your may work ahead. You will need to be aware of your
own commitments as they interact with this course. Specifically, if your
school has a break and you plan to be out of town, you will need to complete
your assignments early or they will be counted as late.
Final grade:
Mastery component = 100 points
On line discussions = 130 points
Project = 50 points
Total = 280 points
Letter grade conversion
97% - 100% = A+
94% - 96% = A
90% - 93% = A-
87% - 89% = B+
84% - 86% = B
80% - 83% = B-
77% - 79% = C+
74% - 76% = C
70% - 73% = C-
67% - 69% = D+
64% - 66% = D
60% - 63% = D-
BELOW 60% = E
Assignments:
The list of assignments is provided as a guide for
activities during the semester. It may be necessary for us to deviate from this
schedule sometimes, if so I will post the changes on the class web site. The
Units listed in the assignments can be found in your assigned readings on the
library e-reserves. The discussion topics will be available directly in
LiveJournal.