Utilizing the most important principles of psychology in teaching
Dasha Bunks
Liberty University
PSYC 775 - Teaching of Psychology
Dr. Winn
2022
Introduction
Using psychology in the classroom has always been an essential component of education,
helping teachers to refine and develop instructional methods and create learning-rich classrooms. The
principles of educational psychology help teachers understand their students’ motivations, social and
environmental contexts, their learning history, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Educational
psychology is the common subfield of psychology that informs instruction in the classroom, although
other disciplines within psychology are present. It teaches and examines essential principles of human
behavior that can shape learning. Psychology also helps teachers use measurements and assessments
correctly, to better gauge where students are in their learning.
Developmental psychology is also used in the classroom. Development psychology looks at the
psychological, emotional and intellectual characteristics of individuals according to their age and stage
of life. Y0ung people show the most change and variability in their essential characteristics, as their
personalities and bodies are in ongoing states of major changes. In fact, the human brain doesn’t finish
its full development until the late teens and early twenties. Understanding how people change and grow
throughout the lifespan is critical to making education work.
Teachers Using the Top 20 Principles of Psychology in the Classroom
In 2015, the American Psychological Association (APA) released a report on the most important
principles of psychology in the teaching environment, all the way from pre-kindergarten through high
school.
Students’ beliefs or perceptions about intelligence and ability affect their cognitive functioning
and learning. Students who believe they are not “good in school” have trouble learning, but that
difficulty may be due to their mindset. How we perform is deeply affected by our beliefs about
our own ability. Teachers have a tremendous ability to help students learn by keeping treating
all students as capable learners.
What students already know affects their learning. Students have already learned a lot before
they get into any particular classroom. Understanding what a student’s learning history is helps
shape what we teach in the present. This is the basis of foundational learning.
Students’ cognitive development and learning are not limited by general stages of development.
Developmental and life-stage psychology uses stage theories as a way to grasp very generally
what students may be expected to be able to do. It’s critical to understand that some students
may not fit well into theoretical frameworks and that neither the student nor the framework has
failed. Understanding people is always superior to attempting to validate a framework.
Learning is based on context, so generalizing learning to new contexts is not spontaneous;
rather, it needs to be facilitated. One of the most useful principles of psychology in education
states that new skills and knowledge spreads outward and become usable by students across
different contexts. However, the generalization of new specific skills won’t happen unless
teachers help students learn how to generalize those new skills. More succinctly, students will
learn to fit new knowledge and new skill into new frameworks and contexts only if shown how
to make those initial generalizations. A teacher must guide students as to how new abilities and
new learning spreads out to other applications outside the learning context.
Acquiring long-term knowledge and skill is largely dependent on practice. Successful practice
leads to long-term gains in knowledge and skills. “Practice, practice, practice” became a truism
because it’s accurate. For example, the skills of four-function mathematics cannot be learned
and retained by only an hour every day in class. Practice requires repetition of successful
performance. However, in keeping with number 6 below, repetition must be accompanied by
feedback, to make certain students aren’t committing the wrong lessons to memory.
Clear, explanatory, and timely feedback to students is important for learning. Feedback is never
simply a grade or a few scribbled notes. A grade, whether good or poor, provides no reflection.
Students must have feedback for correct and incorrect demonstrations of learning. The timing of
feedback is critical. Feedback must occur as close to the measure of performance as possible.
For example, it doesn’t help a student to receive feedback on their errors on a unit of algebra
long after the class has moved on. Teachers are consistently overworked, so feedback measures
must take the place of other, more traditional but less effective grading measures.
Students’ self-regulation assists learning, and self-regulatory skills can be taught. Self-regulation
refers to a student’s ability to control their emotions and behavior to such a degree as to allow
learning to happen. Self-regulation goes beyond teaching students to merely comply with
classroom rules.
Students tend to enjoy learning and perform better when they are more intrinsically than
extrinsically motivated to achieve.
Teachers’ expectations about their students affect students’ opportunities to learn, their
motivation, and their learning outcomes. The expectancy effect is well-known in educational
psychology. Typically, students who are instructed by teachers who believe that each student is
capable of learning a task or skill, or mastering a domain, will perform far better than teachers
with negative expectations.
Emotional well-being influences educational performance, learning, and development. Students
face challenges in their family and social lives that teachers are not always aware of. Challenges
and ongoing emotional experiences moderate and shape learning. One of the hallmarks of
trouble within a socio-emotive system is a sudden drop in levels of performance. When a
student’s grades or other measure of performance declines steeply, it’s often due to a painful or
distressing emotional state.
