Description
Final Paper
To complete the following
assignment, go to this week's Final
Paper link in the left navigation.
Educational Psychology Research
Project
Focus of the Research
Project
For this Research Project, students will identify a
topic, find at least five articles from scholarly sources on that topic, prepare
an annotated bibliography including these articles and information about them,
and summarize the research and the implications relevant to the chosen topic.
Students will:For example, a student interested in behavioral
- Self-select an educational psychology topic of interest.
- State the reason for their choice of topic.
- Research this topic.
- Answer specific questions about this topic.
- Provide applications of this research to academic, professional, and
personal work.
modification for children having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(A.D.H.D.) may conduct research and find and summarize results that a developing
teacher could use to enhance the learning of children in a classroom situation.
Or, alternatively, a social worker may determine that this new learning may be
helpful in the development of intervention strategies for some of their
potential clients.
Instructions
To
complete the Research Project:Write a brief introduction to this topic.
- Select a topic of interest relevant to the field of educational psychology.
- The topic selected for research should have a limited scope or
defined specific area.
Explain the topic and why it was chosen.
Research the topic using scholarly journals.
Find least five articles, reports, or other resources relevant to your
research topic. These resources must come from scholarly/professional journals
or publications about educational psychology or education.
For each article, address the following:
Create a bibliographic citation (in APA format) for each article
Summarize the article, addressing the following questions:
Who?
What was done?
How was it done?
What were the findings?
What contributions has this research made?
Describe, in a meaningful and specific way, how the article contributed to
your knowledge and understanding about your selected research topic.
Be brief, but also provide a complete explanation.
Critique the article:
Is the article well-written and well-researched?
Did it/does it lead to new ideas and findings in the selected research area?
Synthesize your understanding of the article with what you have learned
throughout the course to describe the new learning that took place as a result
of reading and thinking critically about the article.
Then, summarize the overall findings of your research including the summary,
description, critique, and synthesis completed for each individual article.
Describe two applications this research and your deepened understanding of
this educational psychology topic have to the following:
Academic goals
Personal goals
Current role (e.g., your current career, your role as a parent, your role as
a community member, etc.) Preparing the Research
Project
The Research Project:
Must be formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing
Center.
Must include a title page with the following:
Title of paper
Student’s name
Course name and number
Instructor’s name
Date submitted
Must address the topic of the paper with critical thought.
Must use at least five scholarly sources, listed in an APA formatted
annotated bibliography.
Must document all sources in APA style, as outlined in the Ashford Writing
Center. Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to
evaluate your assignment.
Here is an example
Learning
is Doing
STUDENT
SAMPLE
EDU
372 Educational Psychology
Instructor:
Rachael Lance
January
14, 2013
Learning is Doing
Everyone
learns in different ways at different times.
Knowing how we learn can help improve comprehension and retention. Regardless what your learning style is,
learning is doing. You have to actively
engage yourself with the information you are learning to understand it and be
able to use it later. As teachers this
ability is of particular interest and importance. Knowing how to get students involved in their
own learning process can make learning easier and more fun for everyone. I believe kinesthetic learning coupled with
students’ own preferred learning styles can improve comprehension and
retention. The more senses used the
better. Kinesthetic learning is more
than just moving; it helps provide meaning and connective references for new
information so long term retention is gained regardless of a student’s
preferred learning style.
Annotated Bibliography:
Cyr, A., & Anderson, N. D.
(2012). Trial-and-error learning improves source memory among young and older
adults. Psychology And Aging, 27(2), 429-439.doi:10.1037/a0025115.
Andree-Ann
Cyr and Nicole Anderson of Toronto, Ontario, Canada completed research on
improved memory as a result of learning from mistakes. This article supports
that trial and error learning is beneficial in older people as well as younger
adults. That learning by making mistakes
embeds information deeper and longer for easier recollection in the
future. As stated in the article
“effortful encoding benefits memory” (Cyr & Anderson, 2012, para 3). The research was done in two studies with
young and elderly adult learners. Each
group was given a list of words in three contexts; read, errorless, and trial
and error. In both groups the
recollection of words was higher for those words that were presented in a trial
and error context. Meaning; that when
participants were asked to guess a word through associations they did better
remembering those words later when they made a mistake then when the words were
just given to them. This research has
contributed to the idea and findings that memory is enhanced with trial and
error learning. That making mistakes
builds scaffolding or stepping stones to recall information easier and for
longer periods of time. The article also
confirmed new findings in the results of source memory on older adults and that
they are just as able to learn new information as younger adults thereby
breaking the myth “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” (Cyr & Anderson,
2012).
This
article really helped show me how critical learning by doing is for students. As teachers we sometimes get so caught up in
wanting to teach that we tend to show more than we let the kids do. This is a reminder that students need to do
more than they see or hear. They need
make those connections on their own if they are going to fully understand the
information and store it in their long term memory. It is their personal connections that they
make, their reminders or cues that help them bridge the gap from their memory
to being able to use the information when it is needed. Those connections or scaffolding are what
will help them recall the information and apply it to their current
situation. So no matter how helpful you
want to be, sometimes you just have to step back and let them do things on
their own to learn it best (Cyr & Anderson, 2012).
I
believe the article is well-written and researched. It supports prior theories with additional
detail and support from findings with current tests. It presented in a way that is easily
understood and applicable. It is
relevant to my topic and provides enough details to make the information
valuable and reliable. Both the positive
and negative findings were reported along with a thorough explanation of how
the participants were determined or eliminated.
There was a baseline established and two independent studies with
similar results to show that their findings were duplicated and not just an
isolated chance.
The
confirmation that we learn from our mistakes reinforces my thoughts on testing
and grades. It is important for students
to be given assessments so they can have opportunities to learn and show what
they know but the actual grade or measurement of how well they did is far less
important. Learning is doing and more
opportunities for students to try to figure things out on their own will create
memorable sequences and scaffolding that is critical to life-long learning and
future success in useful knowledge.
Honigsfeld, A., & Dunn, R.
(2009). Learning-Style Responsive Approaches for Teaching Typically Performing
and At-Risk Adolescents.Clearing House, 82(5), 220-224.
Explanation & Answer
