Be The Educational Psychologist Questions:
Sensory Memory/Working Memory
Describe what is meant by the "information processing bottleneck" and provide examples of how we can "beat the bottleneck."
What is selective attention and why is it important? Provide examples of how educators can improve/direct students' use of it in the classroom or when studying?
What part of memory is the “difference maker” in one’s ability to do well on a test of reasoning or problem in which they have no background knowledge? Give some examples to justify your argument.
Long Term Memory
Explain why schema theorists consider context and experience so important for long-term memory and provide one real-life example related to learning to illustrate their importance.
While it may not sound so sophisticated how could you explain the importance of “chunking” to a group of teachers at a workshop on cognitive psychology in the classroom?
Provide a lifelong plan to maintain your long-term memory suitable for a brochure to distribute to the masses. Provide some specific examples and justifications for those examples for people to follow.
Explain the general organization of our long-term memory so that a teacher, not having taken this class, could understand it. Include the component parts and provide examples of why they are important so that your teacher could see their importance to learning.
If you had “total recall” in terms of your episodic memory how would you channel that ability to learn more effectively or to acquire skills that society would value? Is “total recall” in this context a good thing?
Encoding & Retrieval
Assume that you were going to compete in the U.S. Memory Championships in six months. To back his claim that memory can be developed, Dr. Ericsson will give you one million dollars as an incentive if you win the competition. Describe your training for the competition including at least three specific strategies that would help prepare you for tests such as remembering unfamiliar names/faces and random digits?
Describe why metacognition is an important cognitive skill and specifically how it might be given more emphasis in k-12 classroom settings. In your answer provide at least two specific examples of how metacognition might help a student (please indicate level of student) succeed.
Research suggests that flashbulb memories are no more accurate than ordinary memories. Why might people feel more confident about these memories? What are some of the everyday implications of memory-related overconfidence?
Assume that you were chosen to as the lead investigator to develop an effective strategy instruction program. Pick an educational level (elementary, middle, high school, or college) and describe what you would include in your intervention. In your answer describe specific strategies that you would encourage, how your students would practice and use the strategies, and in what context your strategy instruction would occur.
Beliefs About The Self
You have a student who has low self-efficacy for numerous school subjects and is protecting their sense of high ability by saying they don't care about their performance. What can you do to help?
Most students at NC State are self-regulated learners. Make an argument for or against this statement and include in your discussion the major components of self-regulation according to recent research.
Many graduate students in education claim that they “just can’t do” statistics or that it’s just not “in them.” How could attributional retraining help a student who is in the midst of their first statistics course?
Can self-efficacy ever be too high? Is it important for self-efficacy to coordinate with any other cognitive abilities to be effective? Provide your argument to these two questions and illustrate your points using examples.
Rewards
If you were a behavioral psychologist with a traveling roadshow to promote your field what aspects of behaviorism would you try to sell to teachers and why? Include examples to help make your sale.
Imagine that you are a teacher who has been called into a conference with your principal Alfie Kohn who has overheard of your use of extrinsic rewards. Give a description of how that conversation might go with Alfie along with three points (and explain them) that you could use to defend your position.
Imagine that there is a first-year teacher at your school who makes quick judgments about students' abilities and over-emphasizes grades and the importance of recognition and awards. You have been assigned as their mentor. How do you work with them?
Instructional Strategies
Explain why Robin Williams fits the mold of a constructivist teacher in Dead Poet's Society and what makes him different than the other instructors at the school.
Describe when and why direct instruction, cooperative learning, and discovery learning as instructional strategies would be appropriate to use. Please illustrate with examples.
Give a detailed example of how a teacher or parent would assist a child’s learning in the zone of proximal development (ZPD).
Pick either one real or one fictitious (movie/book) teacher that you admire and describe their specific instructional strategies and approach to learning in general.
Problem Solving & Expertise
Describe an academic ill-defined problem that a student may have and how you would go about helping them solve/resolve it using the steps of the general problem-solving model.
Provide one example of a K-12 lesson and describe specific actions you would take to ensure that your students would be able to transfer the concept(s) taught.
If a student came to you and asked you what they would need to do to become an expert in a particular area what would you tell them (this is a summary question; feel free to use relevant knowledge from any of our class topics)?
Describe one real life expert in terms of their abilities that set apart in their field. Include in your description constructs from the cognitive psychology, motivation, and expertise literature.
Imagine that you are put in charge of an initiative at NCSU to “teach thinking skills” to incoming students. Using the discussion of problem-solving and critical thinking in your text provide specifics on skills that you would target in your program and how you would ensure that students would be able to generalize your targeted skills.
Intelligence
If you were Howard Gardner explain why you might be hesitant to market books on general intelligence and theories of human expertise.
If you were the facilitator of a town hall meeting where David Perkins and Howard Gardner were the featured guests what would be the top three questions you would ask them and why? The audience would be comprised of mostly teachers and educators interested in how these particular intelligence theories relate to teaching.
Sometimes a discussion of theories of intelligence may seem fairly abstract or tangential to applied educational settings. Explain how these theories, or adopting particular theories, directly impacts classroom instruction.
Technology
Imagine you are assisting a group of computer scientists to develop a computer-based educational game for 5th graders and after a pilot study you are concerned about problems with cognitive load. What recommendations might you offer to the team?
Describe what is meant by the "information processing bottleneck" and provide examples of how we can "beat the bottleneck."
What is selective attention and why is it important? Provide examples of how educators can improve/direct students' use of it in the classroom or when studying?
What part of memory is the “difference maker” in one’s ability to do well on a test of reasoning or problem in which they have no background knowledge? Give some examples to justify your argument.
Long Term Memory
Explain why schema theorists consider context and experience so important for long-term memory and provide one real-life example related to learning to illustrate their importance.
While it may not sound so sophisticated how could you explain the importance of “chunking” to a group of teachers at a workshop on cognitive psychology in the classroom?
Provide a lifelong plan to maintain your long-term memory suitable for a brochure to distribute to the masses. Provide some specific examples and justifications for those examples for people to follow.
Explain the general organization of our long-term memory so that a teacher, not having taken this class, could understand it. Include the component parts and provide examples of why they are important so that your teacher could see their importance to learning.
If you had “total recall” in terms of your episodic memory how would you channel that ability to learn more effectively or to acquire skills that society would value? Is “total recall” in this context a good thing?
Encoding & Retrieval
Assume that you were going to compete in the U.S. Memory Championships in six months. To back his claim that memory can be developed, Dr. Ericsson will give you one million dollars as an incentive if you win the competition. Describe your training for the competition including at least three specific strategies that would help prepare you for tests such as remembering unfamiliar names/faces and random digits?
Describe why metacognition is an important cognitive skill and specifically how it might be given more emphasis in k-12 classroom settings. In your answer provide at least two specific examples of how metacognition might help a student (please indicate level of student) succeed.
Research suggests that flashbulb memories are no more accurate than ordinary memories. Why might people feel more confident about these memories? What are some of the everyday implications of memory-related overconfidence?
Assume that you were chosen to as the lead investigator to develop an effective strategy instruction program. Pick an educational level (elementary, middle, high school, or college) and describe what you would include in your intervention. In your answer describe specific strategies that you would encourage, how your students would practice and use the strategies, and in what context your strategy instruction would occur.
Beliefs About The Self
You have a student who has low self-efficacy for numerous school subjects and is protecting their sense of high ability by saying they don't care about their performance. What can you do to help?
Most students at NC State are self-regulated learners. Make an argument for or against this statement and include in your discussion the major components of self-regulation according to recent research.
Many graduate students in education claim that they “just can’t do” statistics or that it’s just not “in them.” How could attributional retraining help a student who is in the midst of their first statistics course?
Can self-efficacy ever be too high? Is it important for self-efficacy to coordinate with any other cognitive abilities to be effective? Provide your argument to these two questions and illustrate your points using examples.
Rewards
If you were a behavioral psychologist with a traveling roadshow to promote your field what aspects of behaviorism would you try to sell to teachers and why? Include examples to help make your sale.
Imagine that you are a teacher who has been called into a conference with your principal Alfie Kohn who has overheard of your use of extrinsic rewards. Give a description of how that conversation might go with Alfie along with three points (and explain them) that you could use to defend your position.
Imagine that there is a first-year teacher at your school who makes quick judgments about students' abilities and over-emphasizes grades and the importance of recognition and awards. You have been assigned as their mentor. How do you work with them?
Instructional Strategies
Explain why Robin Williams fits the mold of a constructivist teacher in Dead Poet's Society and what makes him different than the other instructors at the school.
Describe when and why direct instruction, cooperative learning, and discovery learning as instructional strategies would be appropriate to use. Please illustrate with examples.
Give a detailed example of how a teacher or parent would assist a child’s learning in the zone of proximal development (ZPD).
Pick either one real or one fictitious (movie/book) teacher that you admire and describe their specific instructional strategies and approach to learning in general.
Problem Solving & Expertise
Describe an academic ill-defined problem that a student may have and how you would go about helping them solve/resolve it using the steps of the general problem-solving model.
Provide one example of a K-12 lesson and describe specific actions you would take to ensure that your students would be able to transfer the concept(s) taught.
If a student came to you and asked you what they would need to do to become an expert in a particular area what would you tell them (this is a summary question; feel free to use relevant knowledge from any of our class topics)?
Describe one real life expert in terms of their abilities that set apart in their field. Include in your description constructs from the cognitive psychology, motivation, and expertise literature.
Imagine that you are put in charge of an initiative at NCSU to “teach thinking skills” to incoming students. Using the discussion of problem-solving and critical thinking in your text provide specifics on skills that you would target in your program and how you would ensure that students would be able to generalize your targeted skills.
Intelligence
If you were Howard Gardner explain why you might be hesitant to market books on general intelligence and theories of human expertise.
If you were the facilitator of a town hall meeting where David Perkins and Howard Gardner were the featured guests what would be the top three questions you would ask them and why? The audience would be comprised of mostly teachers and educators interested in how these particular intelligence theories relate to teaching.
Sometimes a discussion of theories of intelligence may seem fairly abstract or tangential to applied educational settings. Explain how these theories, or adopting particular theories, directly impacts classroom instruction.
Technology
Imagine you are assisting a group of computer scientists to develop a computer-based educational game for 5th graders and after a pilot study you are concerned about problems with cognitive load. What recommendations might you offer to the team?