Teaching Educational Psychology in Cross-Disciplinary Courses

• In Event: 46.083 - Book Panel Discussion: Contributing Authors Discuss Challenges and Innovations in Teaching and Learning Educational Psychology

Abstract

Schommer-Aikins’ chapter presents a self-reflective case study of an educational psychology course that was taught to graduate level engineering students, and a second course in which both educational psychology and engineering graduate students were enrolled. It has been suggested that, due to attrition in engineering programs, faculty teaching engineering courses need to improve their instructional and testing techniques. A graduate level educational psychology class was planned that was open to engineering graduate students who were planning to seek university faculty positions. The educational psychology course was predominately cognitive psychology applied to learning. Several engaging learning activities were developed to help students with no social sciences/education background to understand and apply educational psychology to college-level engineering instruction. Further, significant effort was devoted to helping the educational psychology students (many of whom were, or were planning to become, teachers) and the engineering students to talk to one another about problems and solutions in teaching.

Author

• Marlene A. Schommer-Aikins, Wichita State University