Thorndike

I read the research by E.L. Thorndike, his article entitled  "The Contribution of Psychology To Education." (Thorndike) It was very interesting, and it made me ponder how the study of psychology goes hand-in-hand with educational research, and how an understanding of psychology can positively impact students. 

1. What are the roles for education and psychology envisioned by E.L. Thorndike?

E.L. Thorndike believes that psychology makes educational aims clearer. It enlarges and refines the role of education, bringing importance to human behavior and human nature. Thorndike describes education and psychology as going hand-in-hand. The study of psychology, specifically child psych and development, give us a better understanding on how behaviors and human nature effect the education of a child, and how teachers can take that research and apply it to their classrooms. 

2. Have these roles changed? What kind of methods did Thorndike recommend for research?

Teachers used to assume that their students were less intelligent than they actually were. Education was more "common sense" training, and was thought to be able to teach students exactly how to think and act, essentially in an attempt to create students who were exactly uniform- who learned and thought the same way. 

Now, psychology in education explores the differences in every child, and supports the idea that not every child is the same, and that behaviors, environment, human instinct, social interaction, background, etc. all contribute to how a child learns. 

Think about your Professional Development Plan. In your 1 page plan, identify:

1. What constitutes scholarly research.

Scholarly research consists of a few things: peer-reviewed articles, reputable websites, books, blogs, etc. and it published by professionals. When finding articles to use for projects and for my own research, I look for articles and studies that have been published only after extensive research by the author. 

2. Ways to acquire and interpret scholarly research.

Databases online, such as EBSCO, are great ways to acquire scholarly research articles. The library contains journals and articles as well. In order to properly interpret a research article, it is important to read the entire article, and to take a look at the sources that are cited in the research. This way, there can be no mistaking the goals and outcomes of the research. 

3. Ways to use scholarly research in your future practice.

Scholarly research will never stop being useful. Scholarly research can be used to understand learning theories and teaching methods. It can be used when researching learning disabilities. Scholarly research helps teachers to differentiate instruction for students, and to have an easier time discovering methods that may work.