1. Is It Them or Is It Me?
QED 520 Educational Psychology I
Problem Based Learning
Tutor: Daniel Tan Eng Hai
Group One:
Betty Chua Yi Qin
Eunice Leow Shium Rou
Wendy Fan Wenying
Rodney Sea Chi Huah
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2. PBL Scenario One
SCENE 1 (In the staff room)
Ms Jia sat at her table, staring into
space, drained of every bit of her
energy after class, and then with a
sigh writing into her notepad to-do-
list.
...
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3. Set of questions identified:
I How will a teacher’s self- II How do teachers’
efficacy affect the expectation and students’
classroom learning motivation impact on
environment? academic performance?
III How do reward and IV To what extent will
punishment enforce cognitive process, or the
discipline and enhance lack thereof impact
performance? meaningful learning?
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4. I. How will
a teacher’s self-efficacy
affect the classroom learning
environment?
Self-Efficacy
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5. I Self Efficacy-Evidences
• drained of every bit of her energy
• how am I going to manage
• should I even have signed up for teaching?
• How can others teach for so many years?
• Frustrated, Miss Jia approached Dua Xia, the boy
with loudest voice in class. “Dua Xia, you have the
loudest voice…”
• She always late one lah. Even if I am not in class,
she also won’t notice it.
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7. III Self Efficacy- Analysis
• Her low instructional self efficacy can be seen by
her inability to control the classroom, needing
Dua Xia’s help to get them to settle down so that
she may start her lesson.
• Less time was spent in active teaching and
monitoring of students’ progress; Ms Jia was just
interested in “getting the job done”, and to
complete the syllabus by the given timeframe, as
possibly prescribed by the SOWs.
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8. IV Self Efficacy- Solutions
• She needs to prioritize her task by classifying it
into two possible categories, namely
IMPORTANT and URGENT matters.
• Using Bandura’s theory, Miss Jia can improve
her self-efficacy by practicing self-regulation
which involves these three processes: self-
observation, self-judgment and self-reaction.
• She should set manageable goals for herself
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9. II. How do
teachers’ expectation and
students’ motivation
impact on academic
performance?
Expectation and Motivation
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10. I Low Expectation- Evidences I
• She suspects him of cheating
• If you didn’t study, be prepared to fail. Face
the music! Why must you copy?
• You’ve never believed me.
• Even if I explain, you won’t be able to
understand. It’s probably too difficult for you!
• Dutifully answered Annie’s questions, one by
one, oblivious to the rest of the pupils in class
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11. I Low Expectation- Evidences II
• Guess what I do is never enough… I give up…
(stomps out of class)
• She asked Annie, her favourite pupil, to try
solving one of them
• Unless you’re really blind, you should see that I
have put in a lot of sweat into my studies.
• Irritated by the disruption, she said in a
condescending tone.
• Really made Minah regret asking. Fine. I will not
ask in the future!” Minah shouted
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13. III Low Expectation- Analysis I
• Ms Jia’s efficacy has led to her low expectation
of most of her students.
• Not much support provided in helping them
reach high standards, in challenging them
towards high achievements. Lack of
scaffolding (Vygotsky: ZPD)
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14. III Low Expectation- Analysis II
• This has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, in
other words, students were not motivated by
excitement and encouraged to learn even
though they had demonstrated
inquisitiveness, as in the case of Minah, as Ms
Jia did not believe in their ability in Math
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15. III Low Expectation- Analysis III
• The exception may be in the case of Anne,
who was self motivated (towards self
mastery), though not much information is
provided to support this.
• Negative feedback provided: “Just follow the
rule. You don’t have to know the rationale
behind it. Even if I explain, you won’t be able
to understand. It’s probably too difficult for
you!”
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16. III Low Expectation- Analysis IV
• she did not motivate students to learn. Thus
the resulting effect on Lucy (and perhaps the
class too) in the last paragraph; “Take all she
says as facts and follow exactly what she says
we are to do. Sure no problems, that way. ”
Lucy said in a matter-of-fact tone and
continued reading her CLEO magazine.
(Learned Helplessness)
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17. IV Low Expectation- Solutions
• She should first believe that all children can
learn and not write them off.
• She should also set learning goals based on
their potential instead of her bias judgment
on them.
• She should not denigrate her students.
• Miss Jia should understand a student’s social
life and family background before she sets any
stereotypical view on them.
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18. III. How do
reward and punishment
enforce discipline and
enhance performance ?
Reinforcement and punishment
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19. I Misuse of Reinforcement-
Evidences I
• I don’t have the time to pursue the matter
(smoking) with you now. See me after class
• That’s not fair! You didn’t even scold John
when he was late for class just now! Lian Huay
protested indignantly. He smoked and you
didn’t even care. Then, now you scold me for
such a small thing! What kind of teacher are
you?
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20. I Misuse of Reinforcement-
Evidences II
• Wah, Jia Lat is very unfair hor. John always
gets away with things. Then, for the rest of us,
we always get scolded. Like how it was just
now, I asked her a question and she scolded
me in front of the whole class. I hate her.
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21. II Misuse of Reinforcement-Theories
• Vygotsky’s approach to Social Constructivist
• Skinner’s theory about Reinforcement
processes
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22. III Misuse of Reinforcement-Analysis
• She wrote off some pupils as unteachable
such as John and Minah, even though they did
exhibit some “bright sparks” e.g. studying the
subject over the weekend, inquisitiveness,
with the effect that some students like Lucy
had already acquired “learned helplessness”
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23. IV Misuse of Reinforcement-Solutions I
• She should provide immediate and positive
feedback to students when they attempt to
question the topic or contribute to class
participation.
• Punishment should not be made without
proper investigation, taking the example of
John, she should not punish him when she
merely “suspected” him of cheating.
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24. IV Misuse of Reinforcement-Solutions II
• Fair and just punishment should be practiced
promptly.
• When one breaks the rule, correction should
be taken immediately instead of postponing it
(John smoking).
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25. IV. To what extent
will cognitive processes,
or the lack thereof
impact
meaningful learning?
Cognitive Processes.
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26. I Cognitive processes – Evidences I
• I must finish teaching this topic today
• The only priority in her mind was to finish
teaching this topic today. She constantly looks
at her watch…
• Irritated by the disruption, she said in a
condescending tone…
• Just follow the rule. You don’t have to know
the rationale behind it.
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27. I Cognitive processes – Evidences II
• Even if I explain, you won’t be able to
understand. It’s probably too difficult for you!
• Really made Minah regret asking. “Fine. I will not
ask in the future!” Minah shouted.
• Know her pattern by now. You can do anything,
just don’t stop her lessons in any way. And just
don’t ask questions about her lessons.
• Miss Jia: Just follow the method and do
accordingly
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28. II Cognitive processes- Theories
• Robert Gagne’s Instructional Cognitive
processes, Social Constructivist Approach by
Vygotsky, Information Processing theory
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29. III Cognitive processes- Analysis I
• Miss Jia did not even try to gain the attention
of the class herself; she got Dua Xia to control
the class. This instructional cognitive process
was already wrong, right from the first step.
• Miss Jia didn’t give articulate the lesson
objective(s) right from the start of the class. In
fact, her only objective known to students was
“to finish the syllabus”
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30. III Cognitive processes- Analysis II
• Miss Jia did not link her lesson to any prior
knowledge, for example recapitulating from
previous lesson. Using Information Processing
Theory term, she did not activate the students’
long term memory and promote Metacognition.
• Miss Jia did not check entire class for
understanding. She rushed through lesson
assuming that the entire class understood
what was taught, by questioning and receiving a
correct answer from the smartest girl in class.
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31. III Cognitive processes- Analysis III
• Again, not only did she not provide guidance,
she also discouraged / stopped the students
from questioning by denigrating Minah who
had a question regarding Math.
• He may have provided learning guidance to
Anne, but this should have been done outside
the lesson to the class.
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32. III Cognitive processes- Analysis IV
• She did not elicit response from her students
during her lessons with questions or prompts.
• Discouraged response through negative
feedback e.g. “Just follow the rule. You don’t
have to know the rationale behind it. Even if I
explain, you won’t be able to understand. It’s
probably too difficult for you!”
(Rote learning without knowing rationale)
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33. IV Cognitive processes - Solutions I
• Ms Jia must draw the students’ attention by
structuring her lesson plan properly.
• Clear objectives should be laid out at the
beginning of the lesson. It would be better if
she could recapitulate previous topic with the
students.
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34. IV Cognitive processes-Solutions II
• When solving problem-sums, she should break
them down into small steps (that are easily
comprehended) and not simply rush through.
• Miss Jia can also start the lesson with simple
questions then move on to difficult ones.
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35. IV Cognitive processes - Solutions III
• She should pick an average standard student
or even a weak student to “test water”. If the
weak student understands, that means 80% of
the class understand too. For those who did
not understand, they were either not paying
attention or day-dreaming.
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36. IV Cognitive processes - Solutions IV
• Scaffolding: Miss Jia should give support
(gradual withdrawal with increasing
understanding) to students during the
learning process and problem solving. For
example: giving clues, asking questions,
prompting students and breaking down
problems into components.
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