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Where’s all this from?
In 2015, the American Psychological Association decided it was time. They had been putting psychological science to work for over a decade and had acquired enough knowledge to come up with this list. So rest assured, this isn’t an amateur’s lazy literature review. It’s as pro a list as possible of the…
First up, what questions does this address?
The 20 principles are split up into 5 categories, based on the questions they address. These are:
- How do students think and learn?
- What motivates students?
- What role do society, relationships and emotions play in learning?
- How can the classroom best be managed?
- How to assess student progress?
Let’s go question-by-question.
Every teacher has a theory about this. “Practice makes perfect”, “never skip a level”, “believe in yourself”, “creativity comes from within”, “discipline comes from within” and so on… and it turns out, 3 out of these 5 are dead wrong. Hazard a guess which ones?
It’s #2, #4 and #5. Skipping a level is alright and both creativity and discipline can be fostered. Think a bit more about your own beliefs about this question and scroll down to check if there’s something that you got wrong.
Busted any myths yet? If not, it’s okay — there are 4 more questions and 12 more principles to go. But before you move on, here’s an illustration of point #6 — timely feedback. Not necessarily because point #6 is more important than the others, but definitely because we love everything about The School of Rock.
Question #2 addresses an exasperating puzzle for pretty much everyone:
In the words of the late Peter F. Drucker, considered the founder of modern management…
We know nothing about motivation. All we can do is write books about it.
If there ever was a demotivating statement about motivation, it was this one. But it’s really not the gospel truth. We do know some things and crucially, how a professor can help increase motivation is among them. Here’s a quiz before you scroll further:
- What do you think works better — short-term goals or a long-term vision?
- Is external or internal motivation more effective?
- Does your expectation from students affect their motivation?
- What’s better? Mastery goals or performance goals?
How’d you do? If you’ve gotten nothing wrong till this point, you’re doing really well but here’s a bit of a roadblock. The next question doesn’t necessarily throw up too many surprises… but it may be the one you would feel the most helpless about.
As professors, we often want to believe that we can drive learning through our sincere efforts, but extrinsic factors like society and culture play a huge role too.
So what can be done about all this? After all, we don’t guide how our students’ personal lives are and what their friends and family believe in. APA suggests building a…
“classroom culture” that ensures shared meanings, values, beliefs, and behavioral expectations and provides a safe and secure environment for all students
Of course it’s easier said than done, but that the whole point of Question #3. It is perhaps the hardest problem to solve. Here’s just one of the many examples from Dead Poets’ Society, where the great late Robin Williams does something akin to building a “classroom culture”:
Environmentalist and entrepreneur Paul Hawken did a great job of summarizing what this entails.
Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.
And what are the “proven principles” point #16 talks about? A variety of things, including (but not limited to)…
praise of appropriate behavior, differential reinforcement, correction, and planned consequences
Programs like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) — launched by the DoE — have done plenty of work in the domain and you may want to learn more about them.
And then there was the final question.
Take a test, duh! That is correct, of course, but the question is what do you test students for? You definitely don’t want to stress on rote learning and the mere reproduction of Google-able facts. The best practices are:
Surely, the question is what the “processes grounded in psychology” (point #19) are. Have you heard about The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing? These were developed jointly by AERA, APA (who came up with this list) and NCME.
And that’s a wrap. Some of these principles can go a long way in making the classroom a place for discovery and inquisitiveness. That’s what we strive for at Acadly too. Some of these form the guiding principles of the product, after all.
Until next time!
With ❤ from Acadly.
