The educational psychologist believes that education is an experimental process in which appropriate techniques and procedures are continually being developed. Each teacher may experiment with techniques or beliefs that are effective for others but not particularly useful to his or her own efforts. Thus, teachers continually try to evaluate different techniques, curricula, instructional materials, and sets of rules. The competent teacher approaches each aspect of teaching with a spirit of inquiry. Skill in conducting experimental inquiry in a classroom setting is best acquired by examining past research efforts and by adopting a scientific attitude.
Educational psychology attempts to foster such a point of view.
In addition, educational psychology emphasizes the use of information to solve real problems that arise during the process of teaching. It is estimated that educators make approximately 1000 decisions per day. In order to make sound decisions, it is important that teachers have experience in thinking about educational problems and employing the techniques typically used to solve them. For that reason, some of the lessons in this course require you to solve educational problems. This course has several goals.