Valdosta State University Department of Psychology PSY310  Educational Psychology Instructor: John H. Hummel, Ph.D.

MIDTERM EXAM SAMPLE #2

1. Educational psychology is a research field. Research is critical to the successful education of students. American teachers are not as oriented towards research in their discipline as professionals should be. Your assignment is to write a couple of paragraphs (200-300 words) that explains how one's knowledge and skills about research is useful to practicing teachers and why they should be consumers of research even if they never plan to formally do research that leads to presentations or publications. (10)

2. Describe how objectives, in general, are related to and benefit "education." In your answer specifically discuss EITHER the role(s) good objectives play with respect to develop a complete 7-step lesson plan, OR how they should related to teachers' use of individualized instruction. (10)

3. Explain why is it vital for practicing teachers to periodically spend valuable class time working with students to directly help them develop effective study skills. (Hint: improving memory; metacognition; independent lifelong learner, etc.) (5)

4. Everything we have covered in 310 so far is, of course, extremely valuable to effective teaching! However, if I had to chose a single topic that was most important for teachers to be able to really understand and use, I would select "constructing good objectives and task analyses." Obviously the two are related. In your answer tell me what you know about TAs and why truly effective teachers must be able to systematically "do" TAs as the basis for their instruction. (5)

5. Both Carroll's (AAMOQ) Model of Learning & Instruction and Slavin's (QAIT) can be viewed as the underlying theory upon which all general and specific approaches to accommodating student differences AND effective lesson plans ( 7-step DI model) are based. Select either Carroll's or Slavin's model and explain how it relates to EITHER the LP OR individualized Instruction. (10)

MIDTERM PREP

Last Updated: May 20, 1997