Learning, Knowledge, and Human Development

This course sets out to provide an introduction to educational psychology. It includes a variety of voices and perspectives from the College of Education at the University of Illinois. Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope offer a historical and conceptual overview of the field, classified broadly under the terms "behaviorism," "brain developmentalism," and "social cognitivism." This is followed by four quite different practical examples of educational psychology at work. Dorothy Espelage discusses her work on the social and emotional conditions of learning in her research into bullying at school. Denice Hood gives an example of the application of psychology to educational counseling. George Reese speaks about "productive struggle" in learning. And finally, Joe Robinson-Cimpian discusses the application of quantitative psychology to analyze test results for the purposes of school and curricular placement.

In this module, we explore the main theories and theorists in approaches to educational psychology that we call "brain developmentalism" and "social cognitivism."

This module and the following one present four leading educational psychologists from the University of Illinois demonstrating the range of applications of educational psychology. In this module, Dorothy Espelage explores the socio-emotional conditions of learning, with a particular focus on her research into bullying. Then, Denice Hood discusses student development.