Learning and Teaching Today

Welcome to one of our favourite topics—educational psychology—the study of development,

learning, and motivation that takes place in and out of schools. We believe this is the most

important course you will take to prepare for your future as an educator, whether your “students”

are children or adults learning in classrooms or in environments that are outside schools. In fact,

there is evidence that new teachers who have completed coursework in development and

learning are twice as likely to stay in teaching (National Commission on Teaching and America’s

Future, 2003). This may be a required course for you, so let us make the case for educational
psychology by introducing you to classrooms today. 3

Classrooms Today Are Dramatically Diverse

Who are the students in Canadian classrooms today? Where do they come from? Here are a few

facts taken from 2011 and 2016 Census data (Statistics Canada, 2018a-c; Statistics Canada,

2018):

 According to the 2016 Census, 22% of Canada’s population is foreign-born. Most

immigrants (62%) come from Asian countries, but people come to Canada from all

over the world. More than 250 ethnic origins were reported.

 Approximately 22% of the population identify as members of visible minority

groups, and approximately 21% report speaking a language other than English or

French at home.

 Diversity is most concentrated in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Students in the

Vancouver School Board speak more than 120 languages and it’s not uncommon to
 have more English learners than native speakers in classrooms in some

neighbourhoods.

 Indigenous communities across Canada are young and growing. Currently, they

constitute almost 5% of our total population.

 Children come from a wide range of religious communities. Participation in

religions other than Christianity is growing, particularly in the Muslim, Hindu, Sikh,

and Buddhist faiths.

 Nearly 1.2 million (approximately 25%) children live in poverty in Canada and

children represent 36% of regular users of food banks (Canadian Institute of Child

Health, 2018). Particularly disturbing is the fact that 4 in 10 of Canada’s Indigenous

children are poor.

 Children in classrooms have diverse abilities and disabilities. Our inclusive policies

mean that children with disabilities spend the majority of their school day in general

education classrooms.

 Children are surviving diseases as serious as cancer and returning to school, but

sometimes with so-named “late effects” related to the treatment they underwent that

have implications for learning (Daly, Kral, & Brown, 2008).

 Finally, children’s families are diverse. Some children live with a mom and dad, but

many live with a mom or dad, and some live with two moms or two dads (e.g., in the

case of gay and lesbian parents or blended families where parents are divorced and

remarried). Still others live with grandparents, or with aunts and uncles.

One thing these children have in common is that they are all “digital natives”—they have not

lived without digital technologies and many are better equipped than their teachers to deal with

the changes to learning and living technology brings. Of course, there is also a growing “digital

divide,” which disproportionately advantages some groups over others.

TEACHER EFFICACY Teachers’ personal sense of efficacy is related to a school atmosphere of high
expectations for teachers and students, administrative support, and real success with students.
ESB Professional/Shutterstock

These statistics are dramatic, but a bit impersonal. As a teacher, counsellor, recreational worker,

speech therapist, or family member, you will encounter real children. You will meet many

individual children in this text, too. Even though students in classrooms are increasingly diverse
in terms of race, ethnicity, language, and economic and technological advantages, the teaching

force remains very homogeneous. Clearly, it is important for all teachers to understand and work

effectively with all their students. Several chapters in this text are devoted to understanding

students. In addition, we will explore the concepts of student diversity and inclusion through the

research, cases, and practical applications we present within each chapter.

Confidence in Every Context

Schools are about teaching and learning; all other activities are secondary to these basic goals.

But teaching and learning in the contexts described above can be challenging for both teachers

and students. This text is about understanding the complex processes of development, learning,

motivation, teaching, and assessment so that you can become a capable and confident teacher.

Teachers’ sense of efficacy

A teacher’s belief that he or she can reach even difficult students to help them learn.

Much of Anita Woolfolk’s research has focused on teachers’ sense of efficacy, defined as a

teacher’s belief that he or she can reach even difficult students to help them learn. This confident
belief appears to be one of the few personal characteristics of teachers 4 that predict student

achievement (Çakırog˘lu, Aydın, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2012; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy,

2001; Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy, & Hoy, 1998; Woolfolk & Hoy, 1990; Woolfolk Hoy,

Hoy, & Davis, 2009). Teachers with a high sense of efficacy work harder and persist longer even

when students are difficult to teach, in part because these teachers believe in themselves and in

their students. Also, teachers are less likely to experience burnout and more likely to be satisfied

with their jobs (Collie, Perry, & Martin, 2017; Fernet, Guay, Senécal, & Austin, 2012; Fives,

Hamman, & Olivarez, 2005; Klassen & Chiu, 2010).

Anita Woolfolk (and other researchers) have found that prospective teachers tend to increase
their personal sense of efficacy as a consequence of completing student teaching, but sense of

efficacy may decline after the first year as a teacher, perhaps because the support that was

available during student teaching is gone (Woolfolk Hoy & Burke-Spero, 2005). Teachers’ sense

of efficacy is higher in schools when the other teachers and administrators have high

expectations for students and the teachers receive help from their principals in solving

instructional and management problems (Capa, 2005). Another important conclusion from this

research is that efficacy grows from real success with students, not just from the moral support or

cheerleading of professors and colleagues. Any experience or training that helps you succeed in

the day-to-day tasks of teaching will provide a foundation for developing a sense of efficacy in
your career. This text aims to provide the knowledge and skills that form a solid foundation for

an authentic sense of efficacy in teaching.

Do Teachers Make a Difference?

For a while, some researchers reported findings suggesting that wealth and social status, not

teaching, were the major factors determining who learned in schools (e.g., Coleman, 1966). In

fact, much of the early research on teaching was conducted by educational psychologists who

refused to accept these claims that teachers were powerless in the face of poverty and other

societal problems among students (Wittrock, 1986).

How could you decide if teaching makes a difference in the lives of students? You could look to

your own experience. Did you have teachers who had an impact on your life? Perhaps one of

your teachers influenced your decision to become an educator. Even if you had such a teacher,

and we hope you did, one of the purposes of educational psychology is to go beyond individual

experiences and testimonies, powerful as they are, to systematically examine the impact of

teaching on the lives of students by using carefully designed research studies. Several such

studies are described below.

Teacher–Student Relationships.
Bridget Hamre and Robert Pianta (2001) followed 179 children in a small school district from

the time they entered kindergarten through to the end of grade 8. The researchers concluded that

the quality of the teacher–student relationship in kindergarten (defined in terms of level of

conflict with the child, the child’s dependency on the teacher, and the teacher’s affection for the

child) predicted a number of academic and behavioural outcomes through grade 8, particularly

for students with high levels of behavioural problems. Even when the gender, ethnicity, cognitive
ability, and behaviour ratings of the student were accounted for, the relationship with the teacher

still predicted aspects of school success. So students with significant behaviour problems in the

early years are less likely to have problems later in school if their first teachers are sensitive to

their needs and provide frequent, consistent feedback. In another study that followed children

from grades 3 through 5, Pianta and his colleagues found that two factors helped children with

lower skills in mathematics begin to close the achievement gap. The factors were higher-level

(not just basic skills) instruction and positive relationships with teachers (Crosnoe, et al., 2010).

RELATIONSHIPS MATTER Research has shown that the quality of the teacher–student relationship in
kindergarten predicts a number of academic and behavioural outcomes, particularly for students with
behavioural problems, who are less likely to have problems later in school if their teachers are sensitive to their
needs and provide frequent, consistent feedback.
Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock
5

The Cost of Poor Teaching.

In a widely publicized study, researchers examined how students are affected by having several

effective or ineffective teachers in a row (Sanders & Rivers, 1996). They looked at fifth graders

in two large metropolitan school systems in Tennessee. Students who had highly effective

teachers for grades 3, 4, and 5, scored at the 83rd percentile on average on a standardized

mathematics achievement test in one district and at the 96th percentile in the other

(99th percentile is the highest possible score). In contrast, students who had the least effective

teachers 3 years in a row averaged at the 29th percentile in math achievement in one district and

44th percentile in the other—a difference of over 50 percentile points in both cases! Students

who had average teachers or a mixture of teachers with low, average, and high effectiveness for

the 3 years had math scores between these extremes. Sanders and Rivers concluded that the best

teachers encouraged good-to-excellent gains in achievement for all students, but lower-achieving

students were the first to benefit from good teaching. The effects of teaching were cumulative

and residual; that is, better teaching in a later grade could partially make up for less effective

teaching in earlier grades, but could not erase all the deficits. In fact, one study found that at least

7% of the differences in test score gains for students could be traced to their teachers (Hanushek,

Rivkin, & Kain, 2005; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2001).

Another study about test score gains from the Los Angeles public schools may be especially

interesting to you. Robert Gordon and his colleagues (2006) measured the test performance of

elementary school students in beginning teachers’ classes. Teachers were ranked into quartiles

based on how well their students performed during the teachers’ first 2 years. Then the

researchers looked at the test performance of students in classes with the top 25% of the teachers

and the bottom 25% during their third year of teaching. After controlling for the effects of

students’ prior test scores, their family income, and other factors, the students working with the

top 25% of the teachers gained an average of 5 percentile points more compared to students with

similar beginning-of-the-year test scores, while students in the bottom 25% lost an average of 5

percentile points. So students working with a less effective teacher could be an average of 10

percentile points behind the students working with an effective teacher. If these losses
accumulate, then students working with poorer teachers would fall farther and farther behind. In

fact, the researchers speculated that “. . . having a top-quartile teacher four years in a row would

be enough to close the black-white test score gap” of about 34 percentile points (Gordon,

Kane, & Staiger, 2006, p. 8).

Effective teachers who establish positive relationships with their students appear to be a

powerful force in those students’ lives. Students who have problems seem to benefit the most

from good teaching. What makes a teacher effective? What is good teaching? We consider those

points next.

What Is Good Teaching?

Educators, psychologists, philosophers, novelists, journalists, filmmakers, mathematicians,

scientists, historians, policy-makers, and parents, to name only a few groups, have examined this

question; there are hundreds of answers. And good teaching is not confined to classrooms—it

occurs in homes and hospitals, in museums and sales meetings, and in therapists’ offices and

summer camps. In this text we are primarily concerned with teaching in classrooms, but much of

what you will learn applies to teaching in other settings as well.

Inside Three Classrooms

To begin our examination of good teaching, let’s step inside the classrooms of several

outstanding teachers. All the situations that follow reflect the conditions in real classrooms

today.

A Multilingual Grade 1 Class.

Anne Lee-Hawman teaches grade 1 in Mississauga, Ontario. Of the 22 children in her classroom,

half are English (or additional) language learners. As is true for most linguistically diverse
students in Canada, they spend 100% of 6 their school day using English instead of their native

language. This immersion, or submersion, approach to second-language learning contrasts with

the bilingual approaches to language learning used in many American states.

An English language teacher helps Anne to integrate these students by working in Anne’s

classroom each day. Together Anne and the English language teacher support students in small

groups and make modifications to the curriculum to enable students who are English language

learners to participate in all the activities of the classroom. One strategy the two teachers have

found useful is to make information available through visual materials (e.g., pictures, diagrams,

word or concept maps). Anne also makes use of peer tutors and, whenever possible, offers one-

on-one instruction to students who need it.

In addition to supporting students’ acquisition of English, Anne encourages students and their

parents to continue talking, reading, and writing in their first language at home. As well, she

fosters an appreciation for diverse languages and cultures in her classroom by designing tasks

and activities that invite students to draw on their cultural knowledge and by having students

compare and contrast their home or community experiences and practices during classroom

discussions and sharing times.

Anne makes a point of learning as much as she can about her students’ linguistic and cultural

heritages. She recognizes how important it is for teachers to understand how issues of language

and culture influence children’s learning, so that they do not misinterpret children’s motivation

and behaviour. This year, five languages are represented in Anne’s classroom: English, Hindi,

Punjabi, Mandarin, and Malay. She has a lot of learning to do.

A Suburban Grade 6 Class.
Ken teaches grade 6 in a suburban elementary school in Richmond, BC. Students in the class

have varying racial, ethnic, family income, and language backgrounds. Ken emphasizes “process

writing.” His students complete first drafts, discuss them with others in the class, revise, edit, and

“publish” their work. The students also keep daily journals and often use these to share personal

concerns with Ken. They tell him of problems at home, fights, and fears; he always takes the

time to respond in writing. The study of science is also placed in the context of the real world.

The students use a National Geographic Society computer network to link with other schools in

order to identify acid rain patterns around the world. For social studies, the class plays simulation

games; for example, in two games that focused on the first half of the 1800s, the students “lived”

as trappers collecting animal skins and as pioneers heading west.

Throughout the year, Ken is very interested in the social and emotional development of his

students—he wants them to learn about responsibility and fairness as well as science and social

studies. This concern is evident in the way he develops his class rules at the beginning of the

year. Rather than specifying dos and don’ts, Ken and his students generate a list of rights and

responsibilities for their class. This list covers most of the situations that might need a “rule.”

An Inclusive Class.
Eliot was bright and articulate. He easily memorized stories as a child, but he could not read by

himself. His problems stemmed from severe learning difficulties with auditory and visual

integration and long-term visual memory. When he tried to write, everything got jumbled. His

teacher, Mia, and a special education teacher worked together to tailor tasks to take advantage of

Eliot’s strengths as well as to provide explicit and intensive instruction to address his learning

patterns and errors. With his teachers’ help, over the next years, Eliot became an expert on his

own learning and was transformed into an independent learner; he knew which strategies he had
to use and when to use them. According to Eliot, “Learning that stuff is not fun, but it works!”

(Hallahan & Kauffman, 2006, pp. 184–185).

What do you see in these three classrooms? The teachers are confident and committed to their

students. They must deal with a wide range of student abilities and challenges: different

languages, different home situations, and different abilities and disabilities. They must adapt
instruction and assessment to students’ needs. They must make the most 7 abstract concepts, such

as integrals, real and understandable for their particular students. Then there is the challenge of

how to use new technologies and techniques. The teachers must use them appropriately to

accomplish important goals, not just to entertain the students. And the whole time these experts

are navigating through the academic material, they are also taking care of the emotional needs of

their students, propping up sagging self-esteem and encouraging responsibility. If we followed

these individuals from the first day of class, we would see that they carefully plan and teach the

basic procedures for living and learning in their classes. These teachers can efficiently collect

and correct homework, regroup students, give directions, distribute materials, collect lunch

money, and deal with disruptions—and they can do all this while also making a mental note to

find out why one of their students is so tired. Finally, these teachers are also reflective—they

constantly think back over situations to analyze what they did and why, and to consider how they

might improve learning for their students.

Reflective

Thoughtful and inventive. Reflective teachers think back over situations to analyze what

they did and why, and to consider how they might improve learning for their students.

So, What Is Good Teaching?

Is good teaching science or art, the application of research-based theories or the creative

invention of specific practices? Is a good teacher an expert explainer––“a sage on the stage”—or

a great coach––“a guide by the side”? These debates have raged for years. In your other
education classes, you probably will encounter criticisms of the scientific, teacher-centred sages.

You will be encouraged to be inventive, student-centred guides. But beware of either/or

choices. Teachers must be both knowledgeable and inventive. They must be able to use a range

of strategies, and they must also be able to invent new strategies. They must have some basic

research-based routines for managing classes, but they must also be willing and able to break

from the routine when the situation calls for change. They must know the research on student

development, and they also need to know their own particular students with their unique

characteristics of culture, gender, and geography. Personally, we hope you all become teachers

who are both “sages” and “guides,” wherever you stand.

Anne, Ken, and Mia are examples of expert teachers, but they have been teaching for a long

time. What about you? Let’s look at what it is like to be a new teacher.

What Are the Concerns of Beginning

Teachers?
Stop & Think

Imagine walking into class on your first day of teaching. List the concerns, fears, and worries

you have. What assets do you bring to the job? •

Beginning teachers everywhere share many concerns, including how to maintain classroom

discipline, motivate students, accommodate differences among students, evaluate students’ work,

deal with parents, and get along with other teachers (Conway & Clark, 2003; Melnick & Meister,

2008; Veenman, 1984). Many teachers also experience what has been called “reality shock”

when they take their first job because they really cannot ease into their responsibilities. On the

first day of their first job, beginning teachers face the same tasks as teachers with years of

experience. Student teaching, while a critical element of becoming a good teacher, does not
really prepare prospective teachers for starting off a school year with a new class. If you listed

any of these concerns in your response to the Stop & Think question, you should not be troubled.

They come with the job of being a beginning teacher (Borko & Putnam, 1996; Cooke & Pang,

1991).

With experience, hard work, and good support, seasoned teachers can focus on students’ needs

and judge their teaching success by the accomplishments of their students (Fuller, 1969; Pigge &

Marso, 1997). One experienced teacher described the shift from concerns about yourself to

concerns about your students: “The difference between a beginning teacher and an experienced

one is that the beginning teacher asks, ‘How am I doing?’ and the experienced teacher asks,

‘How are the children doing?’” (Codell, 2001, p. 191).

Our goal in writing this text is to give you the foundation to become an expert as you gain

experience. One thing experts do is listen to their students. Table 1.1 shows some advice students

in a grade 1 class gave to their student teacher: It looks like the students know about good

teaching, too.
Table1.1Advice for Student Teachers from Their Students
The students in Ms. Amato’s elementary school class gave this advice as a gift to their student teacher on her
last day.

1. Teach us as much as you can.

2. Give us homework.

3. Help us when we have problems with our work.

4. Help us to do the right thing.

5. Help us make a family in school.

6. Read books to us.

7. Teach us to read.

8. Help us write about faraway places.

9. Give us lots of compliments, like “Oh, that’s so beautiful.”

 10. Smile at us.

11. Take us for walks and on trips.

12. Respect us.

13. Help us get our education.

The Role of Educational Psychology

For as long as the formal study of educational psychology has existed—about 100 years—there

have been debates about what it really is. Some people believe educational psychology is simply

knowledge gained from psychology and applied to the activities of the classroom. Others believe

it involves applying the methods of psychology to study classroom and school life (Brophy,

2003; Wittrock, 1992). A look at history shows the close connections between educational

psychology and teaching.

In the Beginning: Linking Educational

Psychology and Teaching
In one sense, educational psychology is very old. Topics that Plato and Aristotle discussed—the

role of the teacher, the relationship between teacher and student, methods of teaching, the nature

and order of learning, the role of affect in learning—are still studied by educational

psychologists today. From its beginning, psychology in North America was linked to teaching. In

1890, William James officially founded the field of psychology and developed a lecture series

for teachers entitled Talks to Teachers on Psychology. These lectures were given in summer

schools for teachers and then published in 1899. James’s student, G. Stanley Hall, founded the
American Psychological Association. His dissertation was about children’s understandings of the

world; teachers helped him collect data. Hall encouraged teachers to make detailed observations

to study their students’ development—as his mother had done when she was a teacher. Hall’s

student, John Dewey, founded the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago and is

considered the father of the progressive education movement (Berliner, 2006; Hilgard,

1996; Pajares, 2003). Another of William James’s students, E. L. Thorndike, wrote the first

educational psychology text in 1903, and founded the Journal of Educational Psychology in

1910.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the study of educational psychology concentrated on individual

differences, assessment, and learning behaviours. In the 1960s and 1970s, the focus of research

shifted to the study of cognitive development and learning, with attention to how students learn

concepts and remember. More recently, educational psychologists have investigated how culture

and social factors affect learning and development (Anderman, 2011; Pressley & Roehrig, 2003).

Educational Psychology Today

Educational psychology

The discipline concerned with teaching and learning processes; it applies the methods and
theories of psychology and has its own as well.

What is educational psychology today? The view generally accepted is that educational

psychology is a distinct discipline with its own theories, research methods, problems, and
techniques. Educational psychologists study learning and teaching and, at the same time, 9 strive

to improve educational policy and practice (Anderman, 2011; Pintrich, 2000). In order to

understand as much as possible about learning and teaching, educational psychologists examine

what happens when someone (a teacher or parent) or something (a computer)

teaches something (math or weaving or dancing) to someone else (a student or co-worker or

team) in some setting (a classroom or theatre or gym) (Berliner, 2006; Schwab, 1973). So
educational psychologists study child and adolescent development; learning and motivation,

including how people learn different academic subjects such as reading or mathematics; social

and cultural influences on learning; teaching and teachers; and assessment including testing

(Alexander & Winne, 2006).

But even with this long history of interest in teaching and learning, are the findings of

educational psychologists really that helpful for teachers? After all, most teaching is just

common sense, is it not? Let’s take a few minutes to examine these questions.

Is It Just Common Sense?

In many cases, the principles set forth by educational psychologists—after spending much

thought, research, and money—sound pathetically obvious. People are tempted to say, and

usually do say, “Everyone knows that!” Consider these examples:

Helping Students.
When should teachers provide help for lower-achieving students as they do class work?

Common Sense Answer

Teachers should offer help often. After all, these lower-achieving students may not know when

they need help or they may be too embarrassed to ask for help.

Answer Based on Research

Sandra Graham (1996) found that when teachers provide help before a student asks, the student

and others watching are more likely to conclude that the helped student does not have the ability

to succeed. The student is more likely to attribute failures to lack of ability instead of lack of

effort, so motivation suffers.

RESEARCH MATTERS These students are participating in true “hands-on” cooperative learning. Will their
knowledge of science improve using this approach? Are there better ways to learn this subject? Educational
research should shed light on questions like these.
Jim West/PhotoEdit, Inc.

Skipping Grades.
Should a school encourage exceptionally bright students to skip grades or to enter university or

college early?

Common Sense Answer

No! Very intelligent students who are a year or two younger than their classmates are likely to be

social misfits. They are neither physically nor emotionally ready for dealing with older students

and would be miserable in the social situations that are so important in school, especially in the

later grades.
Answer Based on Research
Maybe. In A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Children (2004),

Nicholas Colangelo, Susan Assouline, and Miraca Gross list the 20 most important points from

their report. The first two are: (1) Acceleration is the most effective curriculum intervention for

gifted children, and (2) for bright students, acceleration has long-term beneficial effects, both

academically and socially. Whether acceleration is the best solution for a student depends on

many specific individual characteristics, including the intelligence and maturity of the student as

well as the other available options. For some students, moving quickly through the material and
working in advanced courses with older students is a very good idea. See Chapter 4 for more on

adapting teaching to students’ abilities.

10

Obvious Answers?
Many years ago, Lily Wong (1987) demonstrated that just seeing research results in writing can

make them seem obvious. She selected 12 findings from research on teaching. She presented six

of the findings in their correct form and six in exactly the opposite form to university students

and to experienced teachers. Both the college students and teachers rated about half of

the wrong findings as “obviously” correct. In a follow-up study, other participants were shown

the 12 findings and their opposites and were asked to pick which ones were correct. For 8 of the

12 findings, the participants chose the wrong result more often than the right one.

More recently, Paul Kirschner and Joren van Merriënboer (2013) made a similar point when they

challenged several “urban legends” in education about the assertion that learners know best how

to learn. Today society has strongly held beliefs about students being self-educating digital

natives who can multitask, having unique learning styles, and always making good choices about

how to learn; these beliefs have no strong basis in research, but they are embraced nonetheless.

You may have thought that educational psychologists spend their time discovering the obvious,

but the preceding examples point out the danger of this kind of thinking. When a principle is
stated in simple terms, it can sound simplistic. A similar phenomenon takes place when we see a

gifted dancer or athlete perform; the well-trained performer makes it look easy. But we see only

the results of the training, not all the work that went into mastering the individual movements.

And bear in mind that any research finding—or its opposite—may sound like common sense.

The issue is not what sounds sensible, but what is demonstrated when the principle is put to the

test (Gage, 1991).

Using Research to Understand and Improve

Learning
Stop & Think

Quickly, list all the different research methods you can name. •

Educational psychologists design and conduct many different kinds of research studies. Some of

these are descriptive studies—that is, their purpose is simply to describe events in a particular

class or several classes.

Descriptive studies

Studies that collect detailed information about specific situations, often using

observation, surveys, interviews, recordings, or a combination of these methods.

Correlational Studies.
Often the results of descriptive studies include reports of correlations. We will take a minute to

examine this concept, because you will encounter many correlations in the coming chapters.

A correlation is a number that indicates both the strength and the direction of a relationship

between two events or measurements. Correlations range from 1.00 to –1.00. The closer the

correlation is to either 1.00 or –1.00, the stronger the relationship. For example, the correlation
between height and weight is about .70 (a strong relationship); the correlation between height

and number of languages spoken is about .00 (no relationship at all).

Correlation

Statistical description of how closely two variables are related.

The sign of the correlation tells the direction of the relationship. A positive correlation indicates

that the two factors increase or decrease together. As one gets larger, so does the other. Height

and weight are positively correlated because greater height tends to be associated with greater

weight. A negative correlation means that increases in one factor are related to decreases in the

other. For example, the less you pay for a theatre or concert ticket, the greater your distance from

the stage. It is important to note that correlations do not prove cause and effect (see Figure 1.1).

Height and weight are correlated—taller people tend to weigh more than shorter people. But

gaining weight obviously does not cause you to grow taller. Knowing a person’s height simply

allows you to make a general prediction about that person’s weight. Educational psychologists

identify correlations so that they can make predictions about important events in the classroom.

Positive correlation

A relationship between two variables in which the two increase or decrease together.

Example: calorie intake and weight gain.

Negative correlation

A relationship between two variables in which a high value on one is associated with a

low value on the other. Example: height and distance from top of head to the ceiling.
Figure 1.1 Correlations do not show causation
When research shows that broken homes and crime are correlated, it does not show causation. Poverty, a third
variable, may be the cause of both crime and broken homes.

Figure 1.1 Full Alternative Text

Experimentation

Research method in which variables are manipulated and the effects recorded.

Experimental Studies.
A second type of research—experimentation—allows educational psychologists to go beyond

predictions and actually study cause and effect. Instead of just observing and describing an

existing situation, the investigators introduce changes and note the results. First, a number of
comparable groups of subjects are created. In psychological 11 research, the

term participants (also called subjects) generally refers to the people being studied—such as

teachers or grade 8 students—not to subjects such as math or science. One common way to make

sure that groups of subjects are essentially the same is to assign each subject to a group using a

random procedure. Random means that each subject has an equal chance to be in any

group. Quasi-experimental studies meet most of the criteria for true experiments, with the

important exception that the participants are not assigned to groups at random. Instead, existing

groups such as classes or schools participate in the experiments.

Participants/subjects
 People or animals being studied.

Random

Without any definite pattern; following no rule.

Quasi-experimental studies

Studies that fit most of the criteria for true experiments, with the important exception that

the participants are not assigned to groups at random. Instead, existing groups such as

classes or schools participate in the experiments.

In experiments or quasi-experiments, for one or more of the groups studied, the experimenters

change some aspect of the situation to see if this change or “treatment” has an expected effect.

The results in each group are then compared. Usually, statistical tests are conducted. When

differences are described as statistically significant, it means that they probably did not happen

simply by chance. For example, if you see p < .05 in a study, this indicates that the result

reported could happen by chance less than 5 times out of 100, and p < .01 means less than 1 time

in 100.

Statistically significant

Not likely to be a chance occurrence.

A number of the studies we will examine attempt to identify cause-and-effect relationships by

asking questions such as this: If some teachers receive training in how to teach spelling using

morphology, the study of the smallest parts of words that contain meaning—such as “s” or “ies”

for making words plural—(cause), will the trained teachers’ students become better spellers than

students whose teachers did not receive training in morphology (effect)? This was a field

experiment because it took place in real classrooms and not a simulated laboratory situation. In

addition, it was a quasi-experiment because the students were in existing classes and had not

been randomly assigned to teachers, so we cannot be certain the experimental and control groups

were the same before the teachers received their training. The researchers handled this by

looking at improvement in spelling, not just final achievement level (Hurry et al., 2005).

Single-subject experimental studies

 Systematic interventions to study effects with one person, often by applying and then

withdrawing a treatment.

Single-Subject Experimental Studies.

The goal of single-subject experimental studies is to determine the effects of a therapy,

teaching method, or other intervention. One common approach is to observe an individual for a

baseline period (A) and assess the behaviour of interest; then try an intervention (B) and note the

results; then remove the intervention and go back to baseline conditions (A); and, finally,

reinstate the intervention (B). This form of single-subject design is called an ABAB experiment.

For example, a teacher might record how much time students are out of their seats without

permission during a week-long baseline period (A), and then try ignoring those who are out of

their seats but praising those who are seated, and record how many are wandering out of their

seats for the week (B). Next, the teacher returns to baseline conditions (A) and records results,
and then reinstates the 12 praise-and-ignore strategy (B) (Landrum & Kauffman, 2006). When

this intervention was first tested, the praise-and-ignore strategy proved effective in increasing the

time students spent in their seats (Madsen, Becker, Thomas, Koser, & Plager, 1968).

Clinical Interviews and Case Studies.

Jean Piaget pioneered an approach called the clinical interview to understand children’s thinking.

The clinical interview uses open-ended questioning to probe responses and to follow up on

answers. Questions go wherever the child’s responses lead. Here is an example of a clinical

interview with a 7-year-old. Piaget is trying to understand the child’s thinking about lies and

truth, so he asks, “What is a lie?”

What is a lie?— What isn’t true. What they say that they haven’t done. —Guess how old I am.—

Twenty. No, I’m thirty.—Was that a lie you told me?—I didn’t do it on purpose.—I know. But is

it a lie all the same, or not?—Yes, it is the same, because I didn’t say how old you were.—Is it a
lie?—Yes, because I didn’t speak the truth.—Ought you be punished?—No. —Was it naughty or

not naughty?—Not so naughty.—Why?— Because I spoke the truth afterwards! (Piaget, 1965, p.

144).

Researchers also may employ case studies. A case study investigates one person or situation in

depth. For example, Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues conducted in-depth studies of highly

accomplished concert pianists, sculptors, Olympic swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians,

and neurologists to try to understand what factors supported the development of outstanding

talent. The researchers interviewed family members, teachers, friends, and coaches to build an

extensive case study of each of these highly accomplished individuals (Bloom et al., 1985).

Some educators recommend case study methods to identify students for gifted programs because

the information gathered is richer than just test scores.

Ethnography.
Ethnographic methods, borrowed from anthropology, involve studying the naturally occurring

events in the life of a group to understand the meaning of these events to the people involved. In

educational psychology research, ethnographies might study how students in different cultural

groups are viewed by their peers or how teachers’ beliefs about students’ abilities affect

classroom interactions. In some studies the researcher uses participant observation, actually

participating in the group, to understand the actions from the perspectives of the people in the

situation. Teachers can do their own informal ethnographies to understand life in their

classrooms.

Ethnography

A descriptive approach to research that focuses on life within a group and tries to

understand the meaning of events to the people involved.

Participant observation
 A method for conducting descriptive research in which the researcher becomes a

participant in the situation in order to better understand life in that group.

The Role of Time in Research.

Many things that psychologists want to study, such as cognitive development (Chapter 2),

happen over several months or years. Ideally, researchers would study the development by

observing their subjects over many years as changes occur. These are called longitudinal

studies. They are informative, but time-consuming, expensive, and not always practical:

Keeping up with participants over a number of years as they grow up and move can be

impossible. As a consequence, more researchers conduct cross-sectional studies, focusing on

groups of students at different ages. For example, to study how children’s conceptions of

numbers change from ages 3 to 16, researchers can interview children of several different ages,

rather than following the same children for 14 years.

Longitudinal studies

Studies that document changes that occur in subjects over time, often many years.

Cross-sectional studies

Studies that focus on groups of subjects at different ages rather than following the same

group for many years.

Microgenetic studies

Detailed observation and analysis of changes in a cognitive process as the process

unfolds over several days or weeks.

Longitudinal and cross-sectional research examines change over long periods of time. The goal

of microgenetic studies is to intensively study cognitive processes in the midst of change—

while the change is actually occurring. For example, researchers might analyze how children

learn a particular strategy for adding two-digit numbers over the course of several weeks. The

microgenetic approach has three basic characteristics: the researchers (a) observe the entire
period of the change—from when it starts to the time it is relatively stable; (b) make many

observations, often using videotape recordings, interviews, and transcriptions of the exact words

of the individuals being studied; (c) put the observed behaviour “under a microscope,” that is,

they examine it moment by moment or trial by trial. The goal is to explain the underlying

mechanisms of change—for example, what new knowledge or skills are developing to allow

change to take place (Siegler & Crowley, 1991). This kind of research is expensive and time-

consuming, so often only one or two children are studied.

Quantitative versus Qualitative Research.

There is a distinction that you will encounter in your journey through educational psychology—
the contrast between qualitative and 13 quantitative research. These are large categories and,

like many categories, a bit fuzzy at the edges, but here are some simplified differences.

Qualitative research

Exploratory research that attempts to understand the meaning of events to the participants

involved using such methods as case studies, interviews, ethnography, participant

observation, and other approaches that focus on a few people in depth.

Quantitative research

Research that studies many participants in a more formal and controlled way using

objective measures such as experimentation, statistical analyses, tests, and structured

observations.

Qualitative Research
Case studies and ethnographies are examples of qualitative research. This type of research uses

words, dialogue, events, themes, and images as data. Interviews and observations are key

procedures. The goal is not to discover general principles, but, rather, to explore specific

situations or people in depth and to understand the meaning of the events to the people involved
in order to tell their story. Qualitative researchers assume that no process of understanding

meaning can be completely objective. They are more interested in interpreting subjective,

personal, or socially constructed meanings.

Quantitative Research
Both correlational and experimental types of research generally are quantitative because

measurements are taken and computations are made. Quantitative research uses numbers,

measurement, and statistics to assess levels or sizes of relationships among variables or

differences between groups. Quantitative researchers try to be as objective as possible and

remove their own biases from their results. One advantage of good quantitative research is that

results from one study can be generalized or applied to other similar situations or people.

There has been considerable debate about the relative merits of qualitative and quantitative
approaches to research in education, as you will see in the Point/Counterpoint. 14

Point/Counterpoint What Kind of Research

Should Guide Education?
In the past decade, policies in both health care and in the treatment of psychological problems

have emphasized evidence-based practices (McHugh & Barlow, 2010). The American

Psychological Association defines evidence-based practice in psychology (EBPP) as “the

integration of the best available research with clinical expertise in the context of patient

characteristics, culture, and preferences” (American Psychological Association Task Force,

2008, p. 5). What does this mean in education?

Evidence-based practice in psychology (EBPP)

Practices that integrate the best available research with the insights of expert practitioners

and knowledge of the characteristics, culture, and preferences of the client.

Point
RESEARCH SHOULD BE SCIENTIFIC; EDUCATIONAL REFORMS SHOULD BE

BASED ON SOLID EVIDENCE.

According to Robert Slavin (2002), tremendous progress has occurred in fields such as medicine,

agriculture, transportation, and technology because:

In each of these fields, processes of development, rigorous evaluation, and dissemination have

produced a pace of innovation and improvement that is unprecedented in history. . . . These

innovations have transformed the world. Yet education has failed to embrace this dynamic, and

as a result, education moves from fad to fad. Educational practice does change over time, but the

change process more resembles the pendulum swings of taste characteristic of art or fashion

(think hemlines) rather than the progressive improvements characteristic of science and

technology. (Slavin, 2002, p. 16)

The major reason for extraordinary advances in medicine and agriculture, according to Slavin, is

that these fields base their practices on scientific evidence. Randomized clinical trials and

replicated experiments are the sources of the evidence.

In his Presidential Address to the First Conference of the International Mind, Brain, and

Education Society, Kurt Fischer (2009, pp. 3–4) said:

What happened to education? If research produces useful knowledge for most of the industries

and businesses of the world, then should not it be serving the same function for education?

Somehow education has been mostly exempt from this grounding in research. Dewey (1896)

proposed the establishment of laboratory schools to ground education in research through

combining research with practice in schools, ensuring both formative evaluation and democratic

feedback. Unfortunately, his vision has never been realized. There is no infrastructure in

education that routinely studies learning and teaching to assess effectiveness. If Revlon and

Toyota can spend millions on research to create better products, how can schools continue to use

alleged “best practices” without collecting evidence about what really works? (Fischer, 2009)
Writing in the New York Times, Gina Kolata (2013) claimed that most educational programs

found to be effective in small unscientific studies have not increased student learning when

tested in large scientific studies. For example, a summer institute for math teachers improved the

teachers’ understanding of the math content they taught, but this gain in teacher knowledge did

not lead to increased student achievement.

Counterpoint
EXPERIMENTS ARE NOT THE ONLY OR EVEN THE BEST SOURCE OF

EVIDENCE FOR EDUCATION.

David Olson (2004) disagrees strongly with Slavin’s position. He claims that we cannot use

medicine as an analogy to education. “Treatments” in education are much more complex and

unpredictable than administering one drug or another in medicine. And every educational

program is changed by classroom conditions and the way it is implemented. Patti Lather, a

colleague of Anita’s at Ohio State, says, “In improving the quality of practice, complexity and

the messiness of practice-in-context cannot be fantasized away. To try to do so yields

impoverishment rather than improvement. That loss is being borne by the children, teachers, and

administrators in our schools” (Lather, 2004, p. 30). David Berliner (2002) makes a similar

point:

Doing science and implementing scientific findings are so difficult in education because humans

in schools are embedded in complex and changing networks of social interaction. The

participants in those networks have variable power to affect each other from day to day, and the

ordinary events of life (a sick child, a messy divorce, a passionate love affair, migraine

headaches, hot flashes, a birthday party, alcohol abuse, a new principal, a new child in the

classroom, rain that keeps the children from a recess outside the school building) all affect doing

science in school settings by limiting the generalizability of educational research findings.

Compared to designing bridges and circuits or splitting either atoms or genes, the science to help

change schools and classrooms is harder to do because context cannot be controlled (p. 19).
Berliner concludes that “a single method is not what the government should be promoting for

educational researchers” (Berliner, 2002, p. 20).

Beware of Either/Or: What Can You Learn?

Complex problems in education need a whole range of methods for study. Qualitative research

tells us specifically what happened in one or a few situations. Conclusions can be applied deeply,

but only to what was studied. Quantitative research can tell us what generally happens under

certain conditions. Conclusions can be applied more broadly. Today many researchers are

using mixed methods or complementary methods—both qualitative and quantitative—to study

questions both broadly and deeply. In the final analysis, the methods used—quantitative,

qualitative, or a mixture of both—should fit the questions asked. Different approaches to

research can ask different questions and provide different kinds of answers, as you can see

in Table 1.2.
Table1.2What Can We Learn?
Different approaches to research can ask and answer different questions.

RESEARCH PURPOSES/QUESTIONS EXAMPLE

METHOD ADDRESSED

Correlational To assess the strength and Is average amount of

direction of the relation homework completed weekly

between two variables; to make related to student performance

predictions. on unit tests? If so, is the

relation positive or negative?

Experimental To identify cause-and-effect Will giving more homework

relations; to test possible cause students to learn more

RESEARCH PURPOSES/QUESTIONS EXAMPLE

METHOD ADDRESSED

explanations for effects. in science class?

Single-Subject To identify the effects of a When Emily records the

Experiment treatment or intervention for number of pages she reads

one individual. each night, will she read more

pages? If she stops recording,

will her amount of reading

return to the previous levels?

Case Studies To understand one or a few How does one boy make the

individuals or situations in transition from a small rural

depth. elementary school to a large

middle school? What are his

main problems, concerns,

issues, accomplishments,

fears, supports, etc.?

Ethnography To understand experiences How do new teachers make

from the participants’ point of sense of the norms,

view: What is their meaning? expectations, and culture of

their new school, and how do

 RESEARCH PURPOSES/QUESTIONS EXAMPLE

METHOD ADDRESSED

they respond?

Mixed To ask complex questions Based on an in-depth study of

Methods involving causes, meanings, 10 classrooms, select the

and relations among variables; classes with the fewest

to pursue both depth and behavioural problems, then

breadth in research questions. explore how teachers in those

classes established a positive

learning climate by

interviewing teachers and

students and analyzing

videotapes made at the

beginning of school.

15

Teachers as Researchers.
Finally, research can also be a way to improve teaching in one classroom or one school. The

same kind of careful observation, intervention, data gathering, and analysis that occurs in large

research projects can be applied in any classroom to answer questions such as “Which writing

prompts seem to encourage the best descriptive writing in my class?” “When does Kenyon seem

to have the greatest difficulty concentrating on academic tasks?” “Would assigning task roles in

science groups lead to more equitable participation of girls and boys in the work?” This kind of
problem-solving investigation is called action research (or teacher research, or teacher inquiry).

By focusing on a specific problem and making careful observations, teachers can learn a great

deal about both their teaching and their students.

Action research

Systematic observations or tests of methods that teachers or schools conduct to improve

teaching and learning for their students.

You can find reports of the findings from all types of studies in journals that are referenced in

this text. Table 1.3 provides a list of some of the major journals that publish work in educational

and developmental psychology. As authors, we have published articles in many of these journals

and also have reviewed manuscripts to decide what will be published. For many years, Anita was

the editor of the Theory Into Practice journal, and Nancy sat on the editorial board. The goal of

that journal is just what the title says—to bring the most useful theories into educational practice

and also to bring the wisdom of practice back to researchers who study education. Theory Into

Practice is a great journal to inspire and guide action research in classrooms.

Theories for Teaching

As we saw earlier, the major goal of educational psychology is to understand what happens when

someone teaches something to someone else in some setting (Berliner, 2006; Schwab, 1973).

Reaching this goal is a slow process. There are very few landmark studies that answer a question

once and for all. There are so many different kinds of students, teachers, tasks, and settings; and

besides, human beings are pretty complicated. To deal with this complexity, research in

educational psychology examines limited aspects of a situation—perhaps a few variables at a

time or life in one or two classrooms. If enough studies are completed in a certain area and
findings repeatedly point to the same conclusions, we eventually arrive at a principle. This is the

term for an established relationship between two or more factors—between a certain teaching

strategy, for example, and student achievement.

Principle

Established relationship between factors.

Another tool for building a better understanding of the teaching and learning processes is theory.

The commonsense notion of theory (as in “Oh well, it was only a theory”) is “a guess or hunch.”

But the scientific meaning of theory is quite different. “A theory in science is an interrelated set

of concepts that is used to explain a body of data and to make predictions about the results of

future experiments” (Stanovich, 1992, p. 21). Given a number of established principles,

educational psychologists have developed explanations for the relationships among many

variables and even whole systems of relationships. There are theories to explain how language

develops, how differences in intelligence occur, and, as noted earlier, how people learn.

Theory

Integrated statement of principles that attempts to explain a phenomenon and make

predictions.

You will encounter many theories of development, learning, and motivation in this text. Theories

are based on systematic research and they are the beginning and ending points of the research

cycle. In the beginning, theories provide the research hypotheses to be tested or the questions

examined. A hypothesis is a prediction of what will happen in a research study based on theory

and previous research. For example, two different theories might suggest two competing

predictions that could be tested. Piaget’s theory might suggest that instruction cannot teach

young children to think more abstractly, whereas Vygotsky’s theory might suggest that this is

possible. Of course, at times, psychologists do not know enough to make predictions, so they just

ask research questions. An example question might be, “Is there a difference in internet usage by
male and female adolescents from different ethnic groups?” 16

Hypothesis
 A prediction of what will happen in a research study based on theory and previous

research.
17

Research is a continuing cycle that involves:

 clear specification of hypotheses, problems, or questions based on current

understandings or theories;

 systematic gathering and analyzing of all kinds of information (data) about the

questions from well-chosen research participants in carefully selected

settings/situations;

 interpreting and analyzing the data gathered using appropriate methods to answer

the questions or solve the problems;

 modification and improvement of explanatory theories based on the results of those

analyses; and

 formulation of new and better questions based on the improved theories . . . and on

and on.

This empirical process of collecting data to test and improve theories is repeated over and over,

as you can see in Figure 1.2. Empirical means “based on data.” When researchers say that
identifying an effective antibiotic or choosing a successful way to teach reading is an “empirical

question,” they mean that you need data and evidence to make the call. Constructing decisions

from empirical analyses protects psychologists from developing theories based on personal

biases, rumours, fears, faulty information, or preferences (Mertler & Charles, 2005). Answering

questions with carefully gathered data means that science is self-correcting. If predictions do not

play out or if answers to carefully formulated questions do not support current best

understandings (theories), then the theories have to be changed. You can use the same kind of

systematic and self-correcting thinking in your work with students.

Empirical
 Based on systematically collected data.
Figure 1.2 A Research Cycle

Research begins with questions based on current understanding, followed by gathering, analyzing, and
interpreting information to answer the questions. Using these findings, the current theories are refined and
become the basis for new research questions.
Source: Woolfolk, A; Perry, N. E. (2002). Child and Adolescent Development, 1st Edition. Reprinted by permission of Pearson
Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Figure 1.2 Full Alternative Text

Few theories explain and predict a phenomenon perfectly. In this text, you will see many

examples of educational psychologists taking different theoretical positions and disagreeing on

the overall explanations of such issues as learning and motivation. Since no one theory offers all

the answers, it makes sense to consider what each has to offer.

So why, you may ask, is it necessary to deal with theories? Why not just stick to principles? The

answer is that both are useful. Principles of classroom management, for example, will give you

help with specific problems. A good theory of classroom management, on the other hand, will

give you a new way of thinking about discipline problems; it will give you tools for creating

solutions to many different problems and for predicting what might work in new situations. A
major goal of this text is to provide you with the best and the most useful theories for teaching—

those that have solid evidence behind them. Although you may prefer some theories over others,

consider them all as ways to understand the challenges teachers face.

We began this chapter by asserting that educational psychology is our favourite topic, as well as

a key source of knowledge and skills for teaching. We end this chapter with one more bit of

evidence for our enthusiasm. Educational psychology will help you support student learning,

which is the goal of all teaching.

Supporting Student Learning

In a recent article in the Educational Psychologist, a major journal in our field, Jihyun Lee and

Valerie Shute (2010) sifted through thousands of studies of student learning conducted over the

course of 60 years, seeking to identify those that had direct measures of student achievement in

reading and mathematics. Then they narrowed their focus to studies with strong effects. About

150 studies met all their rigorous criteria. Using the results from these studies, Lee and Shute

identified about a dozen variables that were directly linked to K–12 students’ achievement. The

researchers grouped these factors into two categories: student/personal factors and school and

social-contextual factors. These are shown in Table 1.4. It does not surprise us that educational

psychology provides a base for developing knowledge and skills in virtually every area.
Table1.4Research-Based Personal and Social-Contextual Factors That
Support Student Achievement in K–12 Classrooms

STUDENT EXAMPLES WHERE IN THIS TEXT

PERSONAL

FACTORS
Student

Engagement

Engaging Make sure students attend Chapters 5, 6 7, 13

Students’ classes, follow rules, and

Behaviour participate in school

activities.

Engaging Design challenging tasks, Chapters 2, 3 10, 12

Students’ tap intrinsic motivation,

Minds and support student

Motivations investment in learning,

and nurture student self-

efficacy and other

positive academic beliefs.

Engaging Connect to student Chapters 3, 5, 6, 10, 12

Students’ interest, pique curiosity,

Emotions foster a sense of

belonging and class

connections, diminish

anxiety, and increase

enjoyment in learning.
Learning

Strategies

Cognitive Directly teach knowledge Chapters 7, 8, 9, 14

Strategies and skills that support

student learning and deep

processing of valuable

information (e.g.,

summarizing, inferring,

applying, and reasoning).

Metacognitive Directly teach students to Chapters 7, 8, 9, 11

Strategies monitor, regulate, and

evaluate their own

cognitive processes,

strengths, and weaknesses

as learners; teach them

about when, where, why,

and how to use specific

strategies.

Behavioural Directly teach students Chapters 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Strategies strategies and tactics for

managing, monitoring,
 and evaluating their

action, motivation, affect,

and environment, such as

skills in

 time

management

 test taking

 help seeking

 note taking

 homework

management

SOCIAL- EXAMPLES WHERE IN THIS TEXT

CONTEXTU

AL

FACTORS

School

Climate

Academic Set high expectations for Chapters 11, 12, 13

Emphasis your students and

encourage the whole

 school to do the same;

emphasize positive

relations with the school

community.

Teacher If possible, teach in a Chapters 1, 11, 13

Variables school with the positive

qualities of collective

efficacy, teacher

empowerment, and sense

of affiliation.

Principal If possible, teach in a See Woolfolk, Hoy & Hoy (2013)

Leadership school with the positive

qualities of collegiality,

high morale, and clearly

conveyed goals.

Social-

Familial

Influences

Parental Support parents in Chapters 3, 4, 6, 12

Involvement supporting their

 children’s learning.

Peer Influences Create class and school Chapters 10, 13, 15

norms that honour

achievement, encourage

peer support, and

discourage peer conflict.

Source: Based on Lee, J., & Shute, V. J. (2010). Personal and social-contextual factors in K–12 academic performance:
An integrative perspective on student learning. Educational Psychologist, 45, 185–202.

19

As you can see in Table 1.4, this text should help you become a capable and confident teacher

who can get students engaged in the classroom learning community—a community that respects

its members. This text will guide you toward becoming a teacher who helps students develop

into interested, motivated, self-regulated, and confident learners. As a consequence, you will be

able to set high expectations for your students, rally the support of parents, and build your own

sense of efficacy as a teacher.