THERE ARE SOME THEMES, SOME SUBJECTS, TOO LARGE FOR ADULT FICTION; THEY CAN ONLY BE DEALT ADEQUATELY IN A CHILDREN’S BOOK. - Philip Pullman

Teaching Educational Psychology using Children’s Literature  To introduce theory  To build background knowledge  To make theory more understandable  To create images of concepts  To help students make connections between theory and their work with children

The Rainbow Fish  We will upload the video on Tuesday

Activity  What are the underlying themes of the story?  What are your thoughts on how the story ended?

Self-concept  Individuals’ knowledge and beliefs about themselves – their ideas, feelings, attitudes and expectations.  Self-concept evolves through constant self-evaluation.  Reactions of significant people are used in making judgments about Self.  As children grow up self-concept is tied to physical appearance and social acceptance.  Different from self-esteem (though there may be connections).

Questions…  As a teacher, how do you ensure that your students value their own qualities?  How do you react to individual differences among students in your class?  Has a student in your class who is different from others in some way ever made you uncomfortable? What did you do in response to your feelings?

The Dark  We will upload the video on Tuesday.

Activity  What was the theme of the story?  What was the role of the character ‘Dark’?

Self-efficacy  Albert Bandura (1986, 1994, 1997)  A person’s sense of being able to deal effectively with a particular task.  It influences human agency or the capacity to coordinate learning skills, motivation, and emotions to reach one’s goals.  Self efficacy is different from self-concept.

Activity  Think of a task which you initially felt was beyond your capacity to accomplish successfully but with time mastered it.  What do you think led you to change your beliefs about your ability to do the task?

Sources of self-efficacy expectations  Mastery experiences (most powerful source of efficacy information)  Level of arousal  Vicarious experiences  Social persuasion

Question…  What influenced Laszlo to overcome his fear of the dark?

Final questions…  Can you think of using content from a different discipline to aid your teaching?  How would you do it?  What are the pros/cons of integrating different disciplines in teaching?