Handbook of psychology volume 7 educational psychology

Implications for Application in Curriculum,

Instruction, and Assessment

According to Sadker and Sadker (1994), “most educators

regard the formal curriculum as the organization of in-

tended outcomes for which the school says it is responsible”

(p. 163). The twentieth-century curriculum was primarily fo-

cused on knowledge transmission (Berryman, 1993; Carroll,

2000; Judy & D’Amico, 1998; Shephard, 2000) and the in-

struction practices and assessments aligned with the trans-

mission of established knowledge in content areas. Jones

(2001) points out that educational technology clearly brings

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Research to Policy for Guiding Educational Reform

to the forefront debates about education as the transmission

of information versus education as learning and experience—

formal versus natural education.

Bransford (2001) points out that being knowledge-

centered includes looking at the world in which people will

eventually operate and then designing learning opportunities

by working backwards from that perspective. Carroll (2000,

2001) describes how a networked community can support

three types of knowledge-centered outcomes: knowledge

transmission, knowledge adaptation, and knowledge gener-

ation. Designs for knowledge-centered curricula assumes that

the learners are immersed in current events that highlight top-

ics and issues from which they can learn and to which they

can contribute through active engagement with others in the

networked community who are also actively addressing the

topics and issues. Educators and community members can

provide leadership by thinking more deeply about the knowl-

edge and skills applicable to living and working in the

twenty-first-century society and taking very seriously ques-

tions about what should be taught by helping learners priori-

tize the focus of their learning activities (Bransford, 2001).

Personal and interpersonal development features of cur-

riculum also emerge from the social interactions among those

in the networked community. An integrated focus on the per-

sonal, organizational, and community levels of learning clar-

ifies the need for a holistic and integrated curriculum

characterized by core standards for basic content knowledge

and skills, for career development, and for social-emotional

and physical development. Underlying this framework is the

thinking of those who work with living systems and seek to

center on human needs and natural processes that must be

supported in the systems that address technical issues (cur-

riculum, instruction, assessment) and organizational issues

(management structures, decision making, policies). Thus,

increased attention is needed to the research-based living-

systems framework and issues relevant to the personal,

technical, and organizational domains of electronic-learning

cultures and communities (see McCombs, 2000b, and

McCombs & McNabb, 2001).

Closely intertwined with the holistic, community-based

curriculum is instruction that is essentially learner-centered

in the sense of connecting with the knowledge, skills, atti-

tudes, and beliefs of learners (APA Task Force of Psychology

in Education, 1993; APA Work Group of the Board of Educa-

tional Affairs, 1997; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999;

McCombs, 2001a; McCombs & Whisler, 1997). McCombs

(2000a) points out that both students and teachers are colearn-

ers with changing roles as the learning content, context, and

community shape individual expertise in nonlinear learning

approaches. As Peck explains, the notion of teacher no longer

seems like the appropriate term for the leaders in these net-

worked communities. Leaders—or expert learners, as Carroll

(2001) describes them—will need to view a large part of their

responsibility as the creation of the social conditions that will

promote learning.

Twenty-first-century instruction needs to focus on foster-

ing self-directed learning habits along a development contin-

uum, from novice to mature learner and expert. Rose (2001)

explains that development of higher-level thinking skills—

learning that can be applied to a variety of situations, rather

than just recitation of facts—happens best when the learners

interact both with the information and with others to discuss

their understanding. Accepting this idea requires an under-

standing that learning happens in the context of interaction

with other humans. When the interactions are an important

part of the learning process, then developing the learning

community is important to the process (Rose, 2001).

Balancing a focus on learners with a focus on the desired

academic, social, and personal knowledge domains required

of responsible twenty-first-century learners and citizens

promises to offset traditional learning system problems with

learner motivation, engagement, and social development

(McCombs, 2001b). Instructional practices within a holistic

curriculum that is knowledge-centered also involves a serious

examination of how to help students learn with understanding

rather than only memorization. This practice can help stu-

dents organize their knowledge, skills and attitudes in ways

that support transfer—where transfer includes the idea of

preparing people for future learning (see Bransford &

Schwartz,1999).

A shift in assessment practices to support a learning cul-

ture is advocated by Shepard (2000). She argues that it is es-

sential to move the current paradigm to one that blends

current ideas from cognitive, constructivist, and sociocultural

theories because of the corruption of the standards movement

into a heavy-handed system of rewards and punishments. Dy-

namic, ongoing assessments that can help determine what a

student is able to do independently and with adult guidance

are needed to guide optimal development. By placing learn-

ers in communities of practice, individuals can become in-

creasingly adept and competent while developing robust

understandings of concepts. Good assessments, Shepard ar-

gues, are those that help students rethink old understandings,

draw new connections, and create new applications. Self-

assessments that help students monitor their own progress

also helps them share responsibility for learning with teach-

ers while developing increased ownership of students’ own

learning. The evaluation of teaching should include helping

teachers make their own investigations and reflections visible

to students as part of the teaching and learning dialogue. For

What Policy Issues are Implied from the Educational Psychology’s Knowledge Base in Twenty-first-Century Reform Efforts?

601

these changes to occur, however, teacher development must

include an understanding of motivation and how to develop

classroom cultures in which learning and learners are at the

center. Attention must also be focused on helping teachers

reflect on their beliefs and undergo a personal change

process.

Implications for Application in New Learning

Communities and Cultures

Honey (2001) addresses the unrealized promise of emerging

technologies to create new types of learning communities

and cultures. Although technologies can provide powerful

scaffolds to complex processes like inquiry and computa-

tional reasoning and the interpretation of media artifacts, she

points out that we also know that school organizations are

powerful mediators and frequently powerful resisters of

learning innovations. Honey reports that when student learn-

ing does improve in schools that become technology-rich,

those gains are not caused solely by the presence of technol-

ogy or by isolated technology-learner interactions. Rather,

she says such changes are grounded in learning environments

that prioritize and focus on core educational objectives at the

organizational level (Center for Children and Technology,

2000; Chang et al., 1998; Hawkins, Spielvogel, & Panush,

1997; Honey, Hawkins, & Carrigg, 1998).

Witherspoon (2001) has outlined several issues for which

educational psychology’s knowledge base could be helpful in

designing effective learning communities and cultures. These

issues center on ethical governance practices that are relevant to

both on- and off-line applications. They include the following:

• Designing civil interchange into system functions and

promoting intercultural sensitivity.

• Developing rigorous standards to protect and enforce the

privacy of participants, to assure the identity of students

taking tests, and to determine that inquiries for student-

related information come from those authorized to have

that information.

• Providing accessibility of communities and programs to

those with disabilities as well as to those in poverty areas.

Wilhelm (2001) raises another organizational issue associ-

ated with networked learning, the central issue of equity. In

terms of achieving greater equality in students’ opportunity to

learn, technological innovation often drives a deeper wedge

between the haves and have-nots; thus less affluent districts

are often playing catch-up to cohorts with higher per-pupil

expenditures. While acknowledging the digital divide, Peck

(2001) contends that if the student-to-student interactions

were expanded and electronic support was provided to scaf-

fold students in the process of providing feedback to each

other, the costs of electronic learning could be dramatically

reduced, making it accessible to everyone possessing the nec-

essary learning to learn skills.

WHAT POLICY ISSUES ARE IMPLIED FROM

THE APPLICATION OF EDUCATIONAL

PSYCHOLOGY’S KNOWLEDGE BASE IN

TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY REFORM EFFORTS?

This final section integrates prior sections by summarizing

major future issues likely to be faced by educational psychol-

ogy, including political realities and the role of educational

psychologists in educating the public about its knowledge

base and how it can best be used in transformative ways to

create the most effective teaching and learning environments

for all learners in the twenty-first century. Major changes in

how education is viewed, its purpose, and its structures as we

enter into a century with more opportunities for the use of

emerging technologies for education are highlighted. Policy

issues that surfaced in chapters of this Handbook are dis-

cussed along with others from my own work in school reform.

Policy Issues Related to Definitions of

Intelligence and Ability

Without rethinking definitions of intelligence and ability,

Sternberg (in this volume) argues that societal invention may

play more of a role in sorting than does nature because soci-

ety places high value on test scores for sorting and placement

decisions. This practice can lead to disenfranchisement and

the narrowing of skills valued, not to mention disregarding

the value of creative and practical skills. Because of links to

power structures, such social systems tend to perpetuate

themselves and become endlessly looping closed systems.

Policies thus need to emphasize multiple measures and reex-

amination of selection and placement criteria.

In general, policies are needed that recognize the growing

knowledge base on alternative conceptions of intelligence

and ability. These policies must emphasize the valuing of di-

versity and pluralism at all levels of the educational system.

They must embrace Banks’ (2000) plea for new conceptions

of race and ethnicity, intellectual ability, and knowledge sys-

tems, such that these concepts do not privilege particular

racial, ethnic, social class, or gender group; that is, new con-

ceptions are needed that reflect the experiences of all groups.

They must also embrace new notions about learning and

learners that unite rather than divide people and groups,

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Research to Policy for Guiding Educational Reform

derived from research-validated principles such as those

defined in the APA Work Group of the Board of Educational

Affairs’ (1997) Learner-Centered Psychological Principles.

Policy Issues Related to New Teacher and Student

Roles in Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

The spirit of vitality in learner-centered schools is that aspect

of the culture committed to learning and change. Teachers’

needs to be learners must be part of the culture that supports

student motivation, learning, and achievement. The nature

of the culture formed among teachers committed to high

achievement for all learners is one that is also committed to

ongoing learning, change, and improvement. The process

must be one that supports continuous examination and criti-

cal inquiry into ways of helping students learn better; it must

become a normal activity that involves the whole faculty and

builds community. The vision is subject to change, and the

whole system maintains flexibility and openness to new

learning, transformation, and change.

Policies are needed that provide for flexibility in programs

that support learning and change for all learners, including

teachers and other adults. Roles must be subject to change

and one-size-fits-all thinking must be eliminated. Allowing

students to become teachers and listening to and respecting

the perspectives of all learners must be part of the culture and

embedded in policies that govern school functioning.

Policy Issues Related to Individualization 

of Learning Content and Experiences

Integrated instructional programs must themselves be a model

of the very process and quality they want to engender in

teachers as learners. To produce quality teaching and learn-

ing, learners must experience both quality content and

processes. Systems that foster quality by fear-based or puni-

tive measures engender fear, withdrawal, and halfhearted

compliance. Unfortunately, this situation is coloring much of

today’s reform agenda. Principles of respect, fairness, auton-

omy, intellectual challenge, social support, and security must

guide the standard-setting and implementation process. Time

for learning and change—to share successful practices, ex-

periment, and continually improve must be acknowledged.

Policies to deal with these issues must be guided by an

understanding of schools as living systems as well as an un-

derstanding of individual, organizational, and community

learning needs. Punitive and coercive practices should be

avoided, and collaborative and inclusive practices should be

encouraged. Trust building and relationship building through

dialogue need to be explicitly acknowledged in federal, state,

and local school policies.

Policy Issues Related to Content and Curriculum

That Meet Whole Learner Needs

From a broad systems view, many educators, researchers, and

policy makers agree that the current educational, judicial, and

social systems are not working (e.g., Nissen, 1999; Norris,

1999; Wheatley, 1999). They see the systems as not only

unconnected but also based on outdated thinking and old

models of human learning, growth, and development. Fur-

thermore, these current systems are often based on principles

applicable to nonliving, mechanical systems and do not

match the uncertainty and complexity of living, human sys-

tems; thus, it is time to explore a new model that includes

what is needed in living systems to bring the system into bal-

ance. It is time to support a cycle of positive teacher and

youth development and learning.

When successful school reform efforts are analyzed (e.g.,

Fullan, 1997), the critical difference is in how these practices

are implemented and in whether there is explicit and shared

attention given to individual learners and their unique cog-

nitive as well as social and emotional learning needs. The

critical difference is thus in whether practices are learner-

centered and focus on the people and the personal domain.

This focus, however, must be balanced with challenging

academic content and standards and attention to social and

emotional development.

Policies are therefore needed that address this balance

through integrative curricula, multiple assessment measures,

and a focus on school climate. Practices that encourage stu-

dent responsibility for academic and nonacademic outcomes

and that provide learners with choice and control should be

explicitly addressed in policies.

Policy Issues Related to Diversity and

Inclusion of All Learners

Healthy learning communities have the further defining qual-

ities of accepting, incorporating, and honoring all diverse

views. Individuals welcome divergent perspectives because

they understand that the underlying outcome is learning and

change in a context of respect and caring. Individuals also un-

derstand that learning communities broaden their perspec-

tives to make room for the learning that can occur to

encompass all points of view without making anyone wrong.

When different world views and beliefs are held, inclusive

dialogue becomes the process for learning; relationships

References

603

become the vehicle for change in beliefs and assumptions

about learning, learners, and teaching. Self-organizing learn-

ing communities then meet individual needs for safety, and

they encourage new relationships and ways of generating new

relationships. Each learner’s perspective is a valued medium

of learning and a catalyst for change and improvement.

Policies must acknowledge the relational aspects of learn-

ing and the value of each person in the system. Practices that

exclude individuals—be they students, teachers, parents, or

others who have a stake in the educational system—must be

avoided. Policies must acknowledge the knowledge base on

effective communication and organizational development in

outlining guidelines for dealing with diversity and inclusion.

Policy Issues Related to Testing and Accountability

Practices such as grading of schools, teachers, and adminis-

trators based on the quality of student achievement can mis-

place the responsibility for learning (cf. McCombs, 2000a).

Even if teachers are held responsible for student learning, it is

the student who makes the decision to learn. Teachers cannot

make learning happen; they can encourage with a variety of

incentives, but teachers know well that many incentives (e.g.,

grades, fear of discipline) work only for some students. When

teachers overly control the learning process, they may get

compliance, but they won’t get responsibility.

Responsibility begins with making choices. Without the

opportunity to choose and face the consequences of those de-

cisions, there is no sense of ownership. Ownership, which re-

sults from choices, is empowering. Without empowerment

and ownership, there is no responsibility or accountability—

there is blaming and compliance. With ownership, learning

is fun and exciting for students and teachers, and both share

in the pleasures and responsibilities of control. When re-

sponsibility and power are shared, the natural response is

empowerment, ownership, and responsibility. We own what

we create—an important implication of the learner-centered

principles and framework when they are applied to policy

recommendations.

To summarize, the following are what I see as specific

policy recommendations that can further the application of

educational psychology’s knowledge base to school reform:

• Policies must capture individual and organizational pur-

poses directed at continuous change and learning as a

holistic process that involves intellect, emotion, and spirit.

• Policies must emphasize new leadership roles that em-

power teachers and students alike to take increased control

over their own learning and development.

• Policies must emphasize a balance between concerns with

high achievement and concerns with meeting individual

learning, motivational, and social needs of diverse

students.

• Policies must emphasize change strategies focused on in-

clusive dialogue, building respectful relationships, and

practices that are owned by all participants.

• Policies must value outcomes that go beyond academic

achievement to emotional and social outcomes that in-

clude increased personal and social responsibility.

In conclusion, we have a responsibility upon which many

in our profession are increasingly recognizing and acting—

the responsibility to educate policy makers, parents, and the

public about what we know that can create both effective ed-

ucational experiences and a positive change or educational

reform process. Not only do we need to help others under-

stand new conceptions of learning, motivation, and develop-

ment, but we also need to help them understand that learning

and change are flip sides of the same social-psychological

process—the process of changing one’s mind. Processes and

contexts that support learning are also those that support

change. Change—like learning—is an ongoing, dynamic,

and lifelong process of continuous improvement. It can be

motivating, invigorating, and challenging, or it can be fear-

ful, intimidating, and punitive. As we embark on a new

decade of school reform, educational psychology promises to

provide more insights into not only how to enhance individ-

ual learning, motivation, and development. It also promises

to assist in understanding the conditions, contexts, and

processes for effective change and educational reform. This

is a challenge that I believe the field is ready to accept. Based

on the contributions to educational psychology in this vol-

ume and in the field in general, this is also a challenge on

which I believe we are prepared and ready to deliver.