Learn Motivation Postsecondary Classroom - Hardcover

by Marilla D. Svinicki (Author)

While the annals of educational psychology and scholarship of learning theory are vast, this book distills the most important material that the higher education faculty need, translating it into clear language, and rendering from it examples that can be readily applied in the college classroom. Understanding theory can enrich one's own teaching by increasing efficiency and effectiveness of both the instructor and the student, promoting creativity, encouraging self-reflection and professional development, and advancing classroom research. Finally, a good grounding in theory can help faculty navigate when a student is having difficulty.

This clearly written book outlines the learning theories: cognitive, concept learning, social learning, and constructivist, as well as the motivation theories: expectancy value, attribution, achievement goal orientation, and self-determination. It then delves deeper into each one, showing how to develop rich, meaningful instruction so that students master basic information and move into deeper levels of learning.

Back Jacket

While there is much available research and theory about learning and motivation, until now there has been no resource that translates esoteric findings into everyday language and examples that can be readily applied in college classrooms. This book brings the findings and theories of educational psychology to classroom faculty, helping them to adopt a scholarly approach to understanding their students' learning problems.

Nine clearly written chapters demonstrate how learning theories can be successfully adapted to the classroom, and a useful appendix succinctly outlines the theories: cognitive, concept learning, social learning, constructivism, and motivational.

• Chapter 1 presents an overview and purposes of learning and motivation theories for postsecondary settings, and discusses the value of being a reflective practitioner and grounding instructional decisions in research and theory about learning.
• Chapter 2 examines the findings from the cognitive theory of learning and how instruction can be developed to help students master basic information.
• Chapter 3 discusses teaching for understanding. To be able to really use information they are learning, students have to understand it at more than a surface level.
• Chapter 4 explores social learning theory to introduce ways of helping students master new skills.
• Chapter 5 examines what is known about transfer and how to promote it.
• Chapter 6 discusses self-regulated learning and presents strategies for students to master in order to become independent learners.
• Chapter 7 introduces some of the wide variety of theories that have been proposed as explanations of learner motivation and synthesizes them into a set of practical strategies for instructors to follow.
• Chapter 8 discusses some practical differences in learners that can inform instructional design more meaningfully.
• Chapter 9 illustrates how the theories can be combined into an instructional design process that is truly based on solid research.

Author Biography

Marilla D. Svinicki has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder and is director of the Center for Teaching Effectiveness and associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also the editor in chief of the series New Directions for Teaching and Learning. She has published two edited books and many chapters on the topic of learning in postsecondary classrooms. Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of learning and motivation as translated into teaching practice.