ED126: Social Connectedness, Motivation, and Self-Regulation in Education (Winter 2018) Instructor: Hunter Gehlbach @HunterGehlbach Website: http://tinyurl.com/ED126 #ED126 Class Meetings in PSYCH 1924
hgehlbach@education.ucsb.edu
F 2:00 – 3:50pm
Office: GGSE 3113 Office hours: By appointment
SECTIONS: 1:00-1:50 2:00-2:50 3:00-3:50
Tuesday Lia (osimon@ucsb.edu) Meg (mpboyer@ucsb.edu) Jacob (jjkirksey@umail.ucsb.edu)
Wednesday Jacob (jjkirksey@umail.ucsb.edu) Jacob (jjkirksey@umail.ucsb.edu) Jacob (jjkirksey@umail.ucsb.edu)
Now more than ever, schools appreciate that a great curriculum, innovative pedagogical approaches, and cutting-edge technology cannot—by themselves—ensure student learning. Educators must first address students’ fundamental psychological needs: (a) that students must feel socially connected to others in their learning environment; (b) they must be appropriately motivated; and (c) they must be capable of regulating their emotions and attention. Furthermore, research suggests that interventions to improve the social, motivational, and self-regulatory aspects of schooling may represent some of the most promising possibilities for improving students’ educational experiences. This course introduces ED126 students to these three fundamental needs, investigates how educators might address them in context, and explores how interventions might be designed to improve student outcomes in these domains. In focusing on educational contexts, we will primarily examine schools, but we’ll think flexibly about a range of settings. The overarching aspiration for the course is that every ED126 student completes the course having met (at least!) the following goals: (1) Reflected on how—for better or for worse—these aspects of schooling affected their own education; (2) Observed how key principles of how motivation, social connectedness, and self-regulation play out in the world around them; (3) Developed and revised ideas for how to apply specific theoretical ideas from the course to a practical educational setting of interest to them; and (4) Articulated a plan for how one might systematically evaluate the promise of an educational intervention designed to bolster students’ social connectedness, motivation, or self-regulatory capacity. These goals are reflected in the major course assignments…
Draft Syllabus 1