Teaching Educational Psychology to Develop Creative and Transformative Teachers

Abstract

In recent years, there has been much discussion about the content, pedagogy, and purpose of educational psychology. Specifically these discussions have focused on identifying the essential components, concepts, and theories that should be associated with educational psychology courses as well as how to make educational psychology relevant to future teachers. While these issues are important, they are nonetheless difficult to address and are often influenced by the context of the school communities. We suggest educational psychology should help prepare teachers to be creative decision-makers in their classrooms and school communities. In other words, educational psychology should help future teachers adapt and function successfully in any school environment. This perspective highlights the artistic nature of teaching informed by Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence and Transformative Teaching. In this article, we present an overview of scholars' perspectives on educational psychology and share our experiences teaching educational psychology courses with a creative decision-making approach.