PSY-FPX6100 applies psychological science directly to the classroom — how students learn, what motivates them, and how to assess learning validly — assessed through FlexPath's applied competency model.
Learning theory applied to education
PSY-FPX6100 covers behaviorist, cognitive, and constructivist learning theories and their differing implications for instructional design — a behaviorist approach emphasizes reinforcement and practice, while a constructivist approach emphasizes learners actively building understanding through experience.
Motivation and educational assessment
The course covers motivation theory applied specifically to academic contexts (achievement goal orientation, self-efficacy) and educational assessment principles, distinguishing formative assessment (ongoing, improvement-focused) from summative assessment (final evaluation of learning).
Key topics in PSY-FPX6100
- Behaviorist, cognitive, and constructivist learning theories
- Instructional design implications of different learning theories
- Academic motivation: achievement goal orientation and self-efficacy
- Formative vs. summative assessment
- Validity and reliability in educational assessment
- Applying educational psychology to real classroom challenges
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Worked example: matching instructional approach to learning theory
- Behaviorist approach: Teaching multiplication facts through repeated practice with immediate feedback and reinforcement
- Constructivist approach: Having students discover multiplication's relationship to repeated addition through hands-on exploration before formal instruction
- Key insight: Neither approach is universally superior — behaviorist approaches often suit rote skill-building, while constructivist approaches often suit building deeper conceptual understanding
- Lesson: Effective educators select an instructional approach matched to the specific type of learning goal, not a single default method for everything
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Frequently asked questions
Different learning goals genuinely benefit from different instructional approaches — building basic factual recall or procedural fluency (like multiplication facts) often benefits from behaviorist-informed repeated practice with clear feedback, while building deep conceptual understanding of why something works often benefits from constructivist approaches that let learners actively explore and construct their own understanding rather than simply receiving information passively. PSY-FPX6100 teaches this because a common instructional mistake is applying one preferred teaching philosophy universally regardless of the specific learning goal — an educator who exclusively uses discovery-based constructivist methods may struggle to efficiently build basic factual fluency, while an educator who exclusively uses drill-and-practice behaviorist methods may produce students who can execute procedures without genuine conceptual understanding, so effective educational psychology application requires matching method to goal.
Formative assessment happens during the learning process and is specifically designed to provide ongoing feedback that helps both the student and teacher identify and address learning gaps while there's still time to adjust instruction — low-stakes quizzes, in-class questioning, and draft feedback are common formative assessment tools. Summative assessment happens at the end of a learning period and evaluates overall achievement of learning goals — final exams, end-of-unit tests, standardized assessments. PSY-FPX6100 teaches that both serve genuinely different, complementary purposes — over-relying on summative assessment alone provides no opportunity to catch and correct learning gaps before they compound, while formative assessment alone doesn't provide the kind of final, comprehensive evaluation of learning that summative assessment offers, which is why well-designed educational assessment systems deliberately incorporate both types rather than relying on just one.