experimental-psychology

The thing I love about this text is that it has quite different perspective, not only on the classification (typology) of educational theory/ pedagogy, but also it has notes on researchers who are rarely mentioned in the Anglo- American educational theory hegemony.

After one gets past the "Popov invented the electric light" feeling, one can appreciate the dimension that Bertrand has provided.

Take for example "constructivism" - one will not find mention Grennon- Brooks and Brooks, "In search of understanding: The case for constructivist classrooms" (ASCD) which is now considered a classic text on constructivism in classrooms.

The only other texts that I can find discussing similar themes is Joyce an Weil's, "Models of teaching" and Laurie Brady's book, "Models and methods of teaching." For this reason alone Betrand's book is worthwhile purchasing.

Neil MacNeill

This is a very good introduction to Dr Maria Montessori's teachings and ideas. It gives an account of how she derived many of her methods and the materials she used. The book is filled with details and interesting encounters with her little charges which makes her an endearing educator. However, it does not contain enough information for the actual exercises the child is supposed to practise.

I have adopted this text for a class on Human Learning and have found it to be an easily read and useful text. Morgan covers the essentials of "typical" learning modalities...classical, operant and social, and also moves on to address some cognitive issues, which is nice for us teachers who don't necessarily adopt Behaviorist philosophies. The book is written to be easily readable by most college students, though like all texts on learning there is an overemphasis on animal studies which get a bit dry and also are of questionable utility. The text could also benefit from a tad more skepticism regarding the utility of some behavioral technique, particularly given some of the controversies surrounding behavioral therapies for autism (i.e. Lovaas) and other disorders. Nonetheless this book makes for a very helpful text.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to learn more about experimenting in Psychology. Myers and Hansen clearly explain confusing terms and use examples from daily life (when applicable). It is well worth the investment for Psychology majors and can also be enjoyed if you've never had a Psychology course before.

Cioffi's cricisms of Freud, freudian theory, and freudians is trenchant and exhaustive. It is, however, tough reading. He tends to be wordy and his sentence structure needlessly convoluted. It takes multipile readings to really understand what he is talking about, and it helps to have some background in philosophy, or at least in the revisionist Freud issues. That said, the book is a real contribution, with a new essay and several classic articles that are hard to get elsewhere. I highly recommend it. Frederick Crews once said that those still enamoured with freudian thought should be sentenced to a year's hard reading. This book would be an excellent part of that year's study.

I am using this book to teach an undergraduate psychology course. The authors present the material in a reader-friendly format. I prefer this text to Hilgard's.

For teacher's planning a learner-center lesson plan this book is a great guide. For my group of students, the strategies were very effective. This book also points out many reasons for a learner-centered classroom. The points are useful as well as practical. There are several examples also that will get you charged up, you will want to implement them in your own classroom as soon as possible.

Most books on quantitative psychology are long and overly technical. This one seems to explain the math gently and without disregarding the contextual explanations of how empirical research is done. Also, the authors are very conscious of the limitations of science and avoid, quite successfully, giving the impression that numbers always reflect reality. If you want to be able to understand those cryptic studies that appear in scientific journals, get this book! It also has several good references for obtaining more information while performing empirically based research, yourself.

This book is thorough in its application of principles for doing research, though the content can be a bit dry at times. But since the purpose of the book is to put out academic factual knowledge, it does well what it intends to teach.

While this book is not structured as a book to read for pleasure, it serves as an excellent resource for writing a paper or gathering facts for an in-service workshop. I found the authors explanations and suggestions on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation particularly helpful. The price is also a bargain, particulalry a used version.