Why is Educational Psychology Important for the Teacher?

Educational psychology enables a teacher to know how to initiate the learning process, how to inspire, how to remember or how to learn. Educational psychology helps the teacher to know how the teaching process takes place.
Educational psychology helps teachers guide students in the right way in order to improve student capabilities in the right direction.

Let's understand why educational psychology is important for a teacher and how educational psychology helps teachers in effective teaching and learning.

How Does Educational Psychology Help Teachers in Effective Teaching and Learning?

The importance of educational psychology for teacher

Educational Psychology 

Educational psychology is one of the most developed and widespread branches of psychology in the world because of its theoretical and practical importance in the educational process. 

There is no doubt that educational psychology plays an important role in the teaching and learning process, because of its impact on the level of students, and taking their hand towards achieving the best results during the study period. 

One of the main tasks of educational psychology is to study the factors associated with success and failure in school learning.

Educational psychology takes advantage of the theories and principles available in other branches of psychology, such as growth psychology, social psychology, cognitive psychology, counseling psychology, and others. 

Other branches of psychology also benefit from the principles and concepts contained in educational psychology, especially in the areas of learning, motivation, intelligence, thinking, problem-solving and others.

The Most Important Areas of Educational Psychology

1. Developmental characteristics of the learner: Educational psychology focuses on the study of the stages of human growth and factors affecting growth, and the developmental characteristics of each stage in the various areas of cognitive, physical and emotional growth. 

If you want to use these developmental characteristics in the learning process you must take into account the individual differences between learners in the classroom in order to plan teaching experiences and methods effectively and commensurate with the abilities of learners at different stages of development. 

You can benefit from the knowledge of these characteristics in the development of appropriate programs and curricula so as not to give the different types of educational experiences in a timely manner when you are sure of maturity sufficient to understand and absorb what we want him to learn.

2. Learning process: Educational psychology deals with the study of the psychology of learning, nature, theories, forms, conditions, factors affecting it and factors that help to speed learning. 
Good teaching requires a good understanding of how learning takes place and the ways in which it occurs because effective learning means effective changes in human behavior under well-directed environmental conditions.

3. Learning motivation: Educational psychology provides the appropriate environmental conditions that arouse the interest of the learner in the educational situation, and improve learners 'appetite for the lesson eagerly and willingly through the method of providing learning material and the use of teaching aids and consulting students' thinking and others.

4. Learning environment: Effective learning requires creating an appropriate learning environment by providing curricula and school management techniques, and positive interaction between students and the teacher, using appropriate incentives and reinforcement schedules, classroom control, and organizing communication processes.

5. Individual differences between learners: The teacher must take into account the individual differences between learners in terms of presentation style and the difficulty of learning material and methods of reinforcement and programs.

6. Measurement and evaluation of the learning process: Measurement and evaluation are the most important topics of educational psychology as they address the measurement of learning outcomes, evaluate the success of the learning process, develop plans to reform education system and direct it for the better, and provide the most appropriate feedback to students and parents about the progress of the learning process.

The Importance of Educational Psychology for the Teacher

The teacher has a fundamental role in the success of students and influences them, educational psychology is important for the success of the teacher in the teaching process.

1. Educational Psychology provides the teacher with the principles, foundations, and theories that explain and control the process of learning and teaching; in order to understand and apply them in the classroom and solve the problems that the teacher or learner faces during class.

2. Educational psychology excludes all that is not true about the process of learning and education, which relies on inaccurate observations, especially those based on personal experiences and subjective judgments.

3. Educational psychology assists the teacher in learning about the inputs of the learning process (characteristics of learners before the learning process) and its outputs (measuring achievement, abilities, attitudes, tendencies, etc.).

4. Educational psychology utilizes psychological principles, concepts, and theories in the fields of growth, motivation, intelligence, memory, thinking and problem-solving; to understand and guide the learning and teaching processes and to provide challenging educational applications in these areas.

5. Educational psychology also means enriching the teacher with the laws and fundamentals of the theories that explain the educational process and control it, in order to apply them scientifically and objectively in the school environment and the classroom. These theories offer possible suggestions for some problems that may be experienced by the teacher or student during different educational situations.

6. Educational psychology assists individuals in charge of the educational process to identify inputs and elements of the educational process such as the characteristics of learners and the learning environment and its outputs from assessment and measurement tools, and educational and achievement tests.

7. Educational psychology also provides the teacher the skills of scientific description and theoretical understanding of the educational process.

This is achieved through the development of general educational psychology objectives and understanding of the educational process and its elements, to predict its outcomes, and to try to control it.

8. Educational psychology also provides the basis for the teacher to have the right rules and laws for the principles of learning and education, which enables him to choose applications of psychological principles and suitability for a particular academic position, so that the teacher is successful in assessing the appropriate method according to the school environment and the psychological characteristics of the teacher and learner.

Conclusion

The most important information and skills provided by educational psychology to the educational staff is the exclusion of educational theories and educational views that rely on personal impressions and inaccurate and subjective observations. 

Some of these views were based on personal experiences and subjective perspectives and often contradict the foundations of scientific facts and theories. These theories are evaluated by subjecting them to systematic and thoughtful scientific research.

Educational psychology assists the teacher in identifying strengths and weaknesses in the process and outcomes of the educational process. 
Therefore, it is important to study the factors that affect the success or failure of the educational process and the extent to which it achieves its objectives.