Abstract
Educational psychology is a required course in teacher education and is also a major course that guides teacher education students to understand the various aspects in the educational field and to enhance their knowledge about education and teacher self-efficacy. However, students’ career choice and their self-identity may affect their learning motivation in the course, academic autonomy, and academic achievement. Therefore, the current project aims to innovate the course of educational psychology through a problem-based learning design that integrates critical thinking to engage students in learning activities that are associated with their career as a teacher. The learning activities include the instructor’s lectures, student project presentation, problem-based self-directed learning and sharing, and technology-enhanced interactive response system to assess students’ knowledge of the course content. Participants in the project are 45 freshmen in the department of education and learning technology at National Tsing Hua University. The project adopted a one-sample repeated measurement research design. Along with multiple assessments and collection of quantitative data, the project also includes the instructor’s reflection and observation of the class as well as students’ responses on the open-ended course evaluation questions. The instructor teaches and revises the course dynamically with goals to develop a model in teacher education and foster world-class human capital. The result of the project can contribute to understanding factors that influence university students’ learning motivation, academic autonomy, knowledge of education as well as investigating how the above-mentioned aspects are associated with teacher education students’ teacher self-efficacy and their self-identity. The current researcher would also present and share the project results with the teacher community in the public to inform good instructional practices.