Seminar in Educational Psychology

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID:  MAE 600
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This affordable learning resource is being utilized in a graduate-level Seminar in Educational Psychology course for Master of Arts in Education students by Dr. Kayce L. Mastrup at California State University Monterey Bay.  The affordable resource is a curated collection of library-accessible scholarly articles and free web-based academic writing resources. It provides students with direct access to foundational and contemporary research across behaviorism, social cognitive theory, cognitive load, information processing, constructivism, sociocultural theory, situated learning, and critical perspectives on education. The collection emphasizes theory as a lens for interpreting teaching, learning, participation, identity, and educational opportunity. The main motivation for adoption is to remove the cost of two required commercial textbooks while offering a more current, flexible, and intentionally diverse set of readings. Students access resources through Canvas links to the CSUMB Library and open web resources.

Seminar in Educational Psychology - MAE 600 All Sections
Brief Description of course highlights:  During this required introductory seminar the cultural and political contexts of learning are critically examined, especially with regard to providing effective educational experiences for diverse populations. Utilizing the lens of various research traditions, participants work to contrast differing perspectives and ways of knowing. In addition to building library research skills, students develop an annotated bibliography for their action research.

Prerequisite(s)/Corequisite(s): (Restricted to MAE Majors) Typically Offered: Fall, Spring.  https://catalog.csumb.edu/search_advanced.php?cur_cat_oid=11&search_database=Search&search_db=Sear ch&cpage=1&ecpage=1&ppage=1&spage=1&tpage=1&location=3&filter%5Bkeyword%5D=MAE+600 

Student population:  Graduate students in the M.A. in Education program and related credential pathways. Students include practicing educators, teacher candidates, and education professionals with varied disciplinary interests, including elementary education, special education, multilingual education, literacy, mathematics, music, physical education, and teacher professional learning. Students enter with professional or field-based educational experience and develop research literacy and theoretical tools for examining a problem of practice.

Learning or student outcomes:   Student Learning Outcomes.pdf

Assigned Textbook: No commercial textbook is required. The Fall 2026 course replaces the former required texts—Schunk, Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective (8th ed.) and Beatty and Cochran, Writing the Annotated Bibliography—with a curated collection of scholarly readings and free academic-writing resources.

Challenges and Solutions: A central challenge was maintaining coherent coverage of foundational learning theories while moving away from a single commercial survey text. I resolved this through a sequenced reading collection: each asynchronous module includes a seminal theoretical reading, carefully selected comparative or applied readings, and a structured task that asks students to apply the lens to an educational context.

OER/Low-cost: Educational Psychology 
Brief Description: The collection is organized in a developmental sequence of theoretical lenses: behaviorism; motivation and investment; social cognitive theory; cognitive architecture and cognitive load; information processing; constructivism and scaffolding; sociocultural theory; situated learning and communities of practice; and critical perspectives on learning and educational opportunity. Each module pairs a foundational reading with comparative, applied, or content-area options. Students use the readings in concise asynchronous tasks, synchronous seminars, peer feedback, and an annotated bibliography that requires summary, critical analysis, theoretical or conceptual connection, and relevance to a focused research problem.

Resource Title, Resource Author and Resource Link:  MAE 600 AL$ Showcase OER Resources.pdf

Student access:   All articles are provided free through CSUMB library permalink.  Students access readings through direct links in the MAE 600 Canvas modules and syllabus. Library-licensed materials authenticate through CSUMB Library access; open materials are available on the public web. Students can read digitally using a computer or mobile device and download articles where permitted by the provider.

Supplemental resources:  Canvas module pages; faculty-created prompts, application tasks, rubrics, and peer-feedback checklists; CSUMB Library databases and research support; Purdue OWL; APA Style resources; and a course research consultation with a CSUMB librarian. No commercial homework system is required. 

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook. $0 required cost to access the course reading collection and supplemental resources.  Approximately $130 per student, based on the lowest listed digital options for the two former required commercial texts: Schunk (2019), Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective (8th ed.), and Beatty and Cochran (2020), Writing the Annotated Bibliography. Savings may be higher for students who otherwise purchase print editions.

License*: Mixed licensing. Most scholarly articles are copyrighted works provided to enrolled CSUMB students through institutional library licenses; selected readings and web resources may be openly accessible. The collection is not presented as a single openly licensed OER.

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. The adoption removes a meaningful financial barrier for graduate students while strengthening the course. A curated collection makes it possible to include both foundational and current scholarship, represent multiple theoretical perspectives, connect theories to diverse educational contexts, and foreground asset-based and critical perspectives that would be difficult to accomplish through two fixed textbooks alone.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? The reading collection was developed by reviewing the former textbook-based syllabus, identifying the essential learning-theory and research-writing outcomes, and selecting high-quality foundational, contemporary, comparative, and applied readings that align with each course module. Readings were checked for availability through CSUMB Library subscriptions or open access and then sequenced to support students’ developing annotated bibliographies and seminar discussions.

Sharing Best Practices:  Start with course outcomes, not with a replacement for a single textbook. Curate a manageable number of high-value readings, provide clear annotations and reading purposes, and organize materials in predictable modules. Verify library access before the term begins, offer direct links through the LMS, and build assignments that help students synthesize across readings rather than treating each item as isolated content. Include a librarian early in the course when research literacy is a central outcome.

Describe any key challenges you experienced, how they were resolved and lessons learned.  Replacing textbooks requires more up-front curation, access checking, and careful sequencing. Students can also feel overwhelmed by a reading collection unless the purpose of each reading is explicit. The course addresses these challenges by using a consistent module structure, distinguishing required from optional readings, pairing readings with focused application tasks, and connecting each module directly to the annotated bibliography. The key lesson is that affordability and rigor reinforce one another when resource selection is guided by learning goals and coherent instructional design.

Instructor Name - Kayce L. Mastrup
Assistant Professor, Department of Education and Leadership at California State University, Monterey Bay.  Her work is situated at the intersections of elementary and mathematics education, teacher ed, and learning theory.
Please provide a link to your university page. https://researchprofiles.csumb.edu/en/persons/kayce-l-mastrup/  

Please describe the courses/course numbers that you teach.  Dr. Mastrup teaches education courses focused on learning and development, elementary and mathematics education, teacher preparation, instructional practice, and research-informed approaches to teaching and learning. Her courses invite educators to connect theory, evidence, and reflection to problems of practice.

Research Interests: Dr. Mastrup’s research interests include teacher education, mathematics identity and beliefs, preservice teacher learning, instructional practice, and equity-oriented approaches to mathematics and elementary education.

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.  Dr. Mastrup’s teaching emphasizes intellectually rigorous, relational, and equity-oriented learning. She designs learning experiences that position students as active meaning makers; use theory and research to examine practice; and support learners in connecting their experiences, identities, communities, and professional goals to course concepts. Her teaching combines structured scaffolding, collaborative dialogue, reflection, and opportunities to apply ideas to authentic educational contexts.