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This week's assignments focused our thinking on the use of behaviorism in the classroom with particular respect to the strategies of, "Reinforcing Effort," and, "Homework and Practice." As most of us have agreed within our class discussion posts, behaviorism is not dead, and definitely plays a role within the classroom. Predominantly used to teach students how they are expected to behave and act within a classroom, behaviorism can be applied to other areas of learning when used in harmony with other "deeper" learning thories.
Reinforcing effort is necessary to student development. As mentioned in the reading, students often attribute their successes or failures to outside factors like ability, genetics, or race, among other things (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). Students do not see that their own effort is worthwhile, and that the more the attempt to learn and master something, the better they will become at that process or task. Students need to make the connection between effort and success, and behaviorism lends itself to this understanding.
I love the idea of using spreadsheet software to have students track their effort and and success over time - it will help them to make the connection and students can gain the reward of seeing how their effort affects the final outcome of their learning.
Behaviorism is only partially used for the strategy of homework and practice. Work given to students should not be rote - students should make connections between what they learned in class and what they are working on at home. Practice is, however necessary for students to master skills and understanding of the material. Using technology that rewards students for doing the right thing is a good way to tie behaviorism to this strategy. Games are a wonderful way for students to get rewarded as they progress through the levels, advancing their abities and getting better at the skills as they go.
Behaviorism may not foster the deepest learning and understanding in students, but it does provide us with a means for teaching students desirable behaviors for the classroom and also as a means for rewarding students as they learn and practice what they have learned in the classroom.
References:
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., Malenoski, K., (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD
(Sorry this post was not up...I forgot to hit "publish," and it was just saved but not posted...I'll get this technolgy thing yet! (-: )
Hi Jen - Your post is thoughtful and to the point. I agree with you that although behaviorism may not foster the deepest learning and understanding, it can have value in the classroom. When students progress through levels of a learning game I think they enjoy having that instant gratification of knowing they have done well. I have found that it is important to bring students back with a discussion to WHY they may be playing the "drill and practice" game for instance, in order to make sure the connection is made that their efforts have helped to increase their speed or knowledge of a skill. Recently I had kindergarten students practicing keyboarding skills for the first 10 minutes of class by using a typing game (http://www.tvokids.com/games/keyboardclimber). They were so engaged and wanting to get the monkey to the moon, but at the end of the ten minutes, very few students were able to tell me WHY they were playing the game, despite us talking about it before playing. The objective was to get them to use both their left and right hands to type - and to increase their keyboarding accuracy and speed. Having purposeful sharing at the end has brought their conversations from "I got to the moon!" to "I can use both hands to type!" I think it's important, as you mentioned that making a connection between effort and outcomes of learning is so important.
ReplyDeleteIn general Behaviorism is not about deep learning and understanding as you stated. According to behaviorism teachers teach the crust and opens a way for students to examine the place they stand via letting them stand for it a long time. As a human being, everybody get used to do things which he/she stands for it long time and he/she start to become professional in that field. Therefore we can say that Behaviorism supplies deeper learning with an indirect way but its efficiency is arguable.
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