Assignment 1 – Behaviourism and Constructivism in the Classroom
As part of the secondary education degree at ACU, I was asked as part of second year practicum to partake in five observation days at an allocated school for insight to the teaching profession, as well as searching for components of behaviourism and constructivism from the teachers in each class. Being a part of the school for these days was an enlightening experience in which I witnessed both learning theories in action, the different approaches teachers took when incorporating them into the classroom, and the different methods of teaching used by the same teacher just with different classes, subjects they teach, and year levels.
Context of the school
The school I visited is
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F. Skinner) Behaviourism is a learning theory with a methodical approach to the understanding of human behaviour. It is the theory that behaviour can be controlled or reshaped through reinforcement and punishment for a desired result. Behaviourism was founded by American psychologist John B. Watson who believed that for learning to be truly understood, conditioning through certain stimuli must take place. This idea was redefined by both Ivan Pavlov who introduced classical conditioning, learning via means of association, and B. F. Skinner who introduced operant conditioning, the shaping of behaviour through positive and negative reinforcement. Pavlov demonstrated classical conditioning through training a dog to salivate at the ringing of a bell. This conclusion came about by ringing a bell any time the dog was presented with food enough times for the dog to make the association between the bell and being fed. (McLeod, 2013) Likewise with Pavlov’s experiment, Skinner too used animals at the forefront of his demonstration for operant conditioning. Skinner’s Box or the Operant Conditioning Chamber was an apparatus that varied depending on the animal placed inside. The enclosed device featured a minimum of one lever or bar for the animal to use. Upon pushing the lever or bar, an item of reinforcement …show more content…
In a Year 8 Maths class, I witnessed the teacher moving amongst different desks throughout the lesson to check on the students’ progress on the task at hand. The teacher assisted help when needed and complimented their work by commending components such as their working out, their productiveness, and their accuracy. An example of negative reinforcement from my practicum experience was in a Year 8 Chinese class in which the teacher informed the class that they could play Kahoot!, an online educational game, as a group at the end of the lesson given that the behaviour persisted at an acceptable level. This induced the class to focus, get their work done, and keep the noise to a reasonable volume. Lastly, the teacher of a Year 8 English class instructed two students to leave the room for disrupting the class: a prime example of applying repercussions when needed. This was an effective action by the teacher as the rest of the class remained silent for the rest of the lesson in dread of joining the students
Joey 's program will be based in Applied Behavior Analysis which was first introduced in 1913, when John Watson started a movement towards behaviorism with his article “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It” (Miltenberger, 2012). Based on Pavlov 's observations of classical conditioning, Watson suggested that human behavior could also be explained by the same means and that the process of classical conditioning was proper subject matter for psychology. He believed all human behavior were responses to external stimuli and environmental events (Miltenberger, 2012). B. F. Skinner took Watson 's theory of classical conditioning further to include operant conditioning. The highlight of Skinner 's theory is identifying what a behavior achieves through observing the behavior. It is only after the function of behavior is identified that we can alter the consequences to increase the probability of the desired behavior 's occurrence (Miltenberger, 2012). In operant conditioning behavior is changed through the manipulation of contingencies or the use of reinforcement or punishment after the desired or undesired response occurs (Miltenberger, 2012). Skinner was able to prove through his
At Harvard, B.F. Skinner looked for a more objective and restrained way to study behavior. Most of his theories were based on self-observation, which influenced him to become a enthusiast for behaviorism. Much of his “self-observed” theories stemmed from Thorndike’s Puzzle Box, a direct antecedent to Skinner’s Box. He developed an “operant conditioning apparatus” to do this, which is also known as the Skinner box. The Skinner box also had a device that recorded each response provided by the animal as well as the unique schedule of reinforcement that the animal was assigned. The design of Skinner boxes can vary ...
If you are a parent or plan to be a parent, Do you want your child to sit in a desk all day while the teacher lectures them on information that they need to know for life or would you rather have your child learn constructively? Constructivism has been labeled as the philosophy of learning that proposes learners need to build their own understanding of new ideas (Constructivism and the Five E?s,2001). Learning something new, or attempting to understand something familiar in greater depth, is not a linear process. The purpose of this research paper is to explain the theoretical foundations of the constructivist approach to teaching and learning, and to provide concrete examples to show the effectiveness of the constructivist approach with respect to student learning.
Teaching theories are as much part of the classroom as the student and the teacher. The effect individual theories have on an environment depends how they are incorporated within the classroom in addition to the influence they have had on the curriculum construction. This essay will briefly look at how motivation theory, cognitive and social cognitive theory along with constructivism have impacted on education and the classroom.
Skinner came up with operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is when consequences are used to determine whether a certain behavior will be repeated again. In operant conditioning there is positive and negative punishment and positive and negative reinforcement. Positive punishment and positive reinforcement can both be used to increase the likelihood of good behavior, and positive and negative punishment can be used to decrease the likelihood of behavior. Positive reinforcement is when something good is given to enforce the good behavior, and negative reinforcement is when something good is to make sure that the bad behavior doesn’t happen again. Positive punishment is when something bad is given to make sure that the behavior is less likely to happen, and negative punishment is when something bad is taken away to make sure that the desired behavior happens again. Skinner tested this by putting a mouse inside a box and punishing it when it did something that it was not supposed to do and rewarding it when it did something that it was supposed to
B.F Skinner developed operant conditioning. It’s the theory that one’s behavior is influenced by the actions that follow afterward. If the actions that follow afterward are consequences, then the behavior according to the theory will fade away. If the actions afterward is a positive action like a reward the behavior will continue on.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was 18th century American psychologist and the founder of operant conditioning in learning. He believed that external force such as environment can affect an individual’s behavior. According to his theory, one must look at the reinforcement and the consequence in order to understand why organism’s behaved in certain ways. Skinner showed how rat can be used in operant conditioning in his laboratory.
John Dewey once said, “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” You may ask why John Dewey should be given merit for anything he says. In truth, John Dewey was one of the biggest supporters of constructivism in classroom. On a basic level, constructivism is described as learning by doing. This concept, while not necessarily new, is considered progressive. Today, we will explore the history and details of this concept, analyze how constructivism effects the modern classroom, and wrap it up with some concluding remarks.
Skinner designed an experiment to test operant conditioning, known as a ‘Skinner box’ (Gross 2005). In the box, animals, such as rats, would be conditioned into certain behaviour. For example, by pressing a lever to receive food (Gross 2005).
.... I feel that in most cases, once a student has been punished through negative reinforcement for doing wrong, the student will attempt to correct such behavior in the future to avoid punishment. In addition, positive reinforcement should be given for those students who are the majority and behave, as well as for the students who are occasional troublemakers because positive reinforcement helps show what is correct behavior in response to bad behavior.
The term constructivism has been used to explain everything from school reform to teaching styles, and most importantly related to a learning theory. As you can imagine the term Constructivism has the potential to develop many misconceptions since it lacks a universal definition. “Constructivism is an important theory of learning that is used to guide the development of new teaching methods”(Baviskar, Hartle & Whitney, 2009, p.541). The framework of constructivism is built upon the understanding that “learning is an active process that is student centered in the sense that, with the teachers help, learners select and transform information, construct hypothesis’, and make decisions”(Chrenka, 2001, p.694). It is important to understand that when speaking about constructivism we are referring to a learning theory not teach...
Skinner believed that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the causes of the action and its consequences. He coined the phrase operant conditioning. His experiments thought us that behaviors that are reinforced tend to be repeated and the ones not reinforced tend fade away. He was able to prove is his theory with famous “skinner box”. This experiment used animals to show if given reinforcements like food they behavior will repeat. When the animal was given a punishment or negative reinforcement the animal was less likely to do it again. This experiment still holds true today. While educators do not put their students in a box and give them electrical shocks when they are wrong, They do however promote good behaviors such as the token economy, where they provide gold stars on a big board which will condition the kids to want to get the stars for a special treat at the end of the specified time. Teachers now focus more on positive reinforcement rather than punishment. It tends to reap better benefits.
“Behavior theory consists of ideas about how human actions and emotions develop, are sustained, and are extinguished through principles of learning” (Walsh, 2010). Positive and negative reinforcement is used to help manipulate the behaviors of the individual. The theory has been used to help eliminate unwanted behaviors. In addition, behavior theory has been use primarily with children, and persons with developmental disabilities. According to Walsh (2010) behavior theory evolved in the 1960s from a field of philosophy to the field of science. Ivan Pavlov discovered classical conditioning, which plays a major role in behavioral theory. Classical conditioning is the process of learning through ones surroundings, conditioned, and unconditioned stimuli and response. B. F. Skinner discovered operant conditioning the process of learning to influence the future responses to the environment (Clark, 2004). The two concepts has been used throughout the behavior theory to help assist clients with unacceptable behaviors that is occurring. The combination of the two concepts has been a very helpful aspect to the behavior theory. Both concepts offer a different approach or solution to the behavior of the client.
Constructivism is a method that says students learn by building their schema by adding to their prior knowledge by the use of scaffolding (Rhinehart Neas). Because the students are basically teaching themselves new information, the teacher is there mainly for support and guidance for the students.
Among many teaching styles and learning theories, there is one that is becoming more popular, the constructivist theory. The constructivist theory focuses on the way a person learns, a constructivist believes that the person will learn better when he/she is actively engaged. The person acts or views objects and events in their environment, in the process, this person then understands and learns from the object or events(P. Johnson, 2004). When we encounter a certain experience in our life, we think back to other things that have occurred in our life and use that to tackle this experience. In a lot of cases, we are creators of our own knowledge. In a classroom, the constructivist theory encourages more hands-on assignments or real-world situations, such as, experiments in science and math real-world problem solving. A constructivist teacher constantly checks up on the student, asking them to reflect what they are learning from this activity. The teacher should be keeping track on how they approached similar situations and help them build on that. The students can actually learning how to learn in a well-planned classroom. Many people look at this learning style as a spiral, the student is constantly learning from each new experience and their ideas become more complex and develop stronger abilities to integrate this information(P. Johnson, 2004). An example of a constructivist classroom would be, the student is in science class and everyone is asking questions, although the teacher knows the answer, instead of just giving it to them, she attempts to get the students to think through their knowledge and try to come up with a logical answer. A problem with this method of learning is that people believe that it is excusing the role of...