Behaviorist Learning Theory incorporates two operant conditions. One of the conditions is reinforcement, the other is punishment. I feel that the both aspect was present in both of the instruction strategies from this week’s reading. Punishment was not talked about but a student’s failure to attempt an assignment needs to be followed with some sort of repercussion for their actions.
The first was topic included reinforcement in the title, reinforcing effort. The recommendation was to teach students the importance of effort and have the student track their effort and achievement. By having the students monitor how they feel their effort is the teacher can supply the student with positive reinforce from their actions. The students can then see the importance of effort. It allows the student’s to control the outcome of their learning. It is frustrating to hear a student say they cannot do the work because they just cannot. They mentally feel they are inferior. If the student does but in effort and tries to achieve they will find that they can do the work, the student cannot compare themselves to anyone else because the amount of effort for each student is different.
The other topic was homework and practice. I feel that by doing homework the students can receive positive feedback for correct work. Another point that liked was when the math teacher and football coach worked together on a project. I feel that when the students can associate what they are learning with things that they like to do, the better the student is going to behave because they can see a real world application of what they are learning.
Anytime a teacher can incorporate learning with technology or other activities that the student enjoy the more positive the students will be about learning.
Rick Orr
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Rick,
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, there is nothing better than real life application. I like how you see these connections as important. Something else I personally like to do is try to tie projects in across the curriculum. Often, I actually find myself teaming up with the Social Studies teacher to come up with a project that students can work on in my class as well as his, but in a different way. This way, students are essentially getting exposed to the same general material, but covering different concepts.
I too like the idea of projects across the curriculum. But some teachers do not like to spent the time on creating projects that are not the norm for them. They rather just keep doing what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteRick,
ReplyDeleteI teach high school math, and the way my students' classes are set up, there are not students who all have me for math and another teacher for social studies during the same semester. I really like the idea of projects across the curriculum, but I have not found a way that works for my situation. Next year, our school is dividing into smaller "schools" where students will have a "major" that they will focus on. Maybe with this format, these types of projects will be more realistic for my classes.
Sally
I agree that there does need to be some sort of repercussion for not doing work. One of the things I like to do involves some negative and positive reinforcement. I allow the students to come after school and complete there work. In this environment I'm able to talk with them one on one and give some encourgement and try to fix the situation.
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