Educational Psychology: Development and Diversity

The development of people, starting with birth to adulthood is a phenomenon. The intricacies of the development of the brain, cognitive, social, and physical development are strategic and complex. Understanding developmental theories as an educator can help us truly understand students and their progression not only in our classroom, but in their lives beyond our influence. The behaviorist theory is marked with strategies the in a classroom can be implemented to benefit the student, as well as the class as a whole.

The behaviorist theory is a theory of "learning based upon the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning. Conditioning occurs through interaction with the environment." (Cherry, about.com). Behaviorism is utilized in a classroom to help teach students what is and what is not acceptable in a classroom. A teacher can pinpoint a specific behavior and move a child or discuss the situation to the child to determine what the appropriate behavior is and action that can proceed. Behaviorism is based upon observable behaviors, making it easier to quantify and observe.

Ivan Pavlov is an individual that has a great acclaim for his work in the behaviorism movement. He is most widely known for his ability to condition animals. He studied and tested dogs and other animals to be conditioned to know when food was going to arrive. By the ringing of a bell, dogs would start to salivate, knowing that food was getting ready to come, whether they were hungry or not. This ongoing study proved that the behavior of an animal can be modified and changed. While this is not the course of behaviorism that would be utilized in a classroom environment, it illustrates the concept that behaviors can change. Adaptations can be made in a classroom to enforce and influence positive behavior. ( nobelprize.org).

B. F. Skinner is another founder of behaviorism. He states, "The consequences of behavior determine the probability that the behavior will occur again" B. F. Skinner. His contribution to the behaviorism theory was operant conditioning and schedules for reinforcement. Skinner believed that the behaviors depended on what happened after a specific response. He tested rats and conditioned them to push a lever to acquire their own water. Based on the behavior of the rats and the conditioning that they went through, they were then administered a specific schedule of reinforcement, based on the amount of times they completed the behaviors successfully. I believe this could be used in a classroom setting by using positive reinforcement and classroom discipline. (Cherry, about.com)

Teachers use the methods of behaviorism today in the classroom to help students engage in positive discipline techniques that provide the teacher with a helpful classroom discipline strategy. Children that are not meeting the expectations of the group typically have a behavior plan that is worked on amongst the teacher, student, parents, and even often other school personnel. A child can quickly learn the rules of a classroom and the teacher can include positive reinforcement in the class to motivate students to continue to do well.

In a classroom of younger students, I would incorporate behaviorism in the form of games. From my experience, children love to play games and retain more information when they are using more than one of their senses. In working with children on letter recognition and beginning phenomes, I would have bean bags and I would call out a letter sound. They could take a bean bag and toss it at the correct letter while calling it out. I would ensure that I was positively reinforcing the child with statements like, "well done," or "great work," to keep them motivated to continue and raise their self-esteem. For students that were unable to identify the letter, we would work together as a group to help the student along, letting him know the letter, helping the student locate it, and then still able to throw the letter. I might also ask them to choose a letter that they did know and help identify the letter sound and perhaps a word that started with the letter. I believe the student would be encouraged to continue to participate and be more active in listening when it came to the letter sounds so that they would be able to independently throw the bean bag at the letter. I think collectively as a group this would encourage group participation as well as individual participation, and would increase the morale of the students because they were getting to play a fun game in class, even though it had great academic goals underlying their fun. I believe the theory of behaviorism enables teachers to motivate students and allow children to be comfortable in their environment.

I definitely see how behaviorism in a classroom could boost morale and turn discipline into a group effort that remained positive. I see classes now where students have little motivation to actively engage and participate and as a teacher, I know that I can utilize some of the tricks of the behaviorism theory to motivate those students to participate and do what I would like them to do in class.

References:

Cherry, Kendra, What is Behaviorism? Acquired March 12, 2010.

http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/f/behaviorism.htm

Biography of Ian Pavolv. Acquired March 12, 2010 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1904/pavlov-bio.html

Cherry, Kendra. Biography of B.F. Skinner. Acquired March 12, 2010.

http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm