Behaviorism, as I see it, is a necessary part of any classroom. From the basic introduction of information and subjects, to overall classroom management strategies, it provides a strong foundation for much of what occurs in our rooms. We reinforce the positive behaviors we want to see in our classes, and the behaviors we would like to diminish, we punish.
In this week’s resources, we were presented first, with the idea of behaviorism, as well as some in class strategies. The first of the two strategies I encountered was the idea of reinforcing effort. The idea behind this is the rewarding of the student for the effort put forth in a project or assignment, as opposed to solely basing the grade on a right or wrong answer. In many cases, students don’t understand that their hard work is worth something. They have seen over years that the right answer is what pays off, and many tend to shut down when they get the feeling that, despite their effort, they cannot get that right answer. So why try?
This method of rewarding student’s effort follows along strongly with the idea of operant conditioning. Positive behaviors are being rewarded, and on the other side of the coin, not trying or showing effort receives lower grades. Hopefully, this practice would bolster a student’s work ethic and get them to continue trying hard.
The other strategy from this week’s reading was the use of homework and practice. The idea here is to make sure that students have a reasonable amount of homework going home with them at night to allow them to continue their use of topics discussed and practiced in class, to show them that the mastery of most anything comes with hard work and practice.
Over, I assume, most all of our student careers, we all had the classes that had a large amount of drill and practice type lessons. I know that when I learned multiplication facts, we would practice them on a daily basis. Every day, without fail, we would do sheets of single digit multiplication. After working on it at school, we would take some practice sheets home at night and even do flashcards with our parents. Eventually I could rattle off our facts like it was second nature. So I think there is still something to be said for this type of practice. While we may hear so often that it is an outdated style of teaching, it still works for some things like math facts and vocabulary terms.
These two strategies are positive examples of how behaviorism is still something that can be taken advantage of in a modern classroom setting. For as long as we’ve been alive, we’ve done the things that have been rewarded, and stopped the things that aren’t. If it’s human nature, why wouldn’t we take advantage of it?
Your examples of how you use behaviorism in your own classroom are great. I cannot imagine teaching without using the strategies of behaviorism. Every classroom management technique I have learned incorporates some aspect of behaviorism and we all know that one can't be a great teacher without great classroom management. To me it is remarkable how far education has come with the integration of technology into the curriculums and the new requirements placed on teachers to teach 21st century skills. The majority of technology that we use in our classrooms include behaviorism strategies just disguised under other names. I think it is more prevalent now than it was a few decades ago but behaviorism has never gone away and I believe it never will.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about using drill and practice for math facts. I teach second grade and we have math facts quizzes weekly for addition and subtraction facts. My son in third grade has had weekly quizzes on multiplication and division facts. I am a big advocate of timed facts quizzes. Unfortunately, not everybody sees the importance of students being able to recall these facts quickly and correctly. Two years ago we gave one minute for forty facts. A number of parents complained that this was not enough time, so now we give two minutes for forty facts. Do you know what the standard is on this?
ReplyDeleteYou are right about the drill and practice, especially with multiplication facts. I teach 2nd grade and I want to encourage my students to learn their basic addition and subtraction facts. We do a lot of timed tests, and flash card practice. I even bought my students flash cards for Christmas in hopes that they would practice and learn their facts.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about rewarding / encouraging your students for a job well done - or just for trying. I believe that a positive attitude from the teacher AND student helps the students to succeed.
In my student teaching, the teacher used a scaled time approach. She would start the students off trying for 5 minutes to do their fact sheets. If they could do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in 5 minutes, they would move on to trying to do them in 4 minutes. Then three, and so on. I know, to many it seems tedious, but overall if the students have these facts at the ready, it will make other operations they have to learn much easier.
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful that you see rewarding students' positive behaviors! It's a must in a classroom.
ReplyDeleteI’m retired now but taught for many years. In my combined first and second grades, we also had timed tests. Perhaps your class already has a positive attitude about timed tests. However, in my combined first and second grades, much to my surprise initially, I found a way that the children loved taking timed tests. Timed tests for addition and subtraction with multiplication, and division tests for those who were ready. See my blog:
http://peggybroadbent.com/blog/index.php?s=The+Joy+of+Timed+Tests+in+First+and+Second+Grade