Behaviorism, Part 1

 Today we began the discussion of behaviorism.

Tiffany changed the rules of class engagement to demonstrate how a behaviorist approach is used to teach behaviorism.

She used positive reinforcement when we produced the correct responses.  She threw Halloween candy at us.  Everyone but George was into the candy.  George tried to refuse the chocolate, but Tiffany insisted he take it and then give it away.  Not all learners value the same type of reinforcement.

She had us repeat the definition of behaviorist learning through out class -- repetition of the desired S-R behavior increases learning.  In this case the S was the question and the R was, well, the response.

She gave plenty of feedback, including sounds of disapproval and grimaces whenever we failed to produce the desired response.

After we demonstrated a basic knowledge of some of the behaviorist learning concepts, Tiffany gave us programmed instructional learning tool.  The booklet contain 34 pages that broke down learning into chunks of information.  Concepts were introduced in chunks, and then every other page we were assessed to determine mastery.  If we answered the questions correctly (demonstrating mastery/behavior change), we were rewarded with the right to progress to the next concept chunk.

She used operant conditioning to get to raise our hands to seek permission to speak.  She used positive reinforcement (candy) when we raised our hands and answered correctly, and positive punishment (withdrawal of attention, aka ignoring us) when we exhibited the undesired behavior of speaking without raising our hands and waiting to be called on.  This reduced our tendency to call out answers and comments.

We also had the opportunity to practice applying behaviorist concepts to work in teams to design a instructional strategy for a instructional scenario.  This demonstrated to Tiffany what we learned thus far.  She gave feedback, but not any reinforcement that I can identify.

For me, the one the biggest take a ways was expanding my understanding of what activities are considered behavior, stimulus, response, reinforcement. 

I think I might have learned something.  At least my observed behavior in today's class indicates that learning may have occurred.