Behaviorism

Theorists Skinner, Thorndike, and Watson are all researchers who have helped build the learning theory of behaviorism (Smith, 1999). The theory is often summed up with the terms stimulus-response and operant conditioning. The learner is either positively reinforced for a good behavior or a proper response or punished for an unwanted behavior or improper response.  The concept of being punished for an improper response is misleading because of the term punished.  The idea of an incorrect response must be corrected immediately so that the proper behavior and thinking is ingrained. The idea behind behaviorism is to make sure incorrect (improper) thinking is eliminated, while correct thinking is rewarded. In school systems today, behaviorist theories are applied most commonly with student discipline (Standridge, 2002).

Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski discuss the importance of reinforcing effort in the classroom. Behind the concept lie the notions that if students are made aware of their effort, track their progress, and receive feedback from an instructor, their classroom performance increases (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski, 2007). By applying numerical values to the aspects of effort, which include attention, participation, and studying among others, students are able to track a correlation between their effort and their grade. This applies itself to the behaviorist theory as the strategy provides students—hopefully immediately--with feedback, either positive or negative, that in return directs them to the different areas of effort that need improvement. Poor grades are the punishment of poor effort. If the student desires passing grades, their effort, or behavior, needs to change. While the focus is on giving the student a correlation between their effort and their grades, the reinforcement aspect of this strategy falls into the behaviorism category of learning theories.  The true struggle—when applying behaviorism--is having the backing of the school district when implementing this time of mannerism into the classroom. 

A second strategy that Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski involves homework and practice. Several guidelines and recommendations are presented, but the idea of homework and practice hinges on a reference to Marzano’s finding that a skill needs to be practices 24 times to reach an 80% mastery level (Pitler, et al., 2007). However, key to practice and homework lies in the feedback. If students complete 24 problems incorrectly, they would have mastered a skill incorrectly. Furthermore, if feedback is provided immediately upon completion then if a student does 24 problems correctly and is aware that they were correct there is a realization that the skill has been mastered.  If feedback, positive reinforcement, or punishment is not being provided it may be more damaging to the development of the skill. The importance of feedback falls directly in line with the behaviorist theory.

As both instructional strategies indicate, feedback from the instructor is important for both tracking effort and reinforcing its effects.  Feedback is also beneficial for reinforcing skills through homework and practice. Without the positive reinforcement or punishment, both of these strategies fall short of being beneficial for students. Both are commonly used in education today and have been found to have success as Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski have discussed (2007).

References

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Standridge, M.. (2002). Behaviorism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved March 6, 2012, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt.

Smith, K. (1999). The behaviourist orientation to learning. In The encyclopedia of informal education. Retrieved from http://www.infed.org/biblio/learning-behavourist.htm.