Ch. 9 QtC's

Since we have been talking about behaviorism in class, I have finally been able to formulate an idea of this as a learning theory—something beyond behavior modification. I have been able to pinpoint some aspects of learning that behaviorism may be missing, but I have also found many positive attributes I hope to use in my high school classroom. One of my fears is to get to the point in an extremely disruptive classroom where the students do not listen to what I say and I feel stuck in a rut of being disrespected and disliked. Through this chapter I’ve been able to think through how I can prevent getting to that point, and can redirect attentions and behaviors when they do get out of hand.

It seems to me that behaviorists are continually assessing the progress of their students by the number of times a student repeats a behavior. As a teacher, my lesson objectives will be successfully mastered when I have reinforced them (through positive or negative reinforcement) enough times that a student is naturally inclined to repeat a behavior or remember a learning goal.  

For my CSEL case study, I could certainly apply behaviorist tools to modify the disruptive behaviors of Tony, Jeff, and Morris. It appears that these boys are seeking attention, but I cannot think of a way that ignoring them would be beneficial in this situation—as the Teacher Project from today encouraged. The behaviors of passing notes and text messaging would only increase if I ignored them, and roughhousing is simply not acceptable and would garner the attention of the other students in the class even if I chose to ignore it. If the behavior has truly gotten to an unmanageable point, and the students simply refuse to follow the rules, it may be necessary to enact a form of punishment—either by adding something undesirable, such as In-School Suspension, or by taking away something desirable, such as free time at the end of the class. For encouraging the productive and on-task behaviors of the other students, I can use smaller-scale reinforcers by expressing praise or, most significantly in my opinion, by instilling intrinsic motivators. There’s nothing like a well-earned feeling of satisfaction after doing well on a test or performing well on a choir song to reinforce studying hard or practicing much!