Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Behaviorist Theory and Practical Application
Behaviorism focuses on the often overlooked factor of motivation. Between testing and labels, many in the educational field forget to include the ability of many students to simply not be interested in succeeding. Pitler et al (2007) discuss strategies that instill and/or reinforce a student’s desire to take the necessary measures needed to accomplish school related tasks. When students believe that their work and effort will have a positive effect on them, they are more likely to achieve in school. The textbook suggestion of having students correlate classroom effort and test achievement leads into students creating positive reinforcement without the teacher. They put in the effort, so they are rewarded with the grade. While homework can be used in conjunction with the effort model, there is also the proposition of explanation and motivation. Yes, having students complete their work can be considered a show of effort on their part. However, the authors suggest that students, when given no true purpose, will be more likely to disregard the importance of the practice. Once again, the issue of motivation is essential to having a successful classroom. Often times, students need to hear why they have an assignment in order to fully grasp the potential of the information being revisited. Behaviorism relies heavily upon showing cause and effect relationships in classroom work to ensure that success is met. If students do not have a well defined reason for work, the teacher will not see a proper reaction.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Jean,
ReplyDeleteYou made some excellent points in your blog post. The factor of motivation is often overlooked. Students are coming to school less and less intrinsically motivated and depend on extrinsic motivational methods. This plays in perfect with the behaviorist theory because positive reinforcement is a form of extrinsic motivation. Motivation is important to having a successful classroom, and I am working hard at getting my students to become more intrinsically motivated.
Miss Mellor,
ReplyDeleteI understand your point when you say some students are simply not interested in succeeding. This is sad, because I wonder what will happen to my high school students when they graduate. I try to motivate them all and encourage tutoring, but the ones that need the extra help do not seem to care. Some of them seem to have low self-esteem and expectations. My obligation is to keep on trying and not give up on them.
As you point out, motivation plays a very important role in a child's life. For students who may not have the best home life or who may have other challenges in their life, if they can maintain the movitation to excel in the classroom it will help them succeed in life.
ReplyDeleteI believe that one of the most important parts of implementing any lesson is to state a purpose and to tell how what is being taught can be applied to real life. I think that this increases students' motivation and gives them a reason to put forth the effort. I always make it a point to restate the purpose at the closure of a lesson and I ask my students to give ways that they think they will be able to use their new learning outside of school.
ReplyDelete