Chapter 9 - Behaviorist Views

What?

This week we learned about what the behaviorist views are and how they are used in the classroom, including conditioning and stimulus.

So What?

Understanding the views of behaviorist is very important because it helps us to figure out what our view is and that will change the way we run our classroom. Behaviorism is a lot of things that i didn't even realize. A lot of the things that we do in our daily life and that we will do in our classrooms include that behavior modification. Without even realizing we do it, we offer rewards and praise for the actions that we seen and we may punish or withhold that praise to show our dislike of a certain action. Because the students we are teaching are in the Industry vs. Infereiority stage, they want to please their teacher (and they also want rewards) so they will do whatever they need to to get that praise or that reward.

Now What?

Now that we understand the views of behaviorists we can apply the principles in our classes the way that we see fit. I completely agree that token economies and rewards should not be given in an academic/learning situation. It really does undermine motivation and can create major problems. I want to be able to help my students motivate themselves instead of, in a way manipulating their motivation and having it be extrinsic. I also agree that the behaviorists' theories do work and have validity, but that they should be used maybe on a personal level instead of in a group contingency, or maybe as we discussed in class that they should be used for classroom management. Knowing about behaviorism really helps us to understand motivation a little more deeply than we had already discussed, this will be so important in our classrooms because that motivation and the source of it affects everything that goes on in a class.