IDE 621 KB by Soboleva Violetta
Behaviorism is a natural thing for people. All humans want to be praised if they did something well. As a child, I remember my parents using negative reinforcement towards me to show me that my behavior was not appropriate. At the same time, when there is no talk and one is just being punished in order to understand by instincts that some behavior is just not acceptable, one might disagree with the sentence and be offended by the parents' methods of upbringing. That's what happened to me - I realised that my parents wanted me to change my behavior and it was the reason for negative reinforcement, but people are not animals, and when there is no talk about what was wrong according to their understanding, children will be stubborn to change.
However, there is a good thing as well. I support classical conditioning theory. Every acceptable action should be supported by positive reinforcement. And after learning the behavioral theory in details, I realised several things about me as a teacher:
1) my own teaching is rich with stimulus and lacks reinforcement;
2) understanding the difference between chaining and shaping is still difficult after class readings and several more articles with examples and definitions;
3) people need and have to get feedback for what they do unless there will be no learning. the older you get, the more intrusive motivation you have, but if it is not supported by positive reinforcement from outside (by a teacher or significant other), the inner motivation would be not enough - here comes the importance of behaviorism.
Recommendation I would like to give myself after learning the behavioristic learning theory:
Make sure you don't lack any basic concepts. Is the number of stimulus similar to responses? Do all the responses get reinforcement - positive or negative? Does the learning contain shaping and chaining? Is the terminal behavior well-distinguished? 2. Does the lesson follow important behavioral principles: do the students learn easy things that are followed by the more difficult ones? is the learning divided into small steps? is the feedback provided after each stage is completed? do students learn actively? If all the answers are "yes", it means that there is a higher opportunity to give higher quality classes. This self-assessment checklist will help me to analyse my classes better.