Behaviorism

1. Today we talked about behaviorism in the classroom. This theory helps us understand how we can help students to behave appropriately. This theory says that we can condition students through two different ways: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is a way that we can create a conditioned response from a conditioned stimuli. In Operant conditioning, we give reinforcers for a certain behavior to encourage a desired behavior.
2. With this knowledge we can not only help our students behave in a way that we need them to in a school environment, but we can understand why students behave way they do. We can look for conditioned responses and why they have connected to certain conditioned stimuli. If we understand that, we can help make that conditioned response disappear through extinction.
3. This is a principle that can be applied in our classroom. In many classes they use a token economy to encourage participation in the classroom. After reading this chapter however, I don't know how much I agree with it. Yes, it does help students to participate, but it does not help with students intrinsic motivation. I think it can be used because that is the stage of moral development that these children are in, but it should be used as little as possible.