The big ideas in this chapter relate to the ways in which children learn based on their behavior. If the behavior of a child changes, then learning has taken place. Not only does learning must include a change in behavior, but behavior is also constantly changing based on the experiences that a child has in the environment where he or she lives in. Also, learning processes are similar among many different species and children learn through classical and operant conditioning. These two types of learning associate a stimulus and a response and also are associated with punishment and reinforcement. This chapter focused on strategies that teachers can use to increase appropriate behaviors and decrease inappropriate behaviors, which is important to an educational setting so that both the teacher and students are learning properly.
It is very difficult to distinguish the differences between reinforcement and punishment, both positive and negative. It is clear that positive reinforcement and positive punishment include adding or presenting a student with something and negative refers to taking away something. It gets confusing because sometimes they get intermixed and it is difficult to understand the importance to each definition. What might be an easier way to remember these definitions and their importance to a student?
"Change the environment, change the behavior," means that behavior is constantly changing based on the environment that a child is put in. In order for learning to occur, behavior must change. It is also necessary for behavior to change and learning to occur based on the experiences that one may have in the different environments. Classical conditioning and operant conditioning are two categories that learning theories fall into and in both of these categories, there is a constant change in environment with different stimulus, which create different responses and ultimately changing behavior. As a teacher, I would use this quote to help my students grow and learn by constantly changing the classroom and the environments that they learn in. Sitting in a classroom all day will not help students learn properly. They need different experiences and different environments to behave in different ways so that they can learn in different ways too. As a teacher, if my students were behaving poorly, I do not think that I would immediately result to certain punishments, but I would try switch up the environment like go outside or change the people that they sit with so that they can refocus and learn better.
I like the idea posted at the end of not immediately jumping to a punishment, rather to change the environment. Environment can have a huge effect on how a student learns. They remember things about the classroom, or place in which they learned the material. Sometimes a new environment is the key to learning the material, and understanding the concepts. Punishment should come after more trials of helping the student, and I appreciated how that was written in this post. I like that the immediate urge is not to go to punishment rather to try a change in environment or something along those lines.
ReplyDeleteFor your confusion on reinforcements and punishments, I find it easy to remember that REinforcement is like a REward and punishment is the opposite. There are only 4 types that you have to remember between reinforcement and punishment. There are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. It seems like you know the difference between all 4, so I won't go into great detail explaining them all.
ReplyDeleteI think you have a very nice big ideas section. I particularly like your claim of 'if the behavior of a child changes, then learning has taken place' and how you describe the environment as dynamic (since the stimuli surrounding us are never constant). Teachers can also learn through behaviorism (as you describe in your last line). If students are happy or performing well (however that particular teacher defines it) then it will potentially act as a reward, and the teacher will continue his behavior as he has been.
ReplyDeleteThe terms are tricky, but they will help us break down scenarios in terms of behaviorism theory to describe what's going on. Positive and negative always refer to whether you are giving or taking away something. Reinforcement and punishment describe whether you want a behavior to increase or decrease.
I'm having some trouble understanding the last paragraph, so I'd need some clarification. It sounds like your saying that learning should transfer between different environments (with varying stimuli). Note: "Transfer" in this way is a complicated idea that is debated by learning theorists even today! While it may seem intuitive that that's true, I think a behaviorist would disagree with that idea. They would likely say that our behavior in any given situation is totally tied to the particular environment that we are in and the stimuli that are present.
HOWEVER, it also seems like you're saying something like "If one environment isn't working, changing the environment will change behavior", which would be absolutely true according to behaviorism. If the stimuli present in a classroom are causing undesirable behavior, moving outside will likely change behavior. Students may have associated the stimuli outside (sky, breeze) with being calm and focused, which might be your ideal behavior. Interesting!