Behaviorism Blog Post 2 - Module 9

Mr. Gates, as a teacher who adopts behaviorism, is a third grade teacher. To start off, we know he is a behaviorist because he has a clipping board that shows the daily progress of the student's behavior. Students'  names are written on clothespin, and they are all clipped on to section named "ready to learn". From there they can move up to "positive attitude", and if the good behavior continues, they can eventually reach the highest level, where they get a prize for the day. This shows that he uses reinforcement more than punishment.

Another indicator that Mr. Gates is a teacher who adopts behaviorism is that, although he does give this tangible reward for positive behavior, he also rewards good behavior with the occasional play time to draw or play games. For example, when student's finish their assignments, they are rewarded with free time. This follows the Premack principle in behaviorism, and has been proven effective.

Mr. Gates has also been witnessed using the satiation strategy for decreasing inappropriate behaviors. With this strategy, Mr. Gates had a student who was executing an inappropriate behavior, and he had the student repeat the behavior until the behavior is no longer reinforced and no longer gives the student pleasure. In this case, a student would not stop spinning around in their chair, so Mr. Gates had the student repeat this behavior until the student and classmates did not find it funny anymore.