Behaviorism Blog Post 2

Mr. Gates is an elementary special education teacher. Today his class is focusing on history. He believes that behaviors occur due to experiences in the environment. A few miles away from his school is an old preserved civil war, war zone. He takes his kids on a field trip to visit the site and to watch a reenactment. By watching this the students can feel like they are back in time experiencing this. In the student's minds they will remember this and it will help them to excel in the class.

Mr. Gates also uses cues and prompts frequently in his classroom. He uses cues during stations. When the students have station time he signals the beginning and end of each station by turning some music on and off. He also uses the lights as a cue. When he wants the children to quiet down he turns the lights off, once he has all of their attention he turns the lights back on. Mr. Gates also uses prompts in his classroom. He helps the children learn history by prompting them with the next steps to complete on a worksheet.

Mr. Gates uses reinforcement in his class as well. When the class as a whole cooperates together during group activities, all have completed their homework from the previous night, or all have participated nicely in a group discussion Mr. Gates uses reinforcements. Sometimes he will use a positive reinforcement such as giving the class extra recess time, and sometimes he will use a negative reinforcement such as cutting the homework in half.