Blog Post: Instructional Strategies Correlation with Behaviorist Theory
Both instructional strategies discussed in this week’s learning resources seem to line up accordingly to the behaviorist learning theory. As Dr. Orey stated, in his brief presentation, that operant conditioning, or the use of reinforcements and punishments, is the most powerful way of reaching academic goals when delivering instruction through the behaviorist learning theory, it directly relates to this week’s instructional strategies of reinforcing effort and homework/practice. One of our goals as educators is to prepare our students for a successful transition into the real world. I have always been taught that hard work, which directly relates to effort, is the key to success. Educators must influence and model great effort for students to realize its importance. When intended effort is exhibited by our students it needs prompt reinforcement to show its importance in both the classroom and real life situations. Teachers need to explicitly teach students the importance of effort and have students keep track of their own effort (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, Malenoski 2007). Collecting data is easily conducted in this day and age where teachers can integrate technology into the classroom, by using spreadsheets software and data collection tools to aide students in the direct feedback of their given effort.
Even the use of homework or additional practice of a specific skill taught in the classroom directly aligns with the behaviorist learning theory. Whether you would like to call it punishment or not is up to you. Just don’t ask our students; but the repetition of this certain task or skill allows our students learn and make correlations on their own by independently finding ways to successfully complete the given task. The use of homework, although wonderful for students to get extra work in a certain area can also cause some students to become frustrated with a task when it is complicated in their own eyes. This is why it is imperative that educators leave time during class for students to increase their conceptual understanding of the skills and practices (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, Malenoski 2007). With the instantaneous ability to communicate and retrieve data through technology educators are able to expand their boundaries with creativeness to motivate students to complete the additional practice or homework. The repetitious reinforcements and punishments that students receive through completion or non-completion of doing homework actually correlates with the previous instructional strategy of reinforcing effort. The tracking of data on both instructional strategies can prove to be a worthy eye opener for many students to show the direct relationship of their effort to the current academic grade.
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I agree that time to work during class is so essential, but I can also understand how this could be problematic when students are only in a classroom for a 30-40 minute period. We've been (as a district) steered in the direction of Guided everything; Guided Reading, and now this coming year, Guided Math. It's not called that- but it is Guided Math all the same. I don't mind this change at all, because I have the kids that need lots of support. They really enjoy coming to the table to work too. It makes them feel (I've polled them) important to sit in such a small group and get to share their thoughts. White boards and our digital camera are our best friends at that table' they help us to document our thinking, solving, and theorizing.
ReplyDeleteYour care for your students shines through what you've asserted about teacher's supporting students no matter the need. Props to you for meeting your kids where they are!
Preparing our students for the real world is definitely a goal of mine as an educator. I can relate to the importance of effort by our students and the need for positive reinforcement for that effort. I have so many students, special ed as well as regular ed, who do not put forth any sort of effort for any reason. They have this attitude reflecting a negative view on putting effort into any assignment given to them. They feel there is no point in doing the work associated with the assignment. I agree with your statement that educators need to influence and model effort in order for our students to realize the importance in putting forth effort. We need to be role models for our students and exhibit the type of effort in the way we work so our expectation of the effort required by our students is displayed. I want to ask you, how do you feel about a special ed teacher who does the work for a student? Have you come across a co-worker who has done this? I have always been concerned by the message sent to students when this occurs. I believe it is fantastic that you support your students in the manner in which you do.
ReplyDeleteposted by John Ardito
Our county has adopted the 4 period day a few years ago and part of the the theory behind doing this was that some of the time in class was to be set aside for students to begin their homework. This way if they were having difficulty they had a teacher there to help. Even now you can throw technology into the mix because if the student is at home and is having trouble they can log onto a homework help site where they can be in a chat with an actual person that is able to help them over the net.
ReplyDeleteAs far as tracking progress, I have my students keep track of their progress through the use of an electronic journal. They need to make an entry into their journal every class period at the end and answer a series of questions much like the rubric in the text. At the end of the week we review their journal and talk about how they could be more successful.