Reading the course materials about Behaviourism and Cognitivism
learning theories takes me back to my days at teacher’s college. I recall
initially thinking that these theories would have little impact on my ability
to ‘teach well’. As I had more opportunity to engage in tasks that required me
to reflect on these theories, it became evident that these approaches would
most definitely be of value, depending on what the learning outcomes that are
desired.
‘Behaviorism is primarily
concerned with observable and measurable aspects of human behavior. In defining
behavior, behaviorist learning theories emphasize changes in behavior that
result from stimulus-response associations made by the learner. Behavior is directed
by stimuli. An individual selects one response instead of another because of
prior conditioning and psychological drives existing at the moment of the
action (Parkay & Hass, 2000).’
This definition highlights the relationship between positive
reinforcement (stimulus) and the desired outcome (response). In the educational
setting, the desired outcome could range from appropriate classroom behaviours
to the recall of knowledge or skills. As behaviourists measure learning in
terms of the change in behaviour and not with regard to the mental processes
applied, this approach is best suited to learning that is best achieved through
drill and rote learning (such as number facts, sight words and other factual
knowledge) and that can be broken into manageable chunks to be built upon. This
approach is also very useful in developing and reinforcing appropriate and
desirable classroom behaviours. The use of reward systems as positive
reinforcement are a form of behaviour modification that is based on the behaviourist
learning theory.
As a Support Teacher: Literacy and Numeracy, I predominantly
work with students who require assistance to access the class program. Quite
often these students need more time and opportunity to develop the basic
literacy and numeracy skills that form the foundation upon which to build more
advanced and deeper knowledge. The behaviourist approach to learning is useful
for this type of content and learning outcome, as positive reinforcement used
for rewarding increased success of the recall of specified knowledge, such as
basic number facts, increases the chances of the retention of this knowledge.
There are many websites and apps that use this approach successfully. Study Ladder, an Australian website,
uses points as reward that the students are able to use to purchase items to
personalise their rewards room and create their own avatar. Hungry Fish is a maths apple app that
awards points for answering basic number facts correctly. Students can then use
these points to personalise their own ‘hungry fish’. Both of these websites use
the behaviourist approach of stimulus-response to for learning outcomes. Increasing the automaticity of such things as
the recall of number facts and sight words allows more mental processing
capacity needed for more difficult and higher order tasks.
As the success of the use of behaviourist principles relies
on the knowledge to be learned to be of a factual nature, it is not reasonable
to use this approach when the expected learning outcome is for the students to
be able to transform their knowledge. This would require a degree of
interpretation of new knowledge which is not acknowledged by this approach. There
is definitely a place for the application of behaviourist principles in my teaching
context, while recognising that this approach is best suited to learning
outcomes that require one particular response.
Parkay, F.W. & Hass, G.
(2000). Curriculum Planning (7th Ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Retrieved from http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/index.php?title=Behaviorism
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