When students display the behaviors that are
most-wanting in a collaborative learning environment, it is the role of the
teacher to be cognizant of their approaches to reinforcing students’ actions
appropriately. Having a background in Special Education, where I spent six
years of my educational career working with students with moderate to severe
disabilities. Working in the Special Education population, the theory of
behaviorism is practiced predominantly in all classes when attempting to break
a behavior students’ display that is unwanted in the learning environment. Orey
(2010) explains that behaviorism falls under the idea that behaviors are
learned and can be unlearned through reinforcement and be replaced by the
desired behavior. Understanding how to approach students and their behaviors,
when I crossed content and began teaching US History, I continued to adopt the
theory of behaviorism with my own classes and observed many students replaced
unwanted behaviors with appropriate ones. However, since integrating technology
into the classroom, the relationship between behaviorism, technology tools, and
how a teacher provides practice, feedback, and reinforcements has become
intertwined into a behaviorist web of a positive learning environment.
One of my
favorite actions to observe is an effort taken in my class. I love it when
students live outside their comfort zone and are willing to take risks in their
learning abilities. I ask students from time to time, “what is the worst thing
that can happen when taking a risk in your future?” Knowing the answer for my
eighth-grade student is, nothing, I encourage students to better themselves
each day they walk through the doors of our classroom. However, if I am not
encouraging my students’ efforts to better themselves by reinforcing desired
behaviors, I am not able to have my students reach their full potential as a
scholar.
One way, behaviorism relates to the
instructional strategy of reinforcing effort and providing recognition is
through modeling the desired behaviors you are looking to observe in a given
activity. Through modeling, students are able to learn through observation,
which helps students’ develop an understanding of how to practice the desired
behavior (Orey, 2010). When modeling desired behavior to students, teachers
must be aware of how they reinforce students’ effort in order to have students
display the desired behavior. One way teachers can reinforce students’ effort
is to be consistent in modeling and addressing students to information
regarding what effort is to look like (Pitler et al., 2012). When students are
aware of what effort is to look like, they can begin to monitor their own
progress towards their effort towards mastery learning. But as important it is
for teachers to reinforce students’ efforts, providing recognition towards
students’ mastery when their effort displays the desired behavior is crucial
towards a student’s growth.
When providing recognition to students, teachers
must understand the importance of how they recognize students’ hard work and
the relationship to internal emotions and self-esteem. The more a teacher
provides students with recognition and praise, the students’ self-efficacy,
effort, and motivation to learn, improve (Pitler et al., 2012). One example of
how I provide recognition of desired behaviors is through acknowledgment of
actions I am looking to see in my classroom. When I observe students distracted
and off-task, I reinforce other students who are displaying my desired behavior
by shouting them out and providing positive recognition of their positive
behavior. Secondly, when providing recognition to students through the lens of
behaviorism, the learning environment can be rewarding for both students and
teachers because students begin to work to receive social approval from their
peers and feel accomplished (Orey, 2010). As a result, students receiving
social approval from their peers and feel accomplished in their learning,
students are inclined to encourage their peers to better themselves, which I
look for students to accomplish every year.
Providing
opportunities for students to practice their learned skills through homework
assignments can lead teachers into a world of frustration. When homework is
taken seriously, students can deepen their understanding and develop further
proficiency skills (Pitler et al., 2012). From my own experience, assigning
homework was never successful. I thought this was because many students’
parents work multiple jobs or do not speak adequate English to help students
with homework. Upon reflecting on previous experiences, it was not the parents
who worked multiple jobs and could not assist students because of language
barriers, it was how I provided positive feedback to those who submitted the
work. In order to have students change the undesired behavior of not completing
homework, I knew it was going to take time to shape my students’ work ethic
with homework assignments but understood the long-term benefits to commit to
this practice. When students did not complete the homework assignments, I would
resort to a form of punishment by holding students during lunch and after
school to give them the opportunity to complete the assigned homework. Within a
few weeks, students understood the importance of completing work within a given
time frame and began to complete assignments but continued to stay after school
to receive help knowing they would not receive it at home. Using behaviorism to
have students understand the importance of homework, punishing the undesired
behavior decreased the frequency of the behavior repeating and in return,
students would be reinforced for demonstrating the desired behavior (Orey,
2010).
When integrating
technology into the classroom, adopting the theory of behaviorism is the
teacher’s best opportunity to creating a learning environment where students
respect the technology and are using it as a learning tool and not a toy. Also,
behaviorism can be utilized in many ways as a teacher incorporates technology
into the classroom. For students who disrespect the learning environment and
are using sites that are unacceptable or playing video games when they should
be collaboratively learning with their peers, I use punishment to decrease the
unwanted behavior of disrespecting the learning environment. As a consequence,
students would lose technology privileges if this was an additional offense and
would receive textbook work for the remainder of the week. On the contrary,
when students are displaying desired behaviors when using technology in a
collaborative setting, I am able to support student learning by reinforcing my
students by commenting on their work using the comment section through Google
Docs. Giving my students positive reinforcements by complimenting and
recognizing their effort towards achievement, students, in return, are inclined
to produce better work and become motivated.
Another way the
technology tools work together to support student learning is by creating a
collaborative learning environment by providing student recognition towards
effort and achievement. It is most important to praise students’ effort when
the desired behavior is demonstrated to help increase the frequency of behavior
(Orey, 2010). But when students are given the opportunity to provide input on
their effort towards learning, students can develop a deeper understanding of
what the teacher is expecting. A strategy to incorporate technology tools to
help support student learning is through student reflection of their effort and
achievement throughout the unit as compared to a rubric to help guide students’
understanding of expectations. When students have constant and structured
exposure to teachers’ expectations and understand how to achieve given
expectations, students can appreciate the importance of effort and its
relationship to achievement (Pitler et al., 2012). When teachers are consistent
with behaviorism and students are displaying desired behaviors academically and
behaviorally, learning can become elevated and students’ academic skills can
increase because the learning environment provides a safe learning space for
all students to actively learn.
The way I currently use behaviorist-based
instructional strategies and technology tools in my classroom setting is by
creating a collaborative learning environment through the use of Google
Classroom. One expectation I give my students when they are working together on
a group project or completing a Document Based Question (DBQ) essay is to share
their work using the Share option on Google Docs. Concurrently with their work,
I am able to make comments reinforcing their effort towards achieving mastery
or could provide feedback on what improvements can be done before final
submission. Through collaborative workspaces using technology, students are
becoming global collaborators in the learning environment by contributing
effectively to group projects while using collaborative technologies to work
with others (International Society for Technology in Education, 2019a).
Furthermore, through the collaboration process with my students’ projects and
essays, I am able to create a learning environment where students can take
ownership of their learning and achievement in both independent and group
settings (International Society for Technology in Education, 2019b). From
experience, with immediate feedback and reinforcement, students adjust quickly
and have a better chance at learning when compared to submitting a rough-draft
and not having another chance to improve on skills for another week.
Upon deciding that my students will participate in Genius
Hour (GH) every other week, they will create an actionable plan that was
well-researched and developed throughout the school year that brings community
awareness to a problem they are passionate about. The project is the end of the
year’s culminating project and will weigh heavily towards the students’ final
grade due to the fact they begin working on their project beginning in
December. Creating a grading system and making students aware that each
category is weighted differently, Dowd (2019), found that students are
reinforced to increase efforts in categories weighted heavier. Therefore,
every-other-week when students participate in GH, they will understand the
importance of each opportunity they have to conduct their research and complete
the assigned due dates.
Within their project, students will be expected to conduct
research and gather credible resources to incorporate into their presentation
to support their arguments. In order for students to gather credible resources,
they will need to practice good research strategies and one way I will
encourage students to use expected strategies is to have them practice
dependable research strategies. At the beginning of the project, students will
begin researching using techniques they are accustomed to. By the second GH
activity, students may continue using their own strategies but are expected to
incorporate the new strategy I modeled in class. To reinforce the behavior I
expect out of students, praising or giving additional points towards their
grade to students that demonstrated the use of the learned strategy in hopes of
shaping students’ behavior (Nebel, 2019).
For my Special Education (SpEd) students who are intellectually
disabled and still held to the expectations of all students during the GH
activities, conducting small-group instruction and chunking tasks will help
students develop needed skills. The reason I will conduct small-group
instruction accompanied by chunked activities for my SpEd students is that
complex material such as proficient research skills becomes overwhelming and
frustrating for students resulting in the learning process being slowed
(Algahtani, 2017).
In closing, behaviorism plays to the advantage of both student and
teacher if the teacher’s purpose is to produce active members of the digital
society of the 21st-Century. If not, teachers can create a toxic environment
where students’ behaviors are not punished, resulting in students’ continual
practice of behaviors that are undesired.
References
Algahtani, F. (2017).
Teaching students with intellectual disabilities: Constructivism or
behaviorism? Educational Research and Reviews. 12(21). 1031-1035.
Dowd, M. (2019). How to
use behaviorism in the classroom. Retrieved from https://www.theclassroom.com/use-behaviorism-classroom-8156621.html.
Nebel, C. (2019).
Behaviorism in the classroom. Retrieved from
https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2017/8/10-1.
Pitler, H., Hubbell,
E.R., & Kuhn, M. (2012). Using technology with classroom instruction
that works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Orey, M. (Ed.). (2010). Emerging
perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from
http://textbookequity.org/Textbooks/Orey_Emergin_Perspectives_Learning.pdf.
