BEHAVIORIST LEARNING THEORY, INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES, AND TECHNOLOGY TOOLS

    Behaviorism is the theory that human behavior is learned through positive and negative stimuli (Orey, 2001, p.271). In school this equates to teaching children how to function through rewards and consequences (Orey, 2001, p.271). If overly utilized this can be problematic, but I find it hard to imagine an effective classroom that does not utilize some of this theory. Michael Orey says, “I have found that a behavior that goes unrewarded will be extinguished” (Orey, 2001, p.276). On a most basic behaviorist level I want to at least make sure I acknowledge good behavior in my class to encourage that it continues. 

    Behaviorism is all about feedback and while feedback is essential for kids, and technology can give quick feedback to students, Laura Moorhead argues that the type of feedback students receive matters (Moorhead, 2014). She says to, “skip educational software that offers only simple ‘correct’ or ‘wrong’ responses,” and recommends programs like ASSISTments that give students more targeted feedback (Moorhead, 2014). This kind of learning specifically targets ISTE Student Standard 1.1c (International Society for Technology in Education, 2016). The standard says, “Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2016).

    I use Google Forms for math assignments that instantly grade student work and let them know if they’ve made a mistake or not, but this would fall into the category of the kind of feedback Moorhead is advising to pass on. I am curious about using something like ASSISTments to give better feedback. I have used Khan Academy in the past, which gives students hints and offers tutorial videos to students when they make a mistake, but I have rarely seen students fully capitalizing on these feedback tools. I wonder if they simply need better instruction on how to troubleshoot a wrong answer and use their resources. As a teacher there is only so much feedback I can give to students, so I definitely want to explore how to give students more meaningful feedback with technology. Working to incorporate technology with more feedback for students would fit nicely into standard 2.1.a of the ISTE standards for teachers, which states, “Set professional learning goals to explore and apply pedagogical approaches made possible by technology and reflect on their effectiveness” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2016). 

    

    For the discussion this week I found a scholarly article and a popular article on Behaviorism. The scholarly article I found compared behaviorism to constructivism (Sidney, 2015). I think this is a helpful comparison. The article seemed to consider behaviorism a more traditional approach to education, comparing it to how you would teach a dog a new trick, while constructivism represents more modern thinking on learning, with students learning through creation (Sidney, 2015) While there are benefits to utilizing both models, I think the back and forth is helpful. 

    The popular article I found was a post from Psychology Today (Behaviorism). The post was an intro to behaviorism and touted the belief that behaviorism practices could be used to teach basic concepts or behavior, but would become ineffective for more critical thinking (Behaviorism). Both of the posts I found were more or less an introduction to behaviorism. After reading more about behaviorism I have questions about how it would fit into a more student led activity like Genius Hour. Hour of Code on the other hand seems to lean into a basic behaviorism approach. Most of those tutorials operate on a simple reward and quick feedback approach to learning. Students quickly learn what to do or not to do. Learning more about Behaviorism helps me continue to think about how I can balance student led constructivism and teacher led or technology led behaviorism. Both are helpful and I do not believe that true learning can happen with either one completely missing. 

References

Behaviorism. (n.d.). Psychology Today. Retrieved May 26, 2024, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/behaviorism

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2016a). Standards for students. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/iste-standards-for-students

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2016b). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators

Moorhead, L. (2014, September 3). There’s no app for good teaching. Retrieved from http://ideas.ted.com/theres-no-app-for-good-teaching/

Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from https://textbookequity.org/Textbooks/Orey_Emergin_Perspectives_Learning.pdf

Sidney, P. F. (2015). Evaluating a behaviorist and constructivist learning theory for 21st century learners.