Raise your hand if you've forgotten everything from high school.
It seems like forever ago, right?
Now raise your hand if you remember hearing about an experiment in which a bell was sounded, causing dogs to salivate.
Ah-ha! You do remember something! You may not remember that the name of the man who conducted that particular experiment was Ivan Pavlov, but the lesson stuck. Conditioning the brain to respond to external stimuli is powerful!
Taking the idea of behaviorism into the classroom is one that seems to be fundamentally rooted in schooling. Work hard, and you earn good marks; the external stimuli poses as positive reinforcement and/or negative reinforcement depending non the choices a students makes. However ingrained in the educational strata, however, Dr. Michael Orey (2001) comments that many educators frown upon the behaviorist theory as lacking higher level brain function, thus being a poor educational strategy. Orey continues his argument to include the behaviorist theory as one of inherent good, and great potential if used properly. I personally like to think that any theory or strategy that encourages and promotes academic success and build intrinsic motivation is one to be utilized within the classroom.
In looking at ways to integrate a response to external stimuli with technologies available within the classroom, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski (2007)have provided many wonderful, simple ways to combine behaviorism and technology. Firstly, they suggest to have students keep a spreadsheet, based on a rubric, to determine their OWN effort versus achievement connection. The idea behind this is rudimentary, but affective: students visually understand that the amount of effort they give directly results in their grade, causing a general lift in effort, and improvement in achievement. Another way to powerfully meld behaviorism and instructional strategy via technology is as simple as creating a flash card. Create a response to a certain word, term, date, etc., with basic wrote memory. Dr. Pat Wolfe explained (Laureate Education, 2007) that the brain is "physically sculpted" based on experience, and using flash cards to generate that basic understanding is a tool that cannot be overlooked based on it's simplicity. Dr. Wolfe went on to say that students need a certain network based on concrete examples for information to reach the brain. Technology can be used to create virtual flash cards (www.flashcardexchange.com) (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p. 197), and create flash card memory games. These illicit a response based on a stimuli, but help to forge a powerful and necessary synapse in learning. They also create emotion. Can you imagine the sight of a dog when it knows that dinner is on the way? Tail's just a-waggin', the mouth is wide open, and typically the dog seems happy. Giving a student that same emotional feeling of success based on flash cards and empirical information, and you have built a foundation for an understanding of material and higher ability of analysis of information.
Behaviorism is a great tool in the classroom- Now, if I could only remember everything else I forgot from high school!
Resources
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). Bridging learning, theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.
Lever-Duffy, J. & McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical Foundations (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/
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Although the idea of visually showing students how their effort effects their learning is simple, it is also a powerful way to demonstrate to students that they have control of their learning. When students are intrinsically motivated to learn, they take their work seriously and find that they have the power to change themselves for the better. You made a great connection between the behaviorist theory and the websites you shared!
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