Behaviorism and Technology

This was an interesting week for me because I am always looking for new and effective ways to introduce technology into my teaching. I am also always looking for ways to make homework an effective tool to use in the classroom, and not just something the students dread being handed at the end of class.

We read about two different technologies this week from Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works. The first was a discussion about reinforcing the effort the students have in the classroom. The second had to do with homework and how we use it in the classroom. Looking at both of these, I can clearly see the ideas about behaviorism playing a role in them. As Dr. Orey says, behaviorism is something that many people looked down on and think is out of date, yet it is something that we always seem to use in out classrooms (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011).

Behaviorism is simply a punishment and reward based system where the goal is to be able to do more rewarding than punishing. The students understand this idea because it gives them immediate feedback from a behavior or action they did. That is why this is something that is practiced in classrooms all the time.

In the first area we read about, reinforcing the effort of students, we learn about using a behavior modification chart for all students. It allows us to “Explicitly teach students about the importance of effort (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007) and it gives student the chance to “keep track of their effort and achievement” (Pitler et al, 2007). This gives us a couple of opportunities to allow students to grow and learn in this area. They can see for themselves where they are in the rubric and that will allow for immediate feedback, but they can also see where they can work towards. This would work well to implement technology because the students could do something like this online. I know for our school’s grading program, there is a section where we can fill in behavior and study skills. Using technology, the students could track their own behavior and compare it to both what the teacher sees, and where the student would like to get.

The second area we read about what making homework that is meaningful to the students. This is something that teachers across the country use, homework, but it is hard to find good ways to encourage the students to do the homework. Usually, when the homework comes out, the students start to groan. This system of homework really plays right into the ideas of behaviorism. If the students do well on the assignment, they get a good grade. If the students do poorly on the assignment, they get a negative grade. I also believe that technology is a really important aspect to all assignments. Pitler says:

Technology facilitates homework and practice by providing a wealth of resources for learning outside of the classroom, making it easy for students to work on collaborative homework assignments and providing “drill and practice” resources that help students refine their skill (2007).

I tend to be a teacher that gives a lot of technology related homework in my classes. For example, we are working with a Wiki project right now where there are groups of students creating a web page discussing the different forms of rocks. To me, this sort of project does bring out some of the stronger points of behaviorism. The students get immediate feedback from not only their teacher but also their peers. It also teaches the students how to give this feedback to them.

Technology has created an interesting opportunity for teachers. We live and teach in a world right now that, although the popular belief is that we do not like the idea of behavorism, it is almost one of the most prevalent thoughts out there. Whenever we hear of students wanting that immediate feedback on the assignment they are taking, they are exemplifying one of the main principles of behaviorism. This idea of getting your feedback quickly is very much along the ideas of a rewards/punishment system.

This brings me to a question to think about. I am a major pusher of technology at my school. I believe that since this is what the students are used to and all about at home, we should strive to make sure we try to use it at school. My area of concern is when I have an older teacher I am working with that will flat out refuse to let the students use things like Wikipedia.org, or even the Internet. Should this be an area that we are being a little more forceful with the teachers that do not want this change to happen? I imagine that within this class, there are mostly students that either use technology as best they can, or are looking for ways to use it, and I believe that we should be striving to do that more in all the subjects we teach.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011a). Program four: Behaviorist Learning Theory [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_550904_1%26url%3D

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E. R., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Denver, CO: Mid-Continental Research for Education and Learning.