Module 3: Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Behavioral Views of Learning
Concept 1: Operant Conditioning: Trying New Responses
Summary: There are ways to control behaviors with multiple types of methods. In order to do this, there will be antecedents and consequences. Most people associate this with bad consequences such as a punishment. Consequences can also be considered something of value in which a student receives praise, a prize, candy, etc. These two antecedents and consequence types are called negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is punishing in some sort of way due to bad behavior in attempt to reduce the bad behavior. Positive reinforcement is rewarding due to good actions/behaviors to try and encourage the student to continue to perform well. Both of these are effective tools, but there needs to be a system in which you know what is best for each individual student. Finally, Cueing is talked about in this section. Cueing is basically "setting the stage" (Woolfolk, p. 293) beforehand. This means showing what will happen if they are bad if you are doing negative reinforcement or what the student will receive if you are doing positive reinforcement.
Reflection: I have learned a lot about positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, cueing, and other behavioral supports in my Special Education courses. These play a huge part in ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) for students who are in need of behavioral supports. Students with behavioral issues are able to work with their teacher in ABA to alter the behaviors into more desirable behaviors and actions. I am personally more of a positive reinforcement sort of educator with my students. I do not like to punish my students, but it is very necessary in certain situations. I've learned that some students don't respond well to positive reinforcement and will take advantage of patience. I have also learned that certain students are in sensitive situations within their lives and do not respond to negative reinforcement well. Each student differs from each other, and the educator has to get to know the student well enough to know what will be the most effective and benefit their learning.
Concept 2: Putting It All Together: Applied Behavior Analysis
Summary: This section of the book goes further into ABA, the steps of it, how to perform it in an appropriate sense, strategies, and cautions. The steps of ABA are recognizing the behavior and the goal at hand, then observing the level of it and why it may have been caused, planning interventions with the antecedent and consequence, and finally, tracking the results to watch progress and effectiveness. ABA is an effective method of helping students with behavioral issues, but it has to be performed well and students should not be treated as test subjects. There must be consistency, work towards a solid goal, and use of proper reinforcers that are appropriate. Strategies that are mentioned by the book include individual student behavioral "contracts," earning tokens of some sort, taking away tokens of some sort, and describing what the student must do in specifics. Finally, there are cautions teachers must be aware of to make sure ABA is done well. Punishment can be seen as something that a teacher should not do to their students due to them not being the parent. There must be careful cautions in which punishment is chosen and respect to the parents and their wishes. There is a two-pronged attack explained in the book talking about doing the punishment, but then explaining how the student can improve and what they did wrong. This conversation after the punishment can help growth and can solve some of the problem areas.
Reflection: As I explained above, I am familiar with these terms and ABA due to other classes. I am also familiar with secondary reinforcers such as praise, points, tokens, or really anything a student will enjoy and benefit from receiving. When I observed an elementary school once, I saw that the teacher used 3 paper apples and a paper tree. The paper tree would hang up on a wall and hold three paper apples taped to the tree. She would use negative reinforcement and take away an apple if the student was misbehaving. If the students lost all three apples, they would have to have a conversation with the teachers and possibly the teacher would send a note home to the parents. This showed to be effective for most students, but there were two students it just did not work for. I think it's important to make behavioral support individualized due to every student differing and having different ways of learning from their mistakes/behaviors.
Concept 3: Challenges and Criticisms
Summary: This section addresses how teachers are looked down upon and criticized for their classroom management. There are some teachers who do not handle problem situations well, but there is also teacher who do handle them well yet still get criticized. Certain punishments can be looked as unethical and abuse to the students. Obviously, spanking and hitting students is abuse, but if a teacher takes away a distractor or firmly talks to the student, this might not be unethical. It all depends on how the teacher and student are in the situation.
Reflection: I know for a fact that I would never physically punish my students. I think physically hurting them is abuse and that it should not be done, especially by a teacher. I also don't believe in yelling at a student. There is a huge difference in talking loudly so a noisy class can hear me, and I can get their attention, and me straight up screaming at a student. Screaming at a child for their behavior is verbal abuse in my opinion. It also doesn't allow for growth because both the teacher and student are too frustrated to communicate effectively. I want solid classroom management and respect from my students, but this has to start with me communicating with them and showing that I respect their boundaries too.
Hey Dani, great blog post! It's a scary thing to think that teachers may be physically punishing their students. I think that if a teacher has to scream at a student/students because they misbehaved, then they are definitely in the wrong profession. As future educators we need to be patient with our students. This just makes our students not want to come to school and if we give them a negative perception of school then they will not want to improve their education or want to improve in general.
ReplyDeleteHi Dani,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated your connection to ABA. This is a very important aspect of classroom management that must be considered along with what we are learning in Woolfolk. I agree that a teacher needs to know their students in order to apply the right kind of reinforcement or punishment. I am also thankful that you pointed out that some students do not respond well to patience. In these education books, all the information seems to be telling us that we should just love our students and give them grace. However, sometimes students need a stronger hand to guide them. We do not have to be mean, but we have to be stern in some situations.
Hello Dani and thank you for your post.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading all the great content you always provide. While reading through it, I also find Applied Behavior Analysis very interesting and effective. Being able to use this for students who may have behavioral problems is a great idea. These strategies are very effective in the classroom and seem to be the best way to go when dealing with a younger age group of students.
Do you believe it could work with an older range of students, like high school?
Hi Dani,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your insight as a student who has gone through multiple observations and placements! I know that a lot of my classmates and I, who are still in our beginning education classes, are always looking for more stories from the field! Your example of how your teacher's apple tree system works for some students, and not at all for others, was definitely food for thought. I'm always a little wary of very public management strategies like that, as they seem to rely more on embarrassment than they do forming relationships and guiding growth, and they certainly can bring out some very ugly emotions. I can remember being in second grade with a similar green light, yellow light, red light system, where the teacher would move students' cards out of the "green light" when they misbehaved. I had stayed in the "green light" all year, but after the class as a whole kept talking during quiet reading time, my teacher made everyone who had talked stand up and move themselves into the "red light." I was one of the only students who admitted to talking and moved, and I was so embarrassed looking at my card that I burst into tears. It feels a little silly now, but the very public nature of the punishment really did make me feel awful, and I disengaged instead of reset. Clearly, too, the punishment hadn't had any deterrent effect either, as we had continued to talk despite the reinforcement system; our behavior wasn't changed at all.
I think you're absolutely right about the ineffectiveness of yelling or screaming in the classroom. Yelling not only amplifies negative, unhelpful emotions, like you said, but it also clearly communicates those emotions to students in a way that becomes a barrier to professional relationships. Yelling or screaming at a student tells them that you're angry, that you dislike them, and that you're out of control. Calmly responding to students' needs to deescalate the situation communicates that you care about the student and their learning, reinforcing that teacher-student relationship and avoiding creating any resentment or grudges that may form if a student feels that they are disliked by their teacher. It's a lot easier to manage your students and create an effective learning environment when you provide stable, caring support, rather than negative emotions for your students to feed off of.