10 Examples of Behaviorism in the Classroom

The behaviorism or behaviorism (from the English behavior) is a psychological current that approaches individuals from manifest and observable behavior, understood as the relationship between a set of stimuli and another of responses.

In this approach, behaviorists oppose the traditional currents of psychology, focused on the analysis of consciousness, since they are considered a model of introspective analysis and therefore little experimental and little scientific.

It is possible to identify more than 10 currents of behaviorism, each one supported by the research of a theoretician in the area, such as Tollman, Hull and Skinner, J. R. Kantor and others.

Classical and operant conditioning

Behaviorism is based mainly on two forms of learning or conditioning, namely:

Advantages and disadvantages of behaviorism in the classroom

Many are the behavioral techniques employed, knowingly or unknowingly, in the educational method as such. The idea of ​​stimulating study, effort and passion for learning and negatively reinforcing contrary behaviors is at the heart of classroom interaction. For this, various factors are used, such as grades, disciplinary sanctions and the student-teacher interaction or between students. For example:

However, it must be said that many of the postulates of the educational behaviorism are today outdated or in the process of overcoming, given that they assume the student from a perspective passive, in which all are equal and must learn equally, and which reduces their role only to being modeled.

A common criticism is that behaviorism assesses the educational process from the products and not from the learning processes themselves. Many scholars argue that other learning study doctrines propose more proactive and less police teaching methods that yield better results in the long run.

Examples of behaviorism in the classroom

1. Reward the intervention. Many teachers give kids who intervene in class or do their homework well a sticker or a sticker, as a public recognition of their good performance. In this way, this behavior is stimulated and the opposite is discouraged in others, by contrasting valuations.
2. Punish bad behavior. While good students are encouraged to continue to be good students, behavior must be weakened Anarchic or upset, for example, from a boy who does not let the class advance or exhibits an attitude disrespectful. This negative reinforcement would consist of exemplary public reprimands and punishments, to associate the feeling of shame with the initial behavior that you want to modify. The effect would be greater if accompanied by positive reinforcement when the child is willing to cooperate, rather than resorting to humiliation and derision as social punishments.
3. Subtract and add points. In certain situations of conduct or academic performance, the teacher may subtract points from one or more students as negative reinforcement, since they will associate the final result of their subject with the behavior Present. The same is done with additional points, which are added to students who make an unexpected effort (as positive reinforcement) or who begin to show better behavior.
4. Get up when the teacher enters. Many teachers used to require students to get up when the teacher entered the classroom, as a sign of I respect. This method sought to associate the formality of the act of getting up with the presence of the teachers and thus reinforce a bond of respect and protocol in the students. The counterpart of this method is to sing a song when the teacher enters the classroom, like a form of welcome that reinforces in students a similar principle but through less military.
5. Severely penalize copying. It is often recommended to harshly punish copying and plagiarism, to weaken these cheating and easy-going behaviors in students. The idea is to impose the criterion that effort pays off and plagiarism does not, so it is often withdrawn the exam and the lowest possible grade is given to the plagiarist student and the accomplices of it, if any (reinforcement negative). This method, however, is somewhat police.
6. Reinforce academic interest. Although each student will have their particular interests and abilities, the teacher will positively reinforce the student who demonstrate a growth in your interest in the topics covered in class, through public or private recognition and better notes. In this way, the student will associate interest in the subject with better performance and that is the basic principle of all learning. This, of course, requires that the teacher pay special attention to the academic journey of each individual in the classroom.
7. Investigation as punishment. This is a flash point around behavioral mechanisms, which alerts teachers to the use of research as exemplary punishment: the student who does not pay attention in class is forced to investigate something about the subject and to present it in lessons. Although this method can guarantee a negative reinforcement of the unwanted behavior, it is also associated in the student relationship between reprimand and study, negatively feeding back their interest in reading and investigation.
8. The sound of the doorbell. Since the bell precedes recess and at the end of class, students will inevitably associate this sound at the end of the learning period, so they will stop paying attention even though the teacher is still talking or explaining something important.
9. Arrival routines. Especially in the case of nursery or primary classrooms, the use of arrival routines that help calm the anxiety of the children is recommended. students by entering the classroom, so they are conditioned to, for example, keep their coat, take off their shoes, sit in the same place, etc. In this way, discipline and order are reinforced and, in theory, anxiety is weakened.
10. Expel from classes. The ostracism of the group can be a technique popular discipline and that allows the class to move forward without recurring discomfort on the part of a student. On the one hand, a negative reinforcement is carried out in the behavior, which is exemplary in the group, but unless said expulsion is translated into something other than Liberty gained through bad behavior, the opposite of what is desired will be reinforcing in the student.