Behavioral Learning Theories

    When I first learned about Pavlov’s and Skinner’s theories, they both seemed a little confusing to me. I did not think that children could be conditioned to do anything until I began to teach. Out of the two theories, I believe that Skinner’s theory is how I get my students to do anything. Majority of my students learn by doing and when we are learning something together I am the same way. However, I have learned that when we are doing something new their behavior or the outcome of the lesson may not be what I want. So I have learned to bribe them with a good reinforcement to get the results that I desire.

    I teach both Language Arts and Science and getting 26 students to read a book for 15 minutes every day is by far one of the hardest things no one has taught me how to do. Luckily, I am a big kid at heart and I have found a great primary reinforcer to motivate them to read. “Primary reinforcers satisfy basic human needs (Slavin, p. 103, 2014). What other basic human needs, other than food, that you can use to bribe 12 year olds. I told my kids that if everyone earned ten AR points in two weeks, that we would have pizza instead of school lunch. Of course, they agreed. None of them really like the new school lunch they are receiving. Every day I reminded them of the reinforcer and every day for 20 minutes they read. They wanted that pizza so much that everyone had ten points in one week. After that, the AR points went up and the number of weeks went down. I also changed the reinforcer. I started with pizza went to popsicles, chips and a movie, and candy. By the end of the year, my language arts class earned over 300 AR points. I was very proud of them because this was the same class that did not read in 5^th grade and came to me with really low reading levels.

    Even though, I got them to read. I did notice the negative in my approach. My students are so clever that I had to give them rules to reading. I found out that they would check out books on the lowest level of their reading zone. These books only took them about two days to read and they would try to take AR test together. They liked the bribe so much they would do anything to get the points.

    Learning about Skinner’s reinforcers also helped me with my consequences in class. The behaviors I wanted, I learned to praise the loudest and the most. The behaviors I did not want I learned to correct but not in front of everyone. When I correct a student, I try to pull them away from the class and give them a second chance to earn that praise. Rarely, will I send a student to the office unless I knew they needed space to calm down and think about their actions. For every good deed in class, I praised on my Ms. Mac’s Wall of Fame. Every student wanted to be a part of the wall and every student tried to get there. 

Developments in Children

As the mother of an eight year old, I have a lot of experience with child development. I have always known that children go through different stages in life but Piaget’s theory really helped me see the mental development in children. According to Piaget, children go through different stages at different ages in life. Infants learn through their parents and movements, adolescents learn through hands on materials, and teenagers to adults learn by constructively doing.

My son, Brylen, will be in the 3^rd grade next year and this chapter really helped me understand how he thinks. Brylen is leaving the preoperational stage and heading into the concrete operational stage. From my understanding, he is beginning to answer the question why and see the world from a different point of view. When the school year started, Brylen always related his homework assignments to himself. If we were reading a story and answering comprehension questions, he would say he was the main character and make the story about him. Everything we did revolved around him and his needs. Now that he’s a year older, he’s beginning to see it is not all about him and other people are important as well.“Preoperational children are egocentric in their thinking (Slavin, p. 33).  He also used a lot of symbols this year. When we worked on learning the days of week, his teacher created flash cards with symbols to help him remember. 

Educational psychology should be important to every parent and teacher. By understanding how a child thinks, you can understand their behavior. By understanding their behavior, you can create fun but learning activities that we all can benefit from. “During the elementary school years, children’s cognitive abilities undergo a dramatic change (Slavin, p. 34). During these years, students begin to be more concrete thinkers and learners. I see this more and more when I work with Brylen on his reading. As an effective teacher, it’s important to understand how my students think and interpret things. It’s also important to teach my students the language and literacy skills they need to be successful. Students grow, adapt, and change because of unplanned situations in life. Just like they learn how to talk, they learn how to form sentences. “Children do learn in unplanned ways all the time, and many will learn from even the most chaotic lesson (Slavin, p. 6).

“International teachers use what they know about predictable patterns of cognitive, literacy, and language development to make instructional decisions (Slavin, p. 46). To be the best mother and teacher, I have to motivate, support, demonstrate, and lead in the most interesting and fun way as possible. Having conversations with students and asking them how they feel helps with their oral language skills. Students learn new words every year from social media, friends, and extra activities. Picking novels are grab interest helps with literacy development and being a good teacher helps them be successful.

Reference: Slavin, R. E. (2018). Educational Psychology: theory and practice (11th ed.). NY, NY: Pearson.

Good Teaching

Teaching is by far one of the hardest career jobs in the world. You have so many great ideas but you don't have the time. For me, it's fun. I make my classroom a safe  fun environment for my students. We joke, laugh, and play when time allows. Yes, I listen to music in class but I push my students to  the challenge. Teaching isn't all about pencil, paper, and books but about relating new material to them. Students needs teachers who are willing to get on their level. Sometimes that required a BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) day or a day that contains Kids Bop and Pandora. Effective teaching effects everyone in the class.