We discuss about teaching new behaviors.
Shaping, changing, and fading theories used in the readings and homework assignments, and the key behavioral theorist: Skinner, Pavlov and Watson.
Dr. Foreman asked the class:
How do you strengthen or weaken behaviors? How do you set goals, determinate reinforcing methods, select one procedure (Shaping, changing or fading), and how do you implement and evaluate them?
Behaviorism breaks down into details any lesson, instructional or educational plans. You work it step by step, following a pattern to change attitudes and actions.
The example of the geography memory game showed us an external reinforcement by trial and error. After playing the game for a while you get better at the game because you memorize the states. But how do we get an internal reinforcement of this game?
Behaviorism could not explain some people’s reactions so Cognitivism does.
Dr. Kim explained us the importance of children imitating parents’ behaviors as a reinforcement of their own actions and how behaviorism was included on language and math curriculums.
We discussed how Skinner got a bad reputation because he used rats and animals in his experiments on behavioral science. Then, we watched the video “Fresh appraisal of Skinner”. This video was a fair representation of his life and his behavioral theories because it illustrates his experiments in an objective point of view.
We saw the context of Skinner theories and the influence of other theories including Darwin’s evolution, Freud’s psychoanalysis and Pavlov’s conditioning of behavior (example of dog’s stimulus-response).
His research explored:
- Response-stimulus (behavior/selection/individuo).
- Reinforcement and discriminate stimuli.
- Conditional reinforcement (follow an action).
- Consequence as an action.
- Punishment as a negative reinforcement.
- Behavior frequency.
We concluded the video with the creation of his “Teaching Machine”.
After watching the video, the class broke into three groups and shared theories, concepts, and opinions about the video. During the teamwork exercise, we used some free software to organize ideas. (Freemap, Inspiration and others. See: www.thebrain.com some of them let you attach videos and pictures).
We built a map for a behavioral plan based on our homework exercise: Kim's doctor ordered her to take a break every half an hour from his computer, but he forgets it. Your job is to devise a program to change his behavior.
We had almost the same conclusions on our behavioral plans:
- Computer reminders.
- Rewards as positive reinforcement.
- Computer lockouts as negative reinforcement.
- Fading strategies.
- Evaluation.
Arl mentioned that those maps give more than behavior theories because it helps people to understand some concepts and theories better.
“Free writing is like brainstorming” Walter said.
Gordon explained how graphics relate info and the important relation of visual concepts and our actual visual learner generation.
Finally, we concluded that these maps are more Cognitive because they can be used as visual learning strategies and tools that help people to plan, research, and complete projects successfully. People develop essential learning strategies as they create graphic organizers to visually represent concepts and relationships.
In this class we gained and retained a better understanding of Behavioral concepts and demonstrate knowledge thru maps. We also discussed the power of TV screens and the content of internet pages because they use a lot of graphics and present a lot of information in very short time.
Natalia Calle-Giraldo.
No comments:
Post a Comment