Teachers and Behaviorism

Teachers who accept the behavioral perspective believe that

the behavior of students is a response to their past and present
environments and that all behavior is learned. According to
behaviorists, behavior modification is a form of learning, and it
should be the teacher's responsibility to create an environment
in which only appropriate behavior is being reinforced.
Inappropriate behaviors can be modified using behavior
modification techniques. Chec out your own philosphy of
learning and see if you are a !"innerian! at heart. Although a
teacher may discover that his#her own personal theory of
learning doesn't e$actly match any of the current,
popular theories, it is in the best interests of all educators to
create and assess a personal learning theory. %ducators need to
continually be aware of new research in the area of learning
theories and how it applies to our instruction. If learning is
indeed the goal in any classroom, educators need to create an
environment that is conducive to learning.
As a behaviorist "inner describes the application of
behaviorism to education in this way&
The application of operant conditioning to education is simple and direct.
Teaching is the arrangement of contingencies of reinforcement under which students
learn. They learn without teaching in their natural environments, but teachers arrange
special contingencies which e$pedite learning, hastening the appearance of behavior
which would otherwise be acquired slowly or maing sure of the appearnce of behavior
which otherwise would never occur. '"inner, ()*+, pg. *,-
Behaviorism is in practice throughout our schools. If one
employs behaviorism in the classroom, it is imperative that it be
used correctly. "innerian teachers would avoid the use of
punishment. .esearch indicates that reinforcing appropriate
classroom behaviors, such as paying attention and treating
classmates well, decreases misbehavior '%lliot / Busse, ())(-,
and behaviorist classroom management techniques are often
effective when others are not. Behavioral teaching and learning
tends to focus on sills that will be used later. 0ou learn
certain facts about American history because it is assumed that
you will mae a better adult citi1en because of that nowledge.
Behavioral learning does not usually demand that a learner be
able to put the sills or nowledge to use in a !real! or
!authentic! situation. It is simply believed that the learner will
be able to do so because he#she has the correct nowledge or
sills needed for such a situation. The breaing down of comple$
tass into smaller, more manageable subsills, such as the
teaching of reading or mathematics, is very common in American
schools today. Behavioral instruction is primarily !teacher2
centered! as opposed to !learner2driven.! The true behaviorist
teacher believes that learning is passive and that students must
learn the correct response. The reinforcement for that correct
response must be swift and appropriate. 3nowledge according to
a behaviorist teacher is a matter of remembering rather than
acquiring information. 4nderstanding on the part of the learner
would simply be a matter of recogni1ing e$isting patterns. The
concept of behaviorism has been around the educational circles
for many years. "ome of its philosophy has proven to be very
useful to educators in terms of behavior modification techniques
and the place they have in classroom management.