Behaviourism

Behaviourist learning theory supports the learning process by adjusting a student’s response to an external stimulus. Classical conditioning within Behaviourism, founded by Ivan Pavlov, involves a natural or subconscious response. This theory suggests once students have acquired a learned behaviour to a particular stimulus, the teacher may utilise similar stimuli to receive similar results under different circumstances, this is known as generalisation. Generalisation can be understood through the example of a school bell, upon hearing the bell students respond and pack their things. A similar stimulus such as a classroom bell can be utilised to instigate the response of re-congregating after groupwork or packing-up a classroom activity.

Operant conditioning is a subsequent branch of Behaviourism which encompasses the ability to condition a response through positive and negative reinforcement. B. F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning furthermore concludes the more a behaviour is reinforced, the more likely it will occur. As a practicing teacher, I believe Behaviourism holds some potential in shaping beneficial student behaviours. Within my practicum, I attempted to engage in the behaviourist approach of classical conditioning, using candy as a positive reinforcement. After setting and explaining a task, I outlined that student were required to work quietly and efficiently in order to receive a reward for their efforts. Following this, I navigated the room, my presence being the external stimulus and the learned response being quiet, independent work. However, there were several students who received a reward for their behaviour, only to give the candy away as they were indifferent to the prize. This created controversy within the classroom as students began to dispute how one student had collected multiple rewards whilst behaving incorrectly.

From this experience, I became aware of the difficulty of positive reinforcements in the secondary school classroom, as in order to motivate students, the reward must be of high enough value. Later in my practicum, I continued to provide the external stimulus of navigating the room to provoke quiet independent work, however I adjusted my practice by negatively reinforcing inappropriate behaviours through warnings or moving misbehaving students. I found that through this application of Behaviourism, more students responded with the desired behaviour which only grew more common throughout my placement. In particular, towards the end of my four weeks, I rarely had to reinforce behaviour to receive the desired response.

Although, Behaviourism serves useful when adjusting classroom etiquette, and creating a productive classroom environment; it must be acknowledged that Behaviourism has manly faults as a learning theory. A behaviourist method of teaching risks valuing correct answers over the learning process and is limited in its ability to foster higher order thinking. Behaviourism also neglects the prior knowledge of students and the range of culturally diverse backgrounds that fill a classroom, as it relies on the notion of ‘tabula rasa’ (blank slate).