Behaviorism and Technology

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”
Robert Collier

Reinforcing Effort

Self-initiated effort is the goal of each individual to attain on their own. This life skill must be molded by teachers and parents while children are still young. Our goal as educators is for children to realize that effort and hard work pay off, and by putting forth effort one can achieve. If a child does not learn that effort pays off that child engages in learned helplessness. This debilitating condition results in failure and the notion that if I do well it is a result of luck. Therefore, it is imperative that teachers weave into their classroom structure the strategies of “reinforcing effort” and “homework practice” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, Malenoski, 2007). These two strategies can utilize technology as the base for both. Both strategies work to teach students the benefit of effort.

What does reinforcing effort mean and how does this strategy play out in the classroom setting?

In behavioral terms, reinforcing effort is accomplished through visual motivation of effort and constant feedback. For example, a teacher can use technology to create a simple bar graph or spreadsheet to monitor a student’s improving skill of the multiplication chart (Pitler, et al, 2007). Also, spreadsheet software and data collection tools reinforce effort by allowing students to visualize the direct correlation between effort and achievement. By pairing homework practice on the memorization of the 2’s times table, giving constant mad minute quizzes, and charting student progress through technology, a student can visually see their progress. This combined with a teacher’s error analysis of the answers or procedures that are difficult for the student and the use of a computer program such as Successmaker(SME) improves the error rate. The student’s improvement can be monitored daily on a computer generated chart. By seeing the charted progress, which can be printed out and sent home, a student can internalize that the more time and effort put into the learning of the new skill the more successful they become; thus reinforcing the skill of effort. In addition to this type of simple chart and monitoring program, other types of computer monitoring can be done.

Read 180 and Successmaker are examples of programs that figure out levels of functioning that make it possible for students to be successful at the academic level determined by the computer program. These programs have built in visual reinforcement systems that positively reinforce correct responses. Making the attempt fun and reinforcing effort will motivate the child to try harder and eventually gain success. The behaviorist idea of successive approximations can be reinforced to get students with little effort to keep working and achieving success.

The use of organizing and brainstorm software such as Webspiration or Spinscape helps to develop visual models that aid memorization. The structure of the organizing and brainstorm software creates an avenue to grab kids into learning new information (Pitler, et al, 2007).This in turn reinforces the effort to learn the new skill. Utilizing these types of software then become strategies that a student can utilize to learn any kind of new information. This sets the path to lifelong learning.

Keeping the behaviorist’s view in mind, how does “homework practice” work to improve effort and then new learning?

First homework must be an organized practice and procedure in the classroom. It must be structured so that it occurs every day and in the same format. To keep up with this, technology can be used (Pitler, et al, 2007). Technology can be used to keep homework assignment, homework grades, and homework tutorials organized and easily accessible in school and at home. This will help students to always know what is expected.

For homework to reinforce correct learning it must have daily feedback (Pitler, et al, 2007). If the teacher cannot grade it daily and give immediate feedback to prevent error patterns from becoming learned, don’t give it. This is where technology can come in and provide corrective feedback immediately. Programs such as Accelerated Math take the time consuming task of correction away from the teacher. Yet the teacher can view errors on homework to focus where remediation needs to take place. When learning new information, it is necessary for children to have many exposures to the information for it to go to long term memory where it stays and can be retrieved when questioned. (Laureate Education Inc., 2009) For mastery of information to be learned each child needs their own exposure level based on their motivation to learn that subject and their cognitive ability. Technology can give students the opportunity to go over similar information but presented in different formats to prevent boredom. For students with learning issues the teacher must use homework that the student can complete on their own. When the parents get too involved, the child grows into a learned helpless state. This means that they have to depend on others to learn. It is imperative for teachers to be mindful of each student’s learning needs, and devise homework that will strengthen the desired concepts in order for homework to be effective, for effort to increase, and learning to occur (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009).

So as educators we see how it is imperative that teachers weave into their classroom structure the strategies of “reinforcing effort” and “homework practice”. These two strategies can utilize technology as the base for both (Pitler, et al, 2007). Both strategies have worked to teach students the benefit of effort. As effort increases, so does learning. Technology creates the immediate and constant feedback that reinforces effort and motivates students to have successful learning experiences.

References
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Program four. Behaviorist Learning Theory [Motion Picture].Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Program two. Brain Research and Learning [Motion Picture].Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.