Thursday, March 31, 2011

Operant Conditioning

Operant Conditioning:
Is the most traditional way of managing the classroom because “It Works”, as it is effective for managing behaviours. But it does have a down side, it fails to ensure lasting behavioural management, Students will behave while the teacher is there but not when the teacher isn’t. The students are not being proactive in their behaviour, and not managing themselves. This topic most closely reminds me of Lawrence Kohlberg’s levels and stages of Moral Development.
Lawrence Kohlberg states that there are 3 levels of moral development each stage becoming more internalized.  The first stage is Pre Conventional which includes A) Punishment: which is the fear of negative consequences. B) Hedonism: Doing something despite negative consequences because they like the product.
 The second stage is Conventional which includes A) Nice boy/girl: They want society to see them as a good person in society. B) Law and Order: not doing something just because the law says so.
And Lastly Post Conventional A) Social Contract: Society respects each other and there is an open agreement to do it because they themselves choose to. B) Universal Ethical: Purely internalized, and see the practical options.
I see the class room in terms of what was stated above as the fear of negative consequences, like Pre Conventional stage Punishment.

At times I do not get these methods at all, because I have just resently moved in with my dad who has two young daughters, and it seems that no matter what anyone does they still act they way they do. You can tell them what they are doing is wrong, or you can praise what they do, and everything in between and the outcome is always the same. Is there just no hope for them?
Positive Reinforcement:
Increasing or maintaining good behaviour by adding something to the situation. An example of this in the classroom would be that the teacher sees that everyone is working quietly doing as they were told, and teacher adds a compliment, saying thank you all for working so nicely today.
Positive Punishment:
Decreasing negative behaviour by adding something to the situation. An example of this would be that the teacher sees a student picking on another student, so to decrease this behaviour the teacher gives the student a detention.
 Negative Punishment:
Decreasing negative behaviour by taking something away.  An example  of this would be the teacher sees that a student is not using computer time effectively, so the teacher takes computer time away from the student.
Negative Reinforcement:
Increasing or maintaining good behaviour by taking something away from the situation. An example would be that the teacher want to increase productivity and studying so the teacher says if you all work till the end of class appropriately I will take away the end of day quiz.
Generalization:
When there is a similar response to a similar stimulus. They will continue to show positive behaviour everywhere, so that the behaviour becomes generalized to every part of life.
Extinction:
You extinguish all types of Reinforcement and Punishment so that there is no stimulus. This is when nothing seems to work, just do nothing and see how the situation changes or if it does.

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