Reflection #4 - Behavioral Theories of Learning

Describe 

Readings this week focused on behavioral learning theories.  From the beginning, the reading started with Pavlov and Skinner both which have been a part of every course I have taken in school.  The reading also discussed primary/secondary reinforcers and positive/negative reinforcers.  These concepts are important for teachers to understand because we need to know what we want students to do/know and use reinforcers to ensure those things happen in our classroom.  Lastly, the book discussed punishment/consequences.  As an educator it is important to remember that our consequences for actions need to happen quickly in order to be effective.

Analyze

The reason we need to understand behavioral learning is to have a better understanding of how students learn.  These ideas about behavior are important for educators to understand when developing classroom rules and routines.  Using the concept of classical conditioning, teachers can develop ways for students to respond when hearing hands clap together or hearing a bell ring.  When looking at developing a positive classroom environment teachers need to be sure to understand the concept of reinforcers.  To understand what people remember it is important to recognize that people remember in two ways with short-term or long-term memory.  Short-term memory is concepts or knowledge that is about to be remembered.  This is information that is currently active and will be discarded by the brain if not needed or seen as valuable.  One way to ensure that this memory is stored is to practice rehearsal, the more a concept is rehearsed the likelihood of it being stored increases.  Long-term memory is concepts/ideas that have transferred from our short-term memory to be kept for longer periods of time.  This type of memory deals with how we know when to complete a task, also called procedural memory.  Ways that teachers can teach procedures is by rehearsing them numerous times and create routines in a student’s day.

Reflect

This week one topic was extremely interesting to me.  I want to have a better understanding of metacognition!  Metacognition is how we learn.  This topic is important to me because it helps with the development of learning activities and projects that I give students.  If I have a better understanding of how we learn the better chance I help students learn new material.  When classes are over for the summer I want to do more research on this topic and hopefully find some new ways to develop lessons to help my students learn!