Re: Assignment #2 -- Life-span Human Development

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Subject: Re: Assignment #2

Author:
Joshua Gardner

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Date Posted: 13:23:41 06/16/10 Wed
In reply to: Brennan Sweeney 's message, "Re: Assignment #2" on 17:11:39 06/15/10 Tue

>>Assignment 2 (Behaviorism): June 13
>>Post a response to the following question by first
>>clicking onto "Post a Reply to this Message"
>>
>>Think of a problem/situation in your area (teaching or
>>counseling or as a parent) where you would use of have
>>used behavioristic or social learning theories.
>>Provide an example of the problem/situation and the
>>solution.
>A large component of teaching is classroom management.
> There are many types classroom management but I feel
>the most effective is based on reinforcement. I have
>seen reinforcement based behavioral charts used by
>many teachers and they often elicit positive responses
>from the students. One example I have was during my
>students teaching experience at Downtown Elementary.
>Downtown is a large elementary school with over 500
>students. With such a large number of students it is
>a struggle to maintain an orderly environment
>especially in places such as the hallway and
>cafeteria. As a school Downtown created a STAR
>system. Basically, classes were given stars for
>walking in the hallway nicely and eating calmly in the
>cafeteria. The stars were given out by faculty and
>were announced and the number of stars each class
>received was announced at the end of the day. When a
>class got 10 stars then the entire class was rewarded
>and got to wear jeans on a day of their choice. This
>system worked very well with the students and kept
>their motivation up to be on their best behavior while
>in the hall and in the cafeteria. The main goal was
>to keep the school environment calm and peaceful so
>that distractions to other classes were kept to a
>minimum. I think the reason this system worked so
>well is because the students were never punished for
>poor behavior in the hall but they were also never
>rewarded if they showed poor behavior. Also, the
>competition to be the first class to get to 10 stars
>or get the most days to wear jeans motivated the
>students. This system also focused on the class as a
>whole, which brought along pressure from peers. I do
>believe that if the school had tried to use punishment
>instead of reinforcement then this system would not
>have worked. For example if a class is constantly
>getting punished for a few people behaving poorly in
>the hall then soon enough the other students become
>frustrated and act poorly as well.

I really like the idea of the STAR system and your analysis of it. Students love to compete with one another, whether it's with grades, fundraisers, or in this case good behavior. Basing the STAR system on the class's positive behavior holds all students accountable for their classmates discipline, as you mentioned with the pressure from their peers. This pressure allows the students to almost police bad behavior themselves. Since the teachers ignored the bad behavior, the student did not receive the attention he/she wanted and the likelihood of seeing the bad behavior again diminished.

I agree, that a system of punishing the whole class rather than rewarding them would not have worked. I can remember being in classes where teachers did that, and it only caused more students to act out with disruptive behavior. Before long, the teacher has actually caused more problems through group punishment than the ones he/she originally had.

The students at Downtown Elementary appear to have been easier to please than in some other schools. I wonder what could have been done differently to implement this system into another school where most of the students were more apathetic about showing good behavior and the idea of stars and wearing blue jeans did not appeal to them.

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