| Subject: Re: Assignment #2 |
Author:
Rashunda Stitt
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 22:08:05 06/13/10 Sun
In reply to:
Dr. M-J
's message, "Assignment #2" on 19:25:40 06/11/10 Fri
This school year I was a graduate assistant for the Emerging Leaders Scholarship program on campus. All students that receive this scholarship are required to take classes offered through the Office of Student Leadership & Involvement. During one class session, we were teaching students the concept of people who lead using positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. We did this by asking the class questions about the coordinators of the Emerging Leaders Program. I represented the positive reinforcement leader. When I asked a question and a student raised their hand, I gave him or, her, a piece of candy. When that student responded with the correct answer, I gave him or her verbal, positive reinforcement such as good job. The main professor however was totally different. If someone yelled out the answer without raising their hand he would verbally abuse them (but in a fun way). If they got an answer wrong he would just roll his eyes and ignore them. He used negative reinforcement techniques. Once all students started raising their hands before responding to questions, I began to only give candy on certain questions. I used intermittent reinforcement so that students would not expect to get candy every time they raised their hand. Sometimes I gave no candy, sometimes I gave candy to everyone that raised their hand, and sometimes I only gave candy to the person I called on to answer the question. Using this type of positive reinforcement is a strategy that helps the reinforcer maintain its potency. If the reinforcer used is not valuable to the people receiving it, then positive reinforcement does not work. By using intermittent reinforcement, students continued to raise their hands for the rest of the class period.
Although I used reinforcement, social learning theory also played a role in this situation. Students observed other students receiving candy for certain behaviors. After observing the student’s behavior, another student modeled that behavior in order to receive a reward. In order to successfully model the behavior, students had to pay attention, retain the information, and be motivated to reproduce the behavior. I think that the students were extrinsically motivated by the candy. However, a few of them may have been intrinsically motivated by just giving a correct answer. I attempted to use intermittent reinforcement in an effort to decrease extrinsic motivation and increase intrinsic motivation. By doing this, students would have changed their behavior because they wanted to not because they were receiving a reward.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 