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Question: Consider your CSEL intervention case study. Are there tools from a behaviorist view for either encouraging productive behaviors or discouraging undesirable behaviors that you could apply to the case? What are they?

High School Case Study

You have started to dread your fifth period history class.  It is made up entirely of seniors who are counting the days until graduation and seem to care very little about learning.  Most of the students are obviously members of one clique or another.  Whenever they think your back is turned, they start passing notes and text messaging.  Worse, three boys have started disrupting those engaged in learning.  No matter what you say, they laugh at the students who present their group projects to the class.  Yesterday, Tony, Jeff, and Morris started roughhousing; then all three of them refused to sit down and follow the class procedures that the classroom community agreed upon at the beginning of the year. Although you have been using a set approach to handling infractions of rules, you decide it is time to change these procedures.

 

Considering this case study from a behaviorist viewpoint, I think it is worth looking into the two types of conditioning that make up behaviorism, those being classical conditioning and operant conditioning. There is no guarantee that these would work in such a case (in fact it seems like something a little less subtle is necessary), but it is worth a try. Classical conditioning would be the bigger challenge. I think the teacher could find one action that is most consistent with the students' misbehavior, say laughing in class, and attach something negative to it, like a frown and a pause followed by a stern look at the students who are misbehaving. My mom says when she has a student that is generally acting up, she walks over to him, puts her hand on his desk and takes a noticibly deep breathe. It is uncomfortable for the student and the idea is to condition him to be uncomfortable if he is thinking about acting out. I think this method could be attempted on these boys, but they may be too carefree to be embarrased or made to feel uncomfortable by a teacher's action. In that case, operant conditioning comes into play. This would involve either negative or positive reinforcement. The teacher would have to ensure that new rules are made and clearly stated, and that the outcome for breaking those rules are known. The consequence could be taking away priviledges like getting to eat or drink in class or adding something, like extra homework.

 

 

Here is a website that really helped me understand these concepts, especially how they relate to the real world, not just some slobbering dogs. http://healthyinfluence.com/wordpress/steves-primer-of-practical-persuasion-3-0/doing/ding-dong-classical-conditioning/

 

 

Now, compare the interventions that you have identified above with what you think might work from a cognitive or constructivist viewpoint. How do they compare to behaviorist tools? What are the benefits of each theory, and what are the deficits? Which theory might play a larger role in how you determine classroom management?

 

 

From a cognitive viewpoint, I think it would be difficult to illicit change in these boys. There is not necessarily a deficiency in their ability to learn. They just do not want to learn, and would rather be disruptive. cognitive learning stresses memory and processes, but does not get into behavior modification unless we are talking about cognitive behavior therapy, which requires willing participants.  

 

 Constructivism refers to learning by building on previously learned knowledge. From Wikipedia, "Constructs are the different types of filters we choose to place over our realities to change our reality from chaos to order." While this is useful for exploring new concepts, and making sense of seemingly unrelated material, it does not quite get at the behavior modification that is apparently needed for this case study. Both of these seem more complex than behaviorist tools, and probably are used for understanding more complicated concepts, while behaviorist tools often just rely on natural human response.

 

Because I want my students to learn by doing, not just memorizing facts to spit back out, I think the constructivist theory may play a big role in how my class operates. I want students to be constantly building on previous knowledge, using new information to challenge or bolster what they already know.