Infographic 1
Infographic 2
Learning Situation
Observation Checklist
Reflection
Infographic: Behaviorism Basics
Infographic: Behaviorism in Instructional Design
Criterion-Referenced Instruction Link
Learning Situation: Balancing a Checkbook
Learning Situation: A Bank employee (Georgia) teaches a college student (Ringo) how to balance a checkbook.
A young man walks into his bank.
“Hello, how may I help you today?” Says the Bank Manager, Georgia.
“My mom told me to come set up a checking something-“ explains Ringo.
“That would be a checking account,” Responds Georgia, “do you know how to use a checkbook.”
“I don’t think I learned that in school,” Ringo says.
“Ringo, balancing a checkbook is an important process to learn in order to be in control of your finances,” Laughed Georgia.
Ringo protests, opening the banking app on his phone. “… and can be used even with online banking.” Responds Georgia. “Plus, the process only takes a few minutes each month.”
As Georgia pulls up a fake bank account on her computer, she shows Ringo how to record the transactions from his account as they occur, including account deposit/ withdrawals, debit card transactions, and bank fees.
“See what I’m doing?” Georgia asks. She enters the date in the first column, transaction in the second column, and amount in the third. Then, Georgia pulls out a matching Bank statement, “here, Ringo, add up the transactions from this column, and tell me how much should be in this bank account.”
Ringo adds up the numbers, “Is $998 correct?” He guesses.
“Let’s check the bank statement,” Georgia responds. The Bank statement reveals a different number, $1,023.00.
“Look, on the transaction for July 18, you subtracted a deposit instead of adding it.” She shows Ringo the row where he made a mistake.
“Does it make sense why these numbers don’t match?” Asks Georgia. “How about you try again?”
Ringo nods in agreement and adds up the transactions in the checkbook.
“Is this supposed to match the statement?” Ringo inquires.
“Yes, that means you did it correctly!” Praises Georgia.
“Okay, that’s all I have to do, right?” Ringo asks, as he sighs with relief.
“Yes,” confirms Georgia, “and for opening a new checking account with us this month, you receive a $20 Amazon gift card.”
Ringo leaves, with a half-hearted promise to balance his checkbook every month. In his next bank statement, Georgia includes a note to Ringo, reminding him to balance his checkbook. When Ringo receives the note he balances his checkbook correctly immediately.
A behaviorist reading this would conclude that Ringo has learned how to balance a checkbook from the Bank Manager, Georgia. She would conclude this because in the next month, Ringo balances his checkbook correctly. The major learning happens as Georgia instructs Ringo on how to fill out a check register. After she instructs Ringo on the importance of balancing his checkbook each month, the stimulus is Georgia asking Ringo to add up the transactions in the bank account. The response is Ringo adding up the transactions and reciting his answer to Georgia. At first, Georgia delivers a punishment when Ringo’s answer is wrong; she makes him add up the numbers again. When he gets the answer correct, she rewards him with praise. Because Ringo also responded to the stimulus of the bank offering a reward for opening up a checking account, he receives an Amazon gift card as a token. Another stimulus-response relationship is the end of the situation, when Georgia sends a note (stimulus) in Ringo’s bank statement for Ringo to balance his checkbook (response).
Observation Checklist
| How often was the event observed? | |||||
| Never | Once or twice | Consistently | N/A | ||
| Positive learning environment. | |||||
| Learner is presented with stimulating material | |||||
| Learner responds to material | |||||
| Desired behavior is rewarded | |||||
| Behavior change as a result of reward. | |||||
| Undesired behavior is punished. | |||||
| Undesirable behaviors are gradually eliminated. | |||||
| Learner begins reacting to material they previously did not. | |||||
| Learner practices what he/she has just learned. | |||||
Reflection
It’s 9:15, and I walk into my first classroom. I am teaching Saturday learning academy Math to 7th and 8th graders. While they begin to file into classrooms, I can hear them deciding which class to attend, not by what their subjects are in school but rather by asking their friends, “what class are you going to?” I already know the next 2 hours will be a handful.
It’s 9:30 and the students sit down. I begin their lesson with a warm-up activity to get them thinking about Math. “Does anyone want to share?” I ask. I am met with blank stares. “Can someone tell me something they already know about our topic today, order of operations?” I try again. More blank stares.
The next hour and 47 minutes could have been grueling, but instead I came prepared. When I finally get one student to answer correctly what the ‘P’ in PEMDAS stands for, I reach my hand into my bag and toss him a piece of candy. Of the 20 students, I swear 26 hands shot in the air at once before I can even finish asking what the ‘E’ in PEMDAS stands for. I’m not sure if I believe behaviorism can describe all learning situations, but classical conditioning sure helped me a lot in that classroom.
Personally, I do not identify with behaviorism instructional theories as my personal learning strategy. I love learning, and finding something new is enough motivation for me to learn it. Continuous repetition has no appeal to me when I could be solving a new problem. Then again, according to Human Learning, behaviorism is more appropriate for some students than others. These appropriate audiences include students who previously had little academic success, students with a learning disability and students with high anxiety. Being a routinely, high-achieving student, behaviorism strategies would not have been the best strategies for me.
Even though I do not find the strategies useful myself, behaviorism is easy for me to recognize. This is probably because as Professor Kozalska explained, behaviorism learning theories and token reward systems drive much of America’s modern day education system. In IDE 621, she also demonstrated practices of behaviorism by offering candy as reinforcement for correct answers, constant repetition of vocabulary, and a self-guided, mastery learning activity. As we begin to study other learning theories, I have to wonder if their instructional theories will be as easy to identify.
At first, I was naturally skeptical of behaviorism. To reduce an organism to observable behaviors seems too simple to be applicable in every situation. Behaviorists say that learning can only be observed in a relatively permanent change in behavior. To me, organisms can’t be a black box that you put learning coins in and behaviors fall out. Still, I know that not all of the students I currently instruct, or will instruct in the future, learn the same way I do. Some of them may learn best through classical conditioning or computer-aided instruction. I look forward to begin learning about other learning theories. I’m not sure if I’m ready to pick one theory for my classroom instruction just yet, even if they offer candy.
IDD&E Blog 