Behavioral Views of Learning

1. Behavioral Views of Learning

2. Understanding Learning • Learning occurs when experience causes a relatively permanent change in an individual’s knowledge or behavior. • Theses changes can be deliberate or unintentional, but to qualify as learning the change must be brought on by experience. • Ex. Young child learning words.

3. Contiguity • When contiguity happens you have two or more sensations occur together often enough, they will become associated. • When you have a stimulus happen, your response occurs also.

4. Classical Conditioning • Learning of involuntary emotional or physiological responses. • Ex. Fear, muscle tension, salivation, sweating.

5. Operant Conditioning • Use of a behavior's antecedent and/or its consequence to influence the occurrence and form of behavior. • Antecedents are behaviors that precedes the operant and consequences are those that follow it.

6. Operant Conditioning • Reinforcement is an example of a consequence that strengthens behavior. • Positive reinforcement occurs when a behavior produces a new stimulus. (Ex. Compliments for and action or dress.) • Negative reinforcement occurs when a behavior takes away that stimulus. (Ex. Car seatbelt buzzer and getting sick before a test.) • Remember to encourage behavior is to reinforce it.

7. Applied Behavior Analysis • Understand and change behavior. • Simpler terms is to know the behavior and then introduce an intervention such as giving a reward for every problem right. Then you will stop the reward to see if the behavior goes back and then reintroduce the reward.

8. Methods for Encouraging Behaviors • Praise for on-task contribution and ignore off-task contribution. • Premack principle – Can be understood as do what I want you to do and then you can do what you want to do. This means to use a less desirable but important lesson as a precursor to a lesson the student want to do.

9. Methods for Encouraging Behaviors • Shaping – reinforcing small steps of progress toward a desired goal or behavior. In a math equation instead of neg. reinforcement for missing the entire equation use pos. reinforcement for getting certain steps right. • Positive practice – Practicing correct responses immediately after errors.

10. Coping with Undesirable Behavior • Negative Reinforcement – Not allowing students to join in with a fun activity until the lesson for the day is completed. • Satiation – Requiring a student to repeat a problem behavior past the point of interest or motivation. (Bouncing Ball) • Reprimands – Criticism for mis-behavior. Many time private reprimands are much better than public reprimands

11. Coping with Undesirable Behavior • Response Cost - Punishment by loss of reinforces. • Social isolations – Removal of a disruptive student for 5 or 10 minutes.

12. Group Consequences • Rewards or punishments given to a class as a whole for adhering to or violating rules of conduct. • Breaking classes into two groups and giving the group with less points a reward. • Caution to punishing the whole team every day because of one student due to class making that student and outcast. • This may not work for every class you have.

13. Token Reinforcement • Students can earn tokens for academic work or positive behaviors. • Students can turn these tokens in for certain rewards (Ex. Free time or other privileges) • These should be used to motivate, encourage students or to deal with an out of control class.

14. Observational Learning • Learning by observation and imitation of others. • Four elements • Attention- In order to learn you have to pay attention. • Retention- In order to imitate the behavior, you have to remember it. • Production- Practice makes the behavior smoother and more expert • Motivation and Reinforcement- Person needs motivation to use the behavior and reinforcement to continue it.

15. Observational Learning in Teaching • Directing attention- Observing others directs our attention. (Ex. Kids toy) • Fine-Tuning Already-Learned Behaviors- Observing others to tell us what learned behaviors to use.

16. Observational Learning in Teaching • Teaching New Behaviors- Modeling behaviors or ways of learning are important roles. • Arousing Emotion- Emotional reactions to situations they have never experienced personally but have witnessed.

17. Self Management • Use of behavioral learning principles to change your own behavior. • Three steps in implementing a basic behavior change program • Goal setting – Setting goals and making and making them public. Higher standards lead to higher performance. • Monitoring and Evaluating Progress – Monitoring daily activities to see where change needs to be made. • Self-Reinforcement – Creating rewards for completion of first two steps.

18. Cognitive Behavior Modification • Procedures based on both behavioral and cognitive learning principles for changing your own behavior by using self-talk and self-instruction. • Four skills that you can ask yourself to increase student learning • Listening, Planning, Working, Checking

19. Listening • “Does this make sense” • “Am I getting this” • “I need to ask a question now before I forget” • “Pay attention” • “Can I do what he’s saying to do”

20. Planning • “Do I have everything together’ • “Do I have my friends tuned out for right now” • “Let me get organized first” • “What order will I do this in” • “I know this stuff”

21. Working • “Am I working fast enough” • “Stop staring at my girlfriend and get back to work” • “How much time is left” • “Do I need to stop and start over” • “This is hard for me, but I can manage”

22. Checking • “Did I finish everything” • “What do I need to recheck” • “Am I proud of this work” • “Did I write all the words? Count them.” • “I think I finished, I organized myself, Did I daydream too much.”

23. Summary • Learning Styles • Behavior Analysis • Reinforcement