In terms of learning, according to James Hartley (1998) four key principles come to the fore:
- Activity is important. Learning is better when the learner is active rather than passive. ('Learning by doing' is to be applauded).
- Repetition, generalization and discrimination are important notions. Frequent practice - and practice in varied contexts - is necessary for learning to take place. Skills are not acquired without frequent practice.
- Reinforcement is the cardinal motivator. Positive reinforcers like rewards and successes are preferable to negative events like punishments and failures.
- Learning is helped when objectives are clear. Those who look to behaviourism in teaching will generally frame their activities by behavioural objectives e.g. 'By the end of this session participants will be able to...'. With this comes a concern with competencies and product approaches to curriculum.
In addition, as a staff we meet to discuss how to make our objectives clear and precise. There two objective mentors that grade and evaluate the teachers objective s on a weekly basis. This is the reason I feel that behaviorism is very strong in our schools today.
Reference:
- The Behaviourist Orientation to Learning located at http://www.infed.org/biblio/learning-behavourist.htm
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I am curious, when it talks about the learning objectives, I have been at a conference this week and each session began with a list of objectives that would be addressed in the session. Out of the approximately 10 sessions that I have attended only 2 actually went back to ensure that the learning was accomplished. So I would say while that is an aspect of behaviorism that a more important or critical part would involve ensuring that the learning of the objective occurs using some type of formal and/or informal assessment to measure learning.
ReplyDeleteVery good point, in the school district in which I teach, there are two full-time objective teachers in our district that observe our classrooms and grade the teacher on effectiveness.
ReplyDeleteIt is neat to see how you are able to correlate teaching practices to a subject like P.E.. It cannot be more argued that, for teaching a class, activity is essential in learning. I am curious, though, to know if you see P.E. classes becoming more like basic biology classes, as is the case in our area. The students have textbooks and paper-and-pencil exams. In the high school, students can actually take P.E. online! It blows me away! Educating the body is as important as educating the mind, and in a time where childhood obesity is rampant, students desperately need to be involved in physical activities at school!
ReplyDeleteI agree that behaviorism is not dead in the classroom. As an intervention specialist, I find that I use this approach a lot. My lessons involve a lot of repetition because that is how my students learn better. They do not respond well to change in general so they would not do well if I constantly changed how I presented material. I think that it is good that your school has objective mentors. I be that helps you to keep on track with your lessons.
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