This week we have been reading, discussing, and exploring some methods for incorporating technology in the classroom. We also have been looking into the behaviorism and its practice in the classroom.
In Chapter 8 of our text we looked at reinforcing effort and some methods for incorporating technology to do this. The book offered a great suggestion of giving students a rubric and having them grade their own effort from week to week. The book made the suggestion of having students create graphs from their results to see the trend in their personal effort. I think this correlates with behaviorism by giving student a good grade or positive reinforcement for showing effort and a poor grade or negative reinforcement for not showing enough effort. The student should want to put in effort for there own personal motivation so I think that using behaviorism strategies are not the best for reinforcing effort.
However, I think that the homework and practice discussed in chapter 10 have much more applications for the behaviorism model to be put into practice. Dr. Orey from our DVD describes the behaviorist learning theory as reinforcing positive behaviors and punishment for undesirable behavior. Homework and practice can provide great opportunities for reinforcement. Many of the homework assignments that I give to my students are directly related to the lessons from class to let students practice or continue to develop skills on the subjects we are working on in class. Technology is a great asset for homework and practice and our text offers some great suggestions for using word processors, spreadsheet software, multimedia, and web resources to practice, review, and apply their learning. In my 4th grade class I often will offer websites that correlate with the lessons in class that students can explore at home with their parents. At this point in time I do not assign homework that requires students to access the internet since not all students have computers or internet as a resource. It is my hope in the future that this could be a possibility and that all students can have and use this technology outside of the classroom.
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Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you that Behaviorism does not always leed to intrinsic motivation. But it does provide a strong starting ground for extrinsic motivation which should be slowly weaned off for intrinsic motivation....but with that said, some of the basic reasons I go to work in the morning (besides I love it) is for the extrinsic reward of a salary, parents saying "Job well done, thank you for the year". Smiles from my students. I think need a little bit of both to keep me going.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteI have my students complete long-term homework assignments on the web but I run into the same problem occasionally that not all students have computer and/or internet access from home. How I get around this I usually provide a little bit of class time for students to submit their assignments in the computer labs provided at school. This minimal amount of time (5-10 mins) takes little away from the classroom and the students are able to complete the online homework assignments, but keep in mind that they are long-term assignments of at least a week in length. This might not be possible for daily assignments.
James,
ReplyDeleteI get what you're saying about both types of motivations existing in the real world and I do think students should receive both in school. Teaching in 4th grade, I think that I am right at that point where students start wanting to do things for themselves and make positive choices, because they figure out the benefits of making these choices. For this reason I try and put a little more effort into getting students to find that intrinsic motivation, but I also use a lot of extrinsic motivation tools like specific praise when students do well.
Steve,
I like your idea about giving students that extra time to during class to utilize the technology tools that they might not have at home. Another option I also was considering was making these resources available before or after school. I was wondering if your computers were available during these times and if they were utilized to complete online homework assignments?