Comparing behaviorist, cognitive, and constructivist viewpoints.

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?


In order to further understand my thoughts, I am going to preface my blog with the case study that I chose to include in my CSEL:

"It has been one month since the school year began and most of your 25 kindergarten students know class procedures, such as the schedule of learning activities, where they are supposed to be for each learning activity, where they are supposed to keep their personal items, and how they are expected to move about the room and the school building in order to ensure a productive learning environment.  Then there is Willard.  He must ask 20 or more times a day, “Teacher, when can we go outside to play?”  In addition, he often does not stay where he should to work on a given learning activity.  Instead, you find him wandering around the room and getting into other children’s personal things.  Three times this past week you looked up just in time to see Willard walking out of the classroom without permission.  Some of the other children in your classroom community have started making fun of Willard.  Others are beginning to become less engaged in their learning."

I think there are many tools that I could use within this case study to help our friend Willard as well as consequently affecting his class.   A few I will touch on are: classical conditioning, use 'token reinforcement', and a contingency contract.

A form of classical conditioning with Willard, I could pair a bell or a phrase that I use with him (or the whole class) and work to form the connection to a behavior (lowering their voices, finding their seat).  I think this could work exceptionally well if I could pinpoint a reminder that is easy for Willard to remember when hearing the sound.  I realize this will take a lot of time and work, but I think if it is in connection with other strategies, it has the potential to do really well.

Token reinforcement is something I had not thought a lot of previously and I really like the idea of.  In class we learned that token reinforcement is: "system in which tokens earned for good academics or behavior can be redeemed for a reward".   I think, especially knowing that emphasizing and reinforcing the 'right' in student behavior, if done consistently and with cues to help, Willard will start to excel through our journey in the classroom.  

Last, I think a contingency contract is always a good idea, no matter what the situation or child.  Not only will if provide a framework and understanding for all involved, but it will serve as a reminder to the student when/if they breach this contract of the goals they set for behaviors.  In having this, I can allow Willard to continue to trust me because I am not being biased one way or the other.  Why? If we clearly stated these goals of behavior beforehand and Willard falls short, it has already been predetermined and agreed upon by him.  

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Now, compare the interventions that you have identified above with what you think might work from a cognitive or constructivist viewpoint (you may need to Google for ideas but it's okay to just speculate based on your prior knowledge).  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?

Naturally, I am going to gravitate toward a constructivist viewpoint because that it the strategy and theory that I am most confident in.  I feel that, when I came into the program at UT I had more of a behaviorist theory of learning, and to switch from that to constructivist seems like a long shot looking back. 

In terms of comparing, I can see how the contingency contract would closely align with constructivism because it involves more of the child's involvement (brainstorming, talking about, and agreeing upon behaviors together with a teacher) and self regulation (gradually becoming aware and attempting to 'control' the behavior they discussed and agreed upon with teacher earlier).

I think that is something that is a huge benefit in behaviorism, as well as putting an emphasis on the right form of the behavior.  I don't necessarily think that it has to be with physical reinforcements either. 
A huge benefit of constructivism is that it solely focuses and emphasizes helping children learn and form these behaviors from their construction of knowledge.  I think this is very important because you do not want a child thinking of just doing a behavior to get a reward, you want them to make meaningful connections of why they should or should not engage in a behavior.

That brings me to a deficit in behaviorism, I think that you run the risk of the child performing these behaviors and not understanding why they are being asked in the first place.  Also, I feel that is "covering up" the behavior, what happens when the child has been in a classroom for a year (with this kind of reinforcement) and then proceeds to the next grade and there isn't anything like that for them.  I think that would be hard for them to understand.
A deficit in constructivism is that there may not be enough time in the day for you as a teacher, managing 25 students, to take the time to talk and interact with Willard in a way that will help him become aware of his actions.  It would be great to be able to have that one-on-one contact any time we would like in a classroom to facilitate learning and help construction of knowledge, but the reality is there is never enough (at least with my experience). 

In knowing all of this, I think I will have a pretty good blend of both behaviorism and constructivism.  I would love to lean more toward the constructivism side, but I know some aspects are just not realistic in the professional world as an elementary school teacher.  I look forward to further exploring my personal learning theory!