Behaviorism: An Overview
Behaviorism is a learning theory that objectively observes a learned behavior which is acquired based on environmental conditions.
John B. Watson, an American psychologist, is considered the founder of the behaviorist theory. He was a proponent of Classical Conditioning. Burrhus Frederic Skinner, commonly known as B. F. Skinner, an American psychologist, was a proponent of Operant Conditioning.
It was the Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov, who discovered Classical conditioning, while studying the salivation of dogs, back in 1903. Classical conditioning is a learning process that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus. Operant Conditioning is a learning process that occurs through rewards and punishments to maximize or minimize a certain behavior.
Connections to Teaching
The transfer of knowledge, in a behaviorist perspective, is the manifestation of an appropriate response to a certain stimulus. To effectively elicit the appropriate response, there is a repetition of learning material, tasks are broken down to a small series of steps, and positive and or negative reinforcement is given. Behaviorist teaching methods may be applied to learning that is done by rote or memorization, to subject matter that require specific correct answers, and to systems that use “reward and punishment.”
Learning Scenario
In my Personal Learning Experience, I shared one memory from Elementary. I attended a private school for girls, and learning how to cook was part of the curriculum. In 7th grade, we prepared different kinds of meals, shopping and preparing the ingredients, and cooking it the way our teacher demonstrated it.
In some aspects, this is considerably a Behaviorist way of learning. We were, after all, supposed to get specific ingredients, slice them in a particular way, measure the ingredients, and follow a specific procedure to be able to come up with that particular dish; otherwise, we would not get the specific result and our dish would have tasted differently. Being new to cooking, it would take several attempts to get it right, and in each attempt the cooked meal gets better, and that in itself is a positive reinforcement.
References:
Pappas, C. (2013, December 9). Instructional Design Models and Theories: Classical Conditioning. Retrieved from https://elearningindustry.com/classical-conditioning.
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On Purpose Associates. (2011, April 14). Behaviorism. http://www.funderstanding.com/theory/behaviorism/
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