Behaviorism in Today's Classroom

There is a wide variety of theories on how we learn. One theory is that of Behaviorism as presented by John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner. They believed that an individual’s behavior is learned from external stimuli. “The learner acquires behaviors, skills, and knowledge in response to the rewards, punishments, or withheld responses associated with them.” (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008)This is obvious in class management. Teachers use different strategies to be effective in class management. They may use some form of card system. Green, yellow and red cards are used to represent a student’s behavior. When a student acts inappropriately, they move their card to yellow. If the behavior continues, the card is moved to red. For each behavior, an immediate response is given.
Learning through the use of technology is similar. When an action is required by the learner to produce the correct behavior, immediate rewards are given. If the action is incorrect, immediate feedback allows the learner to learn from their mistakes and the action is repeated until the correct behavior has been mastered. (Magliaro, Lockee & Burton, 2005) Many of our technology instructional materials use immediate reinforcement, either positive or negative, to influence learned behavior. Children enjoy using these instructional materials. They have fun while learning.
I believe that utilizing behaviorist learning theory in the classroom is beneficial to the learner. In today’s society, we want instant gratification. According to behaviorist theory, we are learning and modeling our behavior through external stimuli all the time.

Lever-Duffy, J., & McDonald, J. B. (2008). Theoretical Foundations. In Teaching and Learning with Technology (pp. 2-35). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Magliaro, S. G., Lockee, B. B., & Burton, J. K. (2005). Direct instruction revisited: A key model for instructional technology. Educational Technology Research &Development, 53(4), 41–54.