Behaviorism

=**Behaviourism**= **Monitor:** Audrey

Behaviourism refers to learning through the use of rewards or punishments (carrots or sticks). Behaviour that is rewarded increases in frequency and behaviour that is punished decreases in frequency. It is assumed that learning is relatively passive.
 * Description**

**Possible Benefits**
 * In the short term, rewards and punishments change behaviour, at least as long as the rewards/punishments are present

**Possible Problems**
 * Teacher is the “fountain” of knowledge, and the learner is “passively absorbing”
 * Rote learning, no development of critical thinking
 * Students learn to seek external rewards and lose the motivation to learn
 * Creates the impression that the content being taught is not interesting/relevant, so much so that rewards are needed to make it interesting


 * Concrete Examples**

Pavlov (founding behaviorist) showed that dogs can be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell. This theory was generalized to human beings.
 * Example #1** Classical conditioning : stimulus -> response

Skinner took behaviorism a step further to demonstrate that there is a consequence to the stimulus.
 * Example #2** Operant conditioning : response --> stimulus / consequence

// Example 1 // – [|Pattern Flip] ** (Audrey) ** This Gizmo allows students to explore four different scenarios where there are different patterns. 1. The environment stimuli is the visual attractiveness of the gizmo (bright colours, animals that learners know well, etc.) 2. The learner knows that the answer is correct by the ring tone of the correct answer (wrong answers are rejected).
 * WBLT Examples**

// Example 2 // – [|Find grampy]** (Audrey) ** This Gizmo allows students to explore different scenarios (find grampy, grammy, etc) 1. Learning is relatively passive. 2. The environment stimuli is the colours, the 2 characters at the forefront, hiding behind the hedge, etc. 3. The learner knows that the answer is correct by "thank you", "yeah", etc (wrong answers are rejected and the message is "too small", "cold", etc.).

//Example 3 -// Ishihara color test ** (Elita) ** This WBLT allows the user to test their ability to differentiate colors using a version of the standard Ishihara color test. Users are presented with color plates and asked to identify the number they see within each plate. While there is no location for the user to input their answer, users are asked what they can see on the plate and then asked to click for the correct answer (Elita).

Example 4 - [|CSI Web Adventure]** (Colin) ** I've not played it, but this is an example of gaming in an educational context. Gaming offers classic examples in behaviourism. Players are constantly punished or rewarded for their decision making as they move through a game. This is one example of how a game can be used to help students learn concepts, in this case forensic science.

Example 5 - Colour, Shape and Size (Mike) The student guesses how the given objects are grouped, then adds similar objects to complete the grouping. If the student gets it incorrect, the objects are removed and the message "Try again" appears. This is repeated until the student gets it correct or a new problem is chosen.


 * References**
 * Behaviorism described at Learning-Theories.Com **