Week 2, behaviorism

What is learning and how does a teacher do it? I'm enjoying the build up of the idea of learning and how to accomplish it. These latest readings bring together an interesting combination of what kids grew up with, were trained to do by their parents and surroundings, and then what they had reinforced by positive or negative outside sources. In my lesson plan the reinforcement was as simple as a candy bar for bringing a book on time. In religious education the most powerful negative reinforcement we have is a look or conversation with parents. Usually this is sufficient. So as far as behaviorism goes, our strategy is to teach in such a way that each individual student receives positive reinforcement in two ways. First, we want them to learn new things because learning feels good. Second, we want them to feel new things. This is impossible to measure because even the effects can be faked, but the idea is to feel a spiritual something that makes them want to come back for more and try harder to achieve that "more." Therefore an effective teacher would know the material he or she is to teach and then believe in it to the extent that the students can begin their belief process by watching the teacher and imitating him or her. The reinforcement comes first when they see in the teacher something that they desire, a happiness or situation, and then they make the connection between what is being taught and what they can achieve. If I am happy, the student will want to be happy. The student then looks for the reasons I am happy and tries to imitate them. If what I am teaching is real, the student should be able to follow those teachings and become happy themselves. The process takes more time than receiving and eating a candy bar both come from the same idea. In essence, I must "practice what I preach."