How do we recognize when students have "got it?" How can we know what they understand? For the behaviorist, "knowing" involves actions we can see. Anything unobservable is irrelevant. In short,

• Knowledge is observable through behavior
• It is impossible to "see" what is inside the mind

Since the behaviorist throws out the unobservable, students must demonstrate learning through their own behavior. We can examine how students react in certain situations and structure classroom conditions so that we positively reinforce behaviors we want. In summary, learning

• Can be observed through behavior
• Is establishing a new stimulus-response connection (Classical Conditioning, Pavlov/Watson)
• Is a result of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement or to avoid punishment (Operant Conditioning, Skinner)
• Can be shaped since situations with identical [stimulus] elements call for similar responses (Operant Conditioning, Thorndike)

• Create "chains" of desired student behavior by establishing reinforcement for those desired behaviors

Primary grade students receive gold stars for each day of "on time" attendance.

• Reinforcement must occur soon after the desired behavior in order to be most effective

Gold stars are given immediately as students file into the classroom, put away their belongings, gather work materials, and begin the daily warm up.

• Use routines to help students "practice" desired behaviors until they become habitual (Thorndike's Law of Exercise)

During the first week of school, a teacher directs students through each step of the "enter the classroom and start the day" routine. Praise and other rewards are given to students who get it even partially right (Skinner's Shaping theory). Eventually students follow the process on their own with no prompting, and the reward is removed.

• Reinforcement is best used at variable intervals (Skinner's Schedules for Rewards)

Teachers issue gold stars for following the morning routine at sporadic intervals - maybe once this week and two days next week.

• Computers are particularly effective in teaching routine skills. The instruction can be individualized and rewards immediate.

PowerPoint stand alone presentations that allow the user to direct her own investigation and test learning.
Example

• Develop curriculum materials that build from simpler tasks to more complicated ones

  In math, we teach one-digit addition before two-digit addition; simple subtraction before subtraction that requires borrowing.

Ivan Pavlov(1849 - 1936)

John Watson (1878 - 1958)

B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)

Edward Thorndike (1874-1949)

The Behavioral Approach
Stanford Encyclopedia on Behaviorism
2002 Summer Cohort PowerPoint Presentation on Behaviorism