John Nistler

310 02

4/23/06

Reflective Paper 4

Standard 4: Individual Development & Identity Strand D: apply concepts, methods, and theories about the study of human growth and development, such as physical endowment, learning, motivation, behavior, perception, and personality

Reinforce desired behaviors

One day when Mrs. Kennedy was gone for the day, there was a substitute and we were in the Eagle Lab doing research for the student’s presentations. I was walking around and watching some students do research and I was watching others who weren’t. I would walk up to a group and ask them what they were doing their project on and what type of media they were using. I got a wide range of answers like movies, PowerPoint’s, etc. Not very many groups were utilizing the time to work on their project, so I walked up to one of the group’s and told them that they were doing a great job of working on their project. They seemed happy and excited to get a compliment from me and they kept on working. “Behaviorists recommend that we describe, up front, the behavior we want students to learn and demonstrate” (Ormrod, page 307). The day before the class was to go to the Eagle Lab Mrs. Kennedy explained that everyone needed to be working silently on their project in order to make good use of their time. I was reinforcing the directions by complimenting the groups that were following the directions correctly. Some groups started to work on their projects because they saw me walking around, and others just didn’t care and decided they would work on their projects at home. It is important to reinforce desired behaviors because students need to know if they are doing something right or not. If they are doing something correctly they need to know about it and are more likely to continuing doing things correctly.

Provide opportunities for students to practice correct behaviors.

When we were in the computer lab to do research on all the student’s projects they had a number of opportunities to practice correct behaviors. They had the whole hour in order to practice working on their projects to make good use of their time, just like Mrs. Kennedy told them to the day before. They had the time in between when I talked to each group to make sure they were on task. They could have started to work or behave better after I approached the group. It is important to give students a lot of opportunities in order to practice correct behaviors, especially in group settings. “Students are reinforced only when everyone in a particular group… achieves at a certain level or behaves appropriately” (Ormrod, Page 308). Giving the students many opportunities to practice correct behaviors in the computer lab gives the students a chance for everyone to achieve a certain level or to reach the level of behavior that is expected. You can’t expect to go up to a group of students, tell them to behave, and then come back two minutes later expecting them all to be behaving. It takes time and opportunities, and positive reinforcement from the teacher and the group members.

Cue appropriate behaviors

When Mrs. Kennedy was doing her individual student interviews out in the hall, the students had quiet time in the classroom to work on their homework. Mrs. Kennedy kept the door to the classroom open and was standing somewhat in the doorway during these interviews. The students, like you would expect any students to do when the teacher is away from the class started to talk amongst themselves. Mrs. Kennedy let it go at first because it was only at whisper level but when the noise became louder; Mrs. Kennedy would stick her head in the door and say “everyone should be quietly working on their reading assignments.” Without pointing out certain students or becoming extremely angry she just calmly told the students what they should be doing at that time. When the students heard Mrs. Kennedy they all started to work silently once again. One of the tips in the book to effectively use reinforcement is to “monitor student progress” (Ormrod, page 310). Mrs. Kennedy did a good job of that by staying in the doorway of her classroom and doing her interviews. She could ask and listen to questions during the interview and she could also glance inside the classroom to monitor student’s behavior. These are all good ways of cueing appropriate behavior that Mrs. Kennedy used in her classroom.

Cue students when you see them behaving inappropriately

When the class was in the computer lab doing research there were a few groups that were just sitting around and searching the internet. They were not doing what was expected of them during their work time. I would walk around the lab and watch students work on their projects; if someone was not working I would slowly walk towards them and stand nearby. I would ask them questions like what are you working on? What topic do you have? After doing this to a couple of groups, the rest of the class caught on, I would slowly walk towards another group and they would start to work on their project to avoid conversation with me. It sounds like a bad thing to say “avoid conversation with me” but with me walking towards them it cues the group to start working on their project. Once they start working and I don’t need to talk to them, it reinforces the group to keep working because they don’t want me to walk over to them. “When body language doesn’t get the attention of a misbehaving student, a more obvious cue is physical proximity: moving closer to the student and standing there until the problem behavior stops” (Ormrod, page 315). This reinforces in my mind that physical proximity is a good thing to instill in my classroom. It is an indirect way of telling students that they should be working on something constructive, or to stop misbehaving instead of yelling at them. In my example above I used a mixture of physical proximity and brief verbal cues to get groups back on task.