Unit 2 QTC-
Chapter 9
Lower-Order Thinking
(Knowledge & Application):
List the basic
assumptions of behaviorism and give 2 examples of how these assumptions may
apply to your future classroom.
Higher-Order
Thinking (Analysis):
Compare and
contrast the similarities and differences between classical and instrumental
conditioning.
lower-order:
ReplyDelete1. people's behaviors are largely the result of their experiences with environmental stimuli
2. learning involves a behavior change
3. learning involves forming associations among stimuli and responses
4. learning is most likely to take place when stimuli and responses occur close together in time
5. many species of animals, including human beings, learn in similar ways
I am really a fan of numbers one and three. I think that humans learn best from what they experience in their environment. Consider an authentic activity that we do in my classroom. Hopefully it greatly impacts my students and they learn from that experience. For number three...connections between stimuli in the environment and responses are natural processes that occur in the classroom all of the time are essential to learning.
higher-order:
Both classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning involve stimuli and responses. The difference is that classical conditioning is involuntary, while instrumental responses are voluntary. In instrumental conditioning, the consequence almost always follows the response. The response is chosen, while in classical conditioning the response is learned.
Holly, I think that both of your questions were higher-order, as they both made me think and then apply them to real situations!
1. List the basic assumptions of behaviorism and give 2 examples of how these assumptions may apply to your future classroom.
ReplyDeleteThe assumptions of behaviorism include: 1) behaviors are largely due to their experiences with the environment; 2) learning is a process of behavior change; 3) learning involves forming associations among stimuli and responses; 4) learning is most likely to take place when stimuli and responses occur close together in time (contiguity); and 5) many species of animals learn in similar ways (experiments with dogs and rats that Pavlov and Skinner used to establish the behaviorist principles). An example for the first assumption is that a student who rarely turns in his/her homework due to frustration as a result of the teacher’s teaching materials that are way beyond his comprehension level. An example for the fourth assumption is that a student could learn to contribute more during discussions when every time he/she raises his/her hand is rewarded with teacher’s calling on him/her.
Using the revised Bloom’s taxonomy (page 418), the question is a lower-level question that required the learner to first “remember” by recognizing information learned during the reading (assumptions of behaviorism). Coming up with classroom examples required the learner to understand by constructing meaning via identifying new examples.
2. Compare and contrast the similarities and differences between classical and instrumental conditioning.
Both classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning involve stimuli that bring about learned responses. However, instrumental conditioning involves voluntary responses and classical conditioning involves involuntary responses from the learner. Also, instrumental conditioning utilizes a stimulus (reinforcement or punishment) that comes after a response from the learner to bring about a new response. For the classical conditioning, the stimulus (conditioned stimulus) comes before the newly learned response (conditioned response).
The question can be a higher level question that involves the task of “analyze” (level 4 of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy), or identifying interrelationship among parts (similarities and differences between classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning) if the learner goes beyond what is explicitly stated in the textbook. If the learner doesn’t go beyond it, this question could be a lower-level question involving “remember” and “understand” since there’s a section in the book that explicitly highlights the differences between classical and instrumental conditioning after briefly summarizing their similarities.