R6

Quote: “Students do not turn off per se but from failing when a reward is at stake. In learning contexts free of extrinsic motivation, students are more likely to persist at a task and to remain interested in it even when they don’t do it well” (Kohn, p. 124).  

Question: The above quote made me think about how our current education system gives students the impression that their academic progression is determined by a letter grade. My question is that I wonder if grades were not distributed to students, if students would want to learn just for the sake of learning? If there were no grades, would intrinsic motivation increase?      

Personal Connection/Outside Connection: The articles by Kohn and Chance are two people out of many individuals who have a wide perspective of the pros and cons to rewards and punishments as it pertains to educating students. From my perspective, as a School Psychology student, I am behaviorally driven. However, a ride on the fence with some of the issues of operant learning as aspects to it should be enforced, while others should be tapered off. For instance, Kohn noted that the leading form of operant learning in our public schools is punishment: when students defy the teachers, they are punished; when they get into a fight, they are punished; when they are tardy, they are punished; when they chew gum in class, they are punished, and the list goes on. According to the information from my behavior management course, if the undesired behavior continues after a stimulus (reward or punishment) is given, then the stimulus did not work; this is most often the case with punishment when students are not taught an alternative behavior. I think there is a time for punishment and there is a time for rewards, all of which are individualized according to the specific needs of the student. Some students need to be praised a little more than another student to ensure that they are motivated to complete a task. Then the question becomes: is the child receiving praise only motivated to learn when praise is given or will the student want to learn in the absence of praise? Again, I think this is something that cannot be answered in a ‘cookie-cutter’ kind of way because each student is different.    

Overall, I would have to agree more with the arguments made by Chance in that punishment does seem to be detrimental in the intrinsic motivation of a child. Kohn makes some great points, but his arguments suggest that there should be no place for rewards or punishment within the school. I would have to disagree especially when discussing students who have a disability. In my behavior class, we discuss different management techniques that can be used to assess behavior and to help shape behaviors. In shaping a behavior (especially with student who have a disability), it is important that students are presented with some type of reinforcement so that the undesired behavior may gradually shape into a more desirable one. Students with a disability thrive off of a structured environment and reinforcements. I couldn’t imagine a school environment in which students were not given reinforcements; I think that would bring more fatality to intrinsic motivation than the use of rewards.

Behavriorism Video Example..

The video is an example of operant conditioning, specifically positive reinforcement. The baby is being positively reinforced to laugh. The child is presented with a spoon (stimulus) and then the child laughs (response).

R5

Quote: “To get better teachers we should pay them more, possibly according to merit. They should be certified to teach the subjects they teach. To get better students, scholarship standards should be raised. The school day should be extended from 6 to 7 hours, more time should be spent on homework, and the school year should be lengthened from 180 days to 200, or even 220 days. We should change what we are teaching. Social studies are all very well, but they should not take time away from basics, especially mathematics” (Skinner, 1984, p. 947).

Question: The above quote makes me wonder: should America use models from other countries whose education system are excelling above us? What variables are facilitating ‘mediocrity’ within the educational system in America? Nationally, have students who attend school year round improved in their academic performance compared to those students who attend schools from August to May?

Personal Connection: B.F. Skinner wrote the article, The Shame of American Education, twenty-seven years ago and not much has changed within the educational system. There continues to be a struggle with finding ‘highly qualified’ teachers and ensuring an increase in pay for the responsibilities that they have. Another deficit that the American education system continues to exhibit is the inability to hire teachers to instruct in the area in which they were trained; teachers are often asked to teach subjects in which they have had little to no training.    

B.F. Skinner also wrote that, “at little to no additional cost, that students should would come to school and apply themselves to their work with a minimum of punitive coercion and, with very rare exceptions, learn to read with reasonable ease, express themselves well in speech and writing, and solve a fair range of mathematical problems” (James, 1984, p. 948). This is an interesting quote as educators continue to question how they should improve education in a way that would motivate students to want to learn just for the sake of learning. If education was designed in a way to capture the ‘stream of conscious” of every child, then there may not be a need to increase the number of school days because the set days would be well spent by the students. I think that there can be too much emphasis placed on what subject each student should master; is a child who has mastered arts and has exercised his creative mind, but has deficits in math less intelligent than the student who has mastered mathematics, but has deficits in art? In my opinion, education is such a broad scope that it cannot necessarily be boxed into a few pinpointed categories such as math and science. I wonder if the focus shifted from defined elements of education to a broad spectrum, if more students would be motivated to want to learn just for the sake of learning.              

Outside Connection: Skinner listed a number of suggestions that he gathered to resolve the conflict in education, which made me think about William James. Most, if not all the suggestions that were listed can be balled up into a common theme of not getting caught up in the model of education, but to think about the art of teaching. Throughout James’ talks with teachers, he reiterated that the key to implementing a proper education is to grab the ‘stream of conscious’ in each student and to embrace the art of education.

Could the above video demonstrate what B.F. Skinner was trying to get across to his audience in The Shame of American Education? It's an interesting video worth watching.

R4

Quote: “Your task is to build up a character in your pupils; and a character, as I have so often said, consists in an organized set of habits of reaction. Now of what do such habits of reaction themselves consist? They consist of tendencies to act characteristically when certain ideas posses us, and to refrain characteristically when possessed by other ideas” (James, p. 90).   

Question: In reference to the above quote, since ‘an organized set of habits’ encompasses character, what are some habits that teachers should help to instill in students that will in return, ‘build up a character’?

Connection from personal experience: In regards to ethical behavior, William James stated, “To him who acts habitually under the notion of good he gives the name of freeman. See to it now, I beg you, that you make freeman of our pupils by habituating them to act, whenever, possible, under the notion of a good. Get them habitually to tell the truth, not so much through showing them the wickedness of lying as by arousing their enthusiasm for honor and veracity” (James, p. 94-95). This quote struck me as I thought about my career goal of becoming a School Psychologist and interventions that will be implemented for teachers to use on their students. William James, in a sense, indicates that teachers should reinforce positive behaviors so that students will become ‘habitually good’. My experience as a practicum student on site at two elementary schools is similar to this quote made by James. It is quite often that teachers will consult with the school psychologist about a behavioral intervention that will help to minimize the frequency/intensity of behaviors, such as being off-task. Teachers are often told to catch the student performing a pleasant behavior and provide him/her with a reward instead of scolding an unpleasant one. James makes it clear that the focal point need not be on the negative, but rather on something positive.  

Outside Connection: This quote also reminds me of the information that I am currently obtaining in my behavior management class. William James’ declaration to teachers about facilitating ‘good’ within the student reminds me of shaping behaviors. When shaping a behavior, the intention is to provide the student with feedback that will be a guide towards the desired behavior. In this case, James’ description of instructing students to get in the habit of doing ‘good’ is an illustration of shaping a behavior. Alongside of that, the previously stated quote about character building is also an example of shaping a behavior into a desired outcome.

Overall, after reflecting on the entire book, It strikes me that a lot of William James’ ideas can be traced to many popular theories in psychology, and the information that he provided over a hundred years ago is still very much applicable to modern day. 

Module1

The implicit association tests that I completed were the Light Skin-Dark Skin IAT and Religions IAT. Since I have taken a different form of these implicit associations tests before, I knew what to expect and could somewhat predict the results before completing each tests. Even though I had completed a form of these tests before, it was still an eye opening experience because it allowed me to reflect on my own personal biases. At the end of each test, I looked at the nationally average percent of responses  and was not really surprised by the findings because it seems as though the responses reflect main stream societal views. The media perpetuates a lot of ideas that shape everyone's perspectives. Even the most self-reflective and  culturally diverse person is unconsciously swayed by what the media presents, and will most likely fall into the percentage of the majority of responses.

Associations and memory are related, and in fact, go hand-in-hand. I don't believe that you can have memory without association because memory is built around associations. When recalling a specific memory in my early childhood, I am able to remember the event because it produced an emotion which is now associated with the childhood event.

I believe our associations have an impact on our future behaviors as is typically demonstrated by the implicit associations test. This is something that has been researched for many years. A classic example that comes to my mind is Little Albert and John Watson. Watson took a little boy and presented him with a furry rabbit, which the little boy enjoyed until Watson created an 'association'. When Little Albert was presented with the rabbit, Watson rang a loud bell which startled Little Albert and made him cry. Watson repeatedly did this until he only presented Little Albert with the rabbit. With no surprise, at the sight of the rabbit, a once playful boy who loved the rabbit, was now terribly afraid. Why? Because Little Albert 'associated' the rabit with a loud unpleasant sound and therefore, no longer wanted to play with it. With that being said, it could almost be safe to say that our future behaviors depend on our associations.     

Chapters 10-14

R3

Question: In the book, William James illustrates how to maintain attention even while performing boring tasks, such as staring at a dot. He indicates that one must find various ways of making the dot appealing (p. 52-53). With that being said, how can teachers or other educators help students to have the desire to ‘stare at a dot in various ways’?

After reading the assigned chapters, the following quote stood out to me: “The optical impression may affect solely the marginal consciousness, while the mental focus keeps engaged with rival things. We may indeed not ‘see’ it till someone points it out. But, if so, how does he point out it out? By his finger, and by describing its appearance,- by creating a premonitory image of where to look and of what to expect to see” (p. 54).

This quote is very interesting to me and the concept can not only be applied within the context of education, but throughout various settings. Since my interest is within the realm of education, I will talk about how the above quote is applicable. Students who have difficulty in a subject being taught may be focusing on the wrong piece of information, which may cause academic deficits. When a child is falling behind peers in class, it is the responsibility of the teacher and other school personnel involved in the academic progression of the child, to find other ways of explaining or teaching material; this is also known as an academic intervention, and could increase the likelihood of that child understanding the material. Academic interventions are relevant to the quote in that before implementing the intervention, the student may be focusing on something marginal which may be the result of incomplete math problems, for example. When the intervention is implemented, the student’s prior focus is rerouted into another focal point, a math equation. In this case scenario, it could be that once the student was given an equation, he was then able to ‘see’ how to complete the math problems. The illustration of an academic intervention and its relevance to the above quote is one of many ways this quote can be applied. In reference to teachers, the quote allows them to understand that students may not necessarily ‘see’ things from their perspective of teaching; certain steps, such as pointing out a word or an equation, may be necessary in order to capture the ‘sight’ of the students, and increase the likelihood of sustained attention to the teacher.

The above video illustrates the quote previously mentioned. It is amazing how we, as humans can be focused on one thing and not even recognize something different until it is pointed out to us. The video also demonstrates what William James called, 'voluntary attention' in which the stream of consciousness is fixated on a particular object, which in this case, is the amount of times the basket ball is passed back and forth by people on the white team. The very act of focusing solely on the white team requires voluntary attention.