-One thing that I am curious to learn more about is how certain behaviorism theories are used on children with special needs. I'm curious to learn if they are the same or different, because there are many learning disabilities, so I'm guessing there are different approaches to consider when working with children of special needs.
-In today's schools I believe that it is important for both behaviroism and constructivism to be used in the classroom. When behaviorism is used when children are being reinforced by the teacher. This being said the teacher uses his or her opinion on what she thinks is appropriate for children to do in the classroom. Therefore, they can judge whenever they think it is appropriate for children to be punished or to be reinforced. Children aren't really learning what they think is right and are more or less being told what the teacher feels is right. Therefore, when they are all given a yellow marker they all see the marker in the same way. This could be helpful so there is no confusion on matieral or class behavior in the classroom. On the other hand with constructivism being used students are able to come up with their own interpretation of things they learn. Constructivism is achieved when students learn from their own experiences and understand things in their own way. In a school setting this would be called an inquiry education, where students do hands on activities for them to learn the material on their own. This is why when each student looks at a yellow marker they have their own interpreation of how the marker appears. I think that in a school setting a teacher should learn how to incorporate both techinques because sometimes students may learn things on their own, but their thinking and logic could be incorrect based on the reality of the thing they are learning. So, I believe that a teacher should let students do their own exploring and then critique them and guide them in the right direciton.
I was thinking the same thing about whether or not certain behaviorism theories are used on children with special needs. I feel like a lot of the readings in my education classes leave out the possibility of having a child with special needs in your classroom. I wish the reading would touch on this subject a little more.
ReplyDeleteI just responded and it was lost. :(
ReplyDeleteYou ask about something else I'm passionate about in your question about special education. Unfortunately (in my opinion) most of the instructional strategies that are taught in special education programs (from what I've seen) are entirely behavioristic. So, if a student completes a simple task like following his daily schedule, he gets goldfish crackers as a reward. I think this is sad because behaviorism tends to simply things into bits of behavior, and does NOT discuss thought or understanding at all. It seems that the strategy is implemented for students who are considered less intelligent in some way (and this isn't the case at all).
To answer part of your question, ANY instructional strategy applies to ALL students. Anything that increases human learning will increase it for all humans. At the same time, students are in special education for a variety of reasons, and it is not the case that all special education students have a lower IQ. Many autistic children have an average or above average IQ but cannot process social information (or understand it in a different way that is more egocentric or concrete). So, in that case, explaining social situations in a different way might be more effective than punishing socially inappropriate behaviors. This is one detriment of behaviorism, that any talk of thought, understanding, or cognitive process is largely ignored because the focus is increasing or decreasing a desired behavior.
Your distinction between behaviorism and constructivism is very interesting! This is an example of how teachers need to consider the goals they have for their students and then choose an instructional strategy based on that. Control is a huge factor sometimes. Teachers are uncomfortable giving control to students because it IS more difficult and a variety of things can result from letting student's speak. This is something that you should keep thinking about, because we will revisit it in the 'Classroom Design' section (and the project) when we talk about teacher controlled vs. student centered classrooms.