IPT 301 Week 6

1. In school: Our teacher would hold up a big yellow hand and tell us to be quiet. After a little while, the hand automatically elicited the response of silence. Outside of school: We would set the table before it was time for dinner but dinner always followed shortly thereafter. Dinner always brought everyone into the kitchen but we all learned to associate the set table with dinner and we would all head to the kitchen.
2. As an elementary school child, I was very shy and feared punishment. Therefore, I was a very cooperative child and avoiding punishment was reinforcement enough for my good behavior. However, things at home were a little different and I needed more reinforcements. I used to get a piece of candy every time I practiced the piano for a half an hour. This usually worked and I wanted to practice the piano so I could get a piece of candy but if there was no reward, I had no desire whatsoever to practice.
3. I could use reinforcement schedules in the classroom for almost any behavior. For example, if I want students to learn the behavior of not talking during the lesson, I would positively reinforce the students who were being quiet at random intervals by giving positive praise to the students who were. I could also do something like a marble jar where I added a marble each time the class was being quiet and when the jar was full they would get a party.
4. Behaviorism could be considered to contradict the gospel perspective of agency because it is conditioning the students to do what you want them to do and what you feel is the right thing to do regardless of what the students actually want to do. However, I also think that behaviorism can include elements of agency. When children are misbehaving, give them choices: say you have a child that doesn’t want to complete their work in class, let them choose if they want to complete their work right now or if they want to complete it on the bench at recess time. I don’t think that behaviorism completely removes some ones agency, they are simply choosing their behavior based on the consequences they would rather experience which is basically what we are doing in the gospel. We want to gain the Celestial Kingdom, be blessed, and feel good so we choose to do what is right.