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Mary Lynn McPherson...
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Week Three - So, What's On Your Mind? Obviously Not Behaviorism!

6/16/2015

2 Comments

 
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Would it be overstating the obvious to say that the behaviorist learning theory blows my mind? Behaviorism lies in black or white, right or wrong. Self-reports have no room at the table with behaviorism; all data must be absolutely observable. This is starting to sound like Data from Star Trek!

Behaviorism can be classical conditioning, as demonstrated by Pavlov’s dog experiment (Harasim, 2012, p. 32). Here you thought when you heard a bell an angle just got their wings; nope, Rover just got dinner. Operant conditioning (Skinner’s work; Harasim, 2012, p. 32) describes “reinforcement of a behavior by a reward or punishment.” Under the behavioral theory the stimulus results in a response, and there is nothing in between. The mind is a big black box that is pretty much vacant.

I have two observations about behaviorism. First, students LOVE it. They LOVE having one right answer. This pretty much is new information they have learned by rote memorization and successfully spit back out. Recall test questions are the easiest to write, and the easiest to take. Check out this link:


http://www.vignetteslearning.com/vignettes/i-choose-c-video.php

Second, LIFE is not behaviorist. Look at any patient with an addiction (food, drugs, playing the ponies, smoking) and there is SO much angst between the stimulus (“oh that pizza looks good, but I’m really trying to lose that last 10 pounds”) and the response. Something’s cooking between those ears! So, I find it hard to believe anyone really embraced the behaviorist learning theory – move over for the cognitivist (and constructivist!).

Ref: Harasim, L. (2012). Learning theory and online technologies. New York, NY: Routledge.



2 Comments
Darissa Monroe
6/21/2015 10:32:41 am

Great post. I enjoyed the way you took the theory and equated it to real life, students and patients. This helped put it in context. I think it is easy to think that there is a stimulus and then a response. I guess those heavy analyzers are not a fan, i.e. Me! I believe there has to be a thought process, a process of rationalizing and that "between the ears" mindset or in between the stimulus and response. I believe when there is specifics involve and heavy instruction from the instructor, that helps with the stimulus and response. While I was preparing my assignment 2, I tried to create a activity/lesson that would involve both to ensure that I focused on both theories. How did your assignment 2 workout? Did you focus more on constructivism?

~Darissa

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Lynn McPherson
6/21/2015 09:22:10 pm

Thanks Darissa! I tried to straddle the fence between behaviorism and cognitivism. But I agree with you, although we default to the former a lot in academia, the holy grail ought to be constructivism! I am a big admirer of active learner, so I hope I'm going in the right direction. Thanks again!
Lynn

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