Behaviorism

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Behaviorism
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Behaviorism

• Not considered a philosophy
• Thought of as psychological theory
• Behaviorism in education referred to as
  behavioral engineering.

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Bases of Behaviorism

• Behaviorism resembles both realism and
  materialistic philosophies.
• A realist element of behaviorism is going from
  particular observable facts to forms or the
  laws of behavior.

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Materialism

• Theory that laws can be explained by laws of
  matter and motion.
• Behaviorism is mainly related to mechanical
  materialism.
• Thomas Hobbs

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Early Behaviorist

• Ivan Pavlov
• He started experiments dealing with the
  conditioning of animals and humans
• He was the father of the conditioning theory

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Early Behaviorist Cont.

• John B. Watson
• Believed that fears are conditioned responses to
  the environment.
• Believed environment was the primary shaper of
  behavior.

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Positivism

• Divided History into 3 Stages
• Theological
• Metaphysical
• Positive

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B.F. Skinner

• High Priest of Behaviorism
• Wrote Beyond Freedom and Dignity
• His view was that we are both controller and
  controlled. We humans are our own makers.
• Viewed the educational process as one chief way
  of designing a culture.

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Philosophy of Education

• An educational method that is more practical and
  produces greater results than any other

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Aims of Education

• Believed that computers have a useful part in
  learning.
• The primary aim was to change the behavior and
  point it in a more desirable direction.

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Aims of Education

• Believe that a child is an organism who is
  already highly programmed before coming to
  school.

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Aims of Education

• What passes for education is not good education
  because
• Little reinforcement
• Lack of motivation
• No immediate feedback

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Methods and Curriculum

• Teachers should use rewards as reinforcement
  tools
• Exp. Smiles, Stars, Paper money

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Curriculum

• Organized in small discrete units
• Straightforward learning objectives
• Big Picture should emerge at end of unit

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Methods and Curriculum

• Learning should take place in small steps
• After answering a question correctly the
  succeeding question should relate to the
  previous.
• This is what Skinner called teaching machines

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Role of the Teacher

• Will reward desirable behavior
• Will fail to reward undesirable behavior
• Would like to achieve desirable behaviors through
  conditioning.

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Role of the Teacher

• Behavorist believe that teachers can make a
  difference if they act cooperatively and
  intelligently.