I strongly feel that most of my education has been presented to me in a behaviorist manner. Even in college I find I am still subject to classes that operate on a rewards-system basis, and I am unsure as to how my teachers feel this method is effective. After all, are the correct answers on a test a sure sign I have fully understood the required material?
The answer is no, and I find it ridiculous that throughout most of my life I have been subjected to reinforced and rewards-based learning. When has this truly proven effective? After all, when Professor Kruse asked about the phases of the moon I found I had almost no idea as to what that encompassed, and I have been taught about moon phases in at least 3 different grades throughout my schooling! After we learned about the phases of the moon in Learning and Assessment I realized I had never understood them fully, and that example really showed me how important and influential the Developmental Learning Theory is.
When asked how the Developmental Learning Theory can inform all aspects of teaching I was confused. Are we being asked how it can inform every subject? If so, then the basics of it are simple—if we take the most concrete, relatable aspects of the subject and start teaching from them, we are going to be able to connect with the learners on a higher, more efficient level. However, I also see the question applying to different teaching methods. Any teaching method can benefit from breaking concepts down into their most relatable parts! It helps learners to identify with the concept and grasp it in a way that they can understand and hopefully retain the information that goes along with the concept. What better way to help students understand their education?
I completely agree with you. Throughout high school all I was concerned with was getting the right answers on a test. I would memorize the correct answers or concepts and as soon as the test was over I would forget them in order to memorize more things. I also found myself asking the question, "what do I have to do in order to get an A?" I should have been asking, "what do I have to do in order to understand this subject matter?" I think students are more concerned with getting a passing grade than learning something that will help them in their lives.
ReplyDeleteJessica, I agree with you on so many levels. Why are we rewarded or punished? Why do we need tests to determine what we have learned? It seems like teachers feel we will learn better that way when really we don't. Anyone can memorize the answers to questions but never understand what they mean, regurgitate them on a test, and get an A. I have come across so many subjects in college that I know I studied in high school but I just can't seem to remember anything about them. I think that if I had been subjected to the DLT in high school so many of my college courses would be easier because I would already understand them.
ReplyDeleteSam Greeno-
ReplyDeleteJessica, I agree with many points from your blog post. I can relate to your behaviorist-learning dilemma. I feel like I’ve gone into many of my classes with the mindset of working hard simply to receive the good grade. I would pretty much sacrifice learning for the sake of the good grade. The effort I put into a class was directly correlated with the amount of time needed to receive an A. I believe DLT informed teaching can prevent some of this “behavior” from happening. Students should be challenged to think critically and, heaven forbid, maybe even make a few mistakes once in a while (gaaasssp). Do we want students to learn, or do we want them to simply have a good GPA? Will real learning result in better grades or lower grades? These are some questions we may face as teachers.
The example of the moon seemed to really open all of our eyes! I do think that for some behaviors, rewards can be valuable, such as getting students to participate in class- do you not learn more when you are active in class, and aren't we more active when we get positive feedback from teachers? But I do wholeheartedly agree that for a long time it seems like our teachers haven't quite gotten it right with how to teach us so that we learn, remember and process the work in a meaningful way. Like Lacey said, it bothers me that we have to relearn so many things from high school once in college- it we truly had learned the material, so much review would be completely unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteI think that most people are conditioned to think in a behaviorist way, which is mind of a weird statement. From very early on, we learn that reward and punishment work well to get the desired actions we want. Behaviorism works to get actions, but it can't get children to learn. If we step back and think about getting children to learn rather than getting a desired behavior, it would be very beneficial to our students.
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