Chapter 7 Learning Log

what:

Knowledge construction can occur during both storage and retrieval. There is a variety of things people can learn from one set of information because different people construct different meanings from the same stimuli or events.

People organize information in different ways. Some times in concepts, a mental grouping of similar things; schemas, tightly organized set of facts related to a particular thing; scripts, schema with a particular order; theories, general understanding and beliefs systems; and world views, general set of beliefs about reality.

Reinforcement is the act of following a response with a consequence. There are many different types. Concrete reinforces, social reinforces, activity reinforces etc.

Reinforcement, however, usually falls into two categories positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is presenting something to in crease a behavior and Negative reinforcement is taking away something to increase behavior. With in this the timing of the reinforcer needs to be as close to a behavior as possible to have an effect.

Shaping: reinforcing successively closer desired behaviors. Shaping is a way to get desired behaviors. What happens at first is that you reinforce any behavior that resembles what you want in the end. Then you only reinforce something that is more close to the end result you want until you get to the point where you only reinforce the end behavior.

Cueing: reminding children of the behavior you want from them.

Extinction: reducing undesirable behaviors. This can be done with a few different techniques. Reinforcing Incompatible Behaviors is when you reinforce behaviors that are the opposite of what you are trying to reduce. For example if you want the students to talk less during work time you can reinforce the student when they aren’t talking. “Jake you are working nice and quietly on your assignment, thank you.” There is also punishment. Punishment is a consequence that decreases behavior such as making the student write sentences for misbehaving like Bart has to do in the opening credits of the Simpsons ( presentation punishment). Punishment can also involve taking away something, like minutes of recess (removal punishment).

So What: Different people will bring different unique prior experience to you classroom which means they will construct different meanings from the things you teach. Students will also extract different meanings because people see and hear what they expect to see and hear. Because when we retrieve information we might have holes in our memory, sometimes we might construct memory to fill in holes.

Different reinforcers will be better for some children than others. As well as different children will be able to delay gratification of receiving a reinforcer the more mature they are. We also need to remember that praise is not always a reinforcer.

Shaping can help us to narrow down behaviors that we want. It is another tool for our teacher tool box.

Punishment is not thought of as very effective. It may sometimes only temporarily suppress a response, but has not been known to always eliminate it. Sometimes what a teacher feels is punishment is actually reinforcing the behavior.

Now what: because people construct different meanings we need to make sure that our messages are clear with out ambiguity. Because children might construct their own memory to fill in holes we need to make sure that information that is difficult to fill in logically is learned well.

Reinforcers need to be used effectively. The desired behavior needs to be stated up front in observable terms. Instead of saying I need you to talk through the halls well, you could say, I shouldn’t hear any talking, everyone should stay in a straight line with their hands to them selves, etc. AS a teacher I need to think ahead to identify consequences that will reinforce the different individuals in my class. Some students may not want praise from a teacher so you would want to reinforce them in a different way to increase behavior. I need to be careful with extrinsic motivations especially since they often loose their effectiveness after a time.

I need to make sure I use punishment only after other alternative approaches have been ineffective. Also, consequences need to be followed through with especially in the case of punishment. If you don’t do what you promise the threat of punishment becomes an empty threat.