Principle Of Reinforcement On Learners

In a classroom, good behaviour may be rewarded by praising the learners. B.F. Skinner thus changed Thorndike’s Law of Effect into the Principle of Reinforcement. (Karstens, K., et al. 2018) The behaviouristic theory focusses on changing behaviour through use of a stimulus. To get the desired behaviour, a reward must be presented until the behaviour is constant even when not presenting the reward.

The implications of behaviourism in teaching

1. The nature of education

The transmission of skills, beliefs and practices depend on the society/cultures capacity to transmit information to the next generation. (Karstens, K., et al. 2018)

2. Managing and dealing with wrong behaviour

A teacher should not deal with problem behaviour by punishing learners.

Instead other methods of punishment should be used, such as: detention, demerits etc.

2. Discuss the differences between Operant and Classical conditioning theories.

Classical conditioning Operant conditioning described by Ivan Pavlov described by B. F. Skinner

Involves a stimulus to invokes the desired reaction Works mainly with reinforcers and punishments after the learner has done something – to increase or decrease certain behaviour

Uses involuntary reactions or automatic behaviours Tries to strengthen or weaken voluntary behaviours through reinforcement

Learners are passive Learners should be active and participate

Thoughts play a role Mental thoughts do not play a role

Based on Pavlov’s dog experiment Based on rat in box experiment

The differences between classical and operant conditions, as shown in the table above, is that classical conditioning mainly focusses on having a stimulus and a response. This response is involuntary and therefore not controlled by the subject. Therefore, the learner is passive and doesn’t realise it’s happening. Much like training a dog to do tricks, eventually the dog will no longer need the biscuit to know to sit when you say

Explain the implications of the characteristics of each component of memory for teaching and learning.

Sensory memory

People here get information from their environments – usually through their senses. (Visual, auditory, tactile etc.) This information is then stored briefly in the sensory memory and only the relevant/important information is transferred to the short-term memory. (Karstens, K., et al. 2018)

Thus, a teacher would need to make use of sensory objects to grasp learner’s attention and to lead them to process and remember the correct information. This can be done through videos, music, pictures, bright colours etc. Anything to grab and hold on to their attention so that information may be passed on to the short-term memory. Short term memory

Information in short term memory only lasts about 20 seconds, and to prevent loss of the information practice and repetition is required. (Gagné, 1985:72). The size of short-term memory is determined by how hard/difficult the information is that needs to be processed.

This means that as a teacher, you will need to do the work, repeat the work, and practice the work repeatedly until the work is transferred to long-term