Ap Psychology Midterm

Constructivism refers to the idea that learners construct knowledge for themselves and that each learner individually and socially construct meaning as he or she learns. In the views of constructivism, there is no such thing as knowledge independent of the knower, but only knowledge that the student constructs for themselves as they learn. According the constructivist theory, “learning is not understanding the “true” nature of things, nor is it remembering dimly perceived perfect ideas perfect ideas, but rather a personal and social construction of meaning out of the bewildering array of sensations which have no order or structure besides the explanations which educators fabricate

Behavior is explained as a response to a given stimulus. There are two theories which explain how we learn. These are classical conditioning and operant learning as explained by B.F Skinner and. Ivan Pavlov .In classical conditioning, there are responses, usually involuntary which are as a result of experiences which occur before the response in question. This conditioning occurs when one learns to associate two different stimuli. Operant conditioning, on the other hand, changes in behavior which result from experiences which occur after the said response result in learning. This involves changes in voluntary behaviours.

Negative reinforcement strengthens behavior because it stops or removes an unpleasant experience. As an example if you don’t pay your school fees on time, there will be a punishment where you have to pay an extra amount. This is to strengthen you to pay your school fees on time. Positive reinforcement on the other hand is the act of rewarding by presenting the subject with something that it likes for example Skinner rewarded his rats with food pellets. Punishment is defined as the opposite of reinforcement since it is designed to weaken or eliminate a response rather than increase it. It is an event that decreases the behavior that it follows. Sometimes it’s difficult to cater for many problems with using punishment, such as its not forgotten

Positive reinforcers bring pleasant consequence abrupt by adding something pleasant to the environment of the individual. “This increases the probability that the response will occur again”(Darcy, pg 224). For example to increase customer response you may want to send a trail sample or coupon to entice the customer to the store so as to make a purchase. On the other hand negative reinforcement is the removal of negative stimuli from the individual surrounding environment. Negative reinforcement is a way to get rid of undesirable behaviors. Think about when you are listening to a radio and you are trying to hear the advertisement that is coming in all fuzzy. Well, if you adjust the setting on the radio to eliminate the static, you will be able to hear the advertisement and possibly want to proceed on to buy the product. In this case, you are removing the unpleasant behavior such as the static from the immediate situation to bring about the pleasantness of the advertisement. These two aspects of reinforcement both strengthen the individual’s behavior by adding or subtracting necessary praise or barriers.

Summary: Behaviorism is a worldview that operates on a principle of “stimulus-response.” All behavior caused by external stimuli (operant conditioning). All behavior can be explained without the need to consider internal mental states or consciousness.

Although operant conditioning uses positive and negative reinforcers to modify behavior, it is important to understand which of the two is most effective. Negative and positive reinforcers are applied not only in psychological studies, but in everyday life. Negative reinforcement modifies behavior by removing an unpleasant or adverse stimulus. Positive reinforcement is the least effective type of reinforcement. An example is an individual that drinks alcohol to excessive amounts, frequently, or goes to nightclubs and bars then drives while under the influence. The negative reinforcer is the consequence of getting caught driving under the influence by law enforcement or harming others. The consequence of getting caught driving under the influence is the removal of driving privileges, money, and short-terms of freedom (jail). The consequence of fines, loss of freedom, and removal of driving privileges are also considered a punishment. This is because the consequences are designed to eliminate a repeat of the behavior.

Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior which is behavior can be objectively and scientifically measured, as opposed to internal events like thinking and emotion. Behaviorists also believed that there is little difference between the learning that takes place in humans and that in other animals. Therefore, research could be carried out on animals as well as humans.

Behaviorism is primarily focused on observable behavior rather than on the thought process or emotion. This school of thought can be split into two main fields: Classical conditioning (Pavlov, Watson) and Operant conditioning (Thorndike, Skinner)

Thirdly, reinforcement and punishment is strongly embedded in this approach. Due to the fact that behavior is the result of external stimuli, theories suggest that a behavior can be modified through the use of reinforcements and punishments. Reinforcements are stimuli that encourage a person to do the behavior again, while punishments discourage the behavior. For example, preventing your child from using the computer when he breaks curfew would be considered a punishment because you want the behavior of breaking curfew to stop. Behavior modification through reinforcement and punishment is called operant conditioning.

Watson extended his interest in animals by concluding that because all species evolve in similar ways it is possible that the behaviour of animals can be related to that of humans (Bernstein, Clake-Stewart, Penner & Roy, 2012). Watson expanded on the idea of conditioning and learning and strongly believed that behaviour was directly caused by a reaction to a stimulus (Coon & Mitterer, 2012). Behaviourism is a learning theory based on the idea that behaviour can be controlled or modified based on the antecedents (previous events that have occurred that can affect the likelihood of a behaviour occurring) and consequences of a behaviour or action. (Watson, 1913,1919) Where behaviour refers to any overt or observable response or activity by an organism. There are three kinds of learning that this essay will elaborate on: operant conditioning, classical conditioning and observational learning, which all affect how an organism reacts or behaves in certain situations.

As introspection fell, behaviorism rose. Because behaviorism focused on observable behaviors, it made more sense that this theory could be used to test hypotheses and form data. However, psychology is about more than just observing the physical stimulus and a person’s response to it. An issue that arose out of behaviorist theory was the fact that there are many dissimilar stimuli that can mean the same

Teacher leadership can be defined in various ways, but one thing that all definitions have in common is the belief that teacher leaders should be empowered and driven to take the lead in schools. Teacher leadership is composed of instructional, professional, and organizational level school personnel whose primary goals are to develop a high-quality learning and teaching experiences in schools for all. There are various ways in which teachers do this that include: leading other teachers (i.e. coaching, mentoring, leading working groups), leading professional development (improving/building upon staff skills through PD), and fine tuning/sharing pedagogy. This is all done while remaining in the classroom as a skilled teacher.

Constructivist learning is theory based on how individuals learn and gain knowledge. Pritchard and Woollard (2010, p. 5) explain that the constructivist view of learning is the idea that students form meaning based on the information they have previously learnt. Each student will then construct this knowledge based on their interpretation of the lesson, their previous knowledge and understandings. Dobozy (2016) identifies two views of constructivism, cognitive constructivism is the idea that learning is an internalised process of constructing information and understanding; whereas social constructivism views internalisation as an occurance after learning and meaning is formed socially, and that social communication is vital for constructing knowledge. The fact that the classroom is a socially setting at teacher needs to understand the important role that social constructivism plays and the impact on student’s learning.

Exactly how these teacher leaders might be selected, or otherwise identified, and how they might begin to achieve the goals (briefly) set out above, is more difficult to establish. There are, however some broad recommendations for teacher leaders presented in related literature that sketch out a roadmap for educational leaders to guide them toward effective leadership (and describe what effective leaders should be expected to competently achieve). Teacher leaders should, for example, help to organize learning institutions in such a way as to emphasize instructional improvement and support this with a jointly developed and clearly articulated vision of quality instruction (Supovitz, Sirinides, & May, 2010). The most effective educational leaders, one can assume, would be those who are able to act judiciously and sensitively, tempering the need for progress with a genuine concern for the wellbeing of educators – taking contextual peculiarities and the unique challenges accompanying any local educational enterprise into account.

Definition- The learning of behavior through association with a punishment and reward system. As such the likelihood of a specific behavior is increased or decreased through the association between negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement. (There is also positive punishment and negative punishment but they haven’t been studied and are harder to grasp for learning techniques so will not be discussed)