Unit 4: Theories and principles for planning and enabling learning
In modern day teaching, the onus is shifting further and further away from teacher dictated methods of educational delivery, to methods that ensure the learner is placed at the heart of teaching, and every individual within the classroom is considered and catered for. Advances in technology available to teachers has contributed to a broadening of teaching styles, but this has mainly come about through the need to differentiate teaching more effectively and break down the barriers that exist between teacher and learner. Engaging every learner is a difficult task and requires the teacher to have a plethora of knowledge of teaching methods and theories. Learners may differ
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Operant conditioning is a theory put forward by Thorndike. This theory waits for a desired behaviour to occur and then rewards it. It builds somewhat on the work done by Watson regarding trial and error learning. Perhaps the most prominent or influential behaviourist work is that done by Skinner. Skinner adopted an operant approach to behaviourism and famously conducted experiment using rats in specially designed boxes. Skinner’s ideas revolved around the presence of a reinforcer to cause a desired behaviour to be repeated. This could be in the form of a primary reinforcer (a basic need like food) or a secondary reinforcer (such as money or praise). In the case of his rats, Skinner effectively trained them to pull certain levers to release food. Initially, the release was accidental but after a while, the rats learned to associate the arrival of food with the pressing of a lever. Skinners work revolved heavily around the need for reinforcement, reward, punishment and feedback. The scheduling and delivery of these things was also important to Skinner who suggested the timing of something like a reward was paramount to its success at brining about long term changes in behaviour. Similarly, he suggested giving punishment should occur immediately after the event in question and in a consistent manner. Also, it was skinner who introduced the concept of successive approximations – small
1. Operant conditioning is a type of behavioral learning developed by made famous by psychoanalysis B.F. Skinner in the late 1930’s. Operant conditioning is the act of learned behavior through consequences. Types of operant conditioning are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment.
According to Kail and Cavanaugh the theory established by Skinner known as operant conditioning is a “learning paradigm in which the consequences of a behavior determine whether a behavior is repeated in the future” (p. 13). This theory to an extent, parallels the previous theory of operant conditioning but is also important in trying to understand why one makes the decisions they do as well as how often they partake in certain behaviors. Through his theory Skinner displayed that there are two types of consequences, reinforcement and punishment, in which one increases the chances of repeated behavior and the other vice versa. Reinforcement is the component that increases the likeliness of repeated behavior and includes two divisions, negative and positive. Negative reinforcement is that in which a person’s
Skinner created the theory of Operant Conditioning as he believed that all behaviour can be controlled by rewards or reinforcement. This is very different from Pavlovs theory of Classical Conditioning as Skinner is trying to control voluntary behaviour. This is done by giving the subject a positive or negative reaction to an action with the theory that a negative response will discourage the subject to repeat the action. A good example of this is house training a dog, as the dogs natural reaction is to relieve itself, however it must be taught to wait until it is outside. The more the dog waits until he is outside, the more praise he receives therefore it is less likely to wish to instigate a negative reaction by relieving himself inside the house.
B. F. Skinner’s entire system is based on operant conditioning. The organism is in the process of “operating” on the environment, which in ordinary terms means it is bouncing around the world, doing what it does. During this “operating,” the organism encounters a special kind of stimulus, called a reinforcing stimulus, or simply a reinforcer. This special stimulus has the effect of increasing the operant - which is the behavior occurring just before the reinforcer. This is operant
Skinner’s reinforcement experiments conducted on rats showed the principles of operant conditioning. While working with rats, Skinner would place them in a Skinner box with a lever attached to a feeding tube. After multiple trials, rats learned the connection between the lever and food, and started to spend more time in the box procuring food than performing any other action. He used positive reinforcement, and negative reinforcement to produce or inhibit specific target behaviors. Therefore, if a specific behavior is reinforced then the probability of that behavior occurring again is increased. Based on Skinner’s view, this theory can be applied to learning because learning is nothing more than a change in behavior. Operant conditioning encourages positive reinforcement, which can be applied in the classroom environment to get the good behavior you want and need from students. One of the ways of reinforcing a student’s behavior is through praise. Also teachers can build operant conditioning techniques into their lesson plans to teach children possible skills as well as good behaviors. For example: to give a smiley face, or motivational stamps to encourage children to perform correctly and encourage them to repeat such action again.
Through the use of this model, Skinner was able to develop a more comprehensive view of conditioning which is now known as operate conditioning. Operate conditioning is rewarding a desired behavior. Skinner performed much research on this new form of conditioning and arrived at the conclusion that both animals and humans would repeat actions which led to favorable outcomes as well as suppress those that produced an unfavorable outcome.
Operant conditioning is a theory that was pioneered by Skinner, and it is a theory that is based on the type of consequence that is given following a particular behaviour. Skinner divided the consequences of actions into three groups, positive rein forcers, negative reinforcers and punishers. Skinner looked at what would happen to behaviour if giving positive reinforcers at different intervals. Most professionals and practitioners will use this theory in one way or another such as giving rewards for good behaviour or sanctions for bad behaviour so the theory is well used in today’s frameworks and practices.
Operant conditioning that introduce by B.F.Skinner refers to a systematic program consist of rewards and punishments, which influence the behavior by the use of reinforcement. Operant conditioning known as instrumental conditioning which animals use its own behavior as an "instrument" to pursue some goals. An individual relates particular behavior and a consequence through operant conditioning. B.F.Skinner believed that external is more obvious to explain the behavior than internal thoughts. Besides, Skinner believed that behavior can be observe by the causes of an action and the consequences. Three types of responses that can trace behavior identified by Skinner which are Neutral operants, reinforcers and punishers. Positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior by rewarding an individual, as consequence in order to eliminate undesired behavior. Skinner proves that by remove an unpleasant reinforcement can also strengthen behavior because it removes an unwanted behavior. Punishment is design to eliminate undesirable behavior rather than increase. Punishment can categorize in two, which is positive punishment and negative punishment.
Operant conditioning is also referred to as 'instrumental conditioning' and is reported as a "method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior." (Cherry, 2007) Operant conditioning was first examined by B.F. Skinner, a behaviorist and this is why it is referr3ed to as 'Skinnerian conditioning'. (Cherry, 2007) Skinner held that "internal thoughts and motivations could not be used in explaining behavior and that human behavior could be explained both by internal and external factors.
Operant conditioning is based on the work of B. F. Skinner. Operant conditioning is a form of learning in which the motivation for a behavior happens after the behavior is demonstrated. There are four different types of operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a kind of conditioning which examines how often a behavior will or occur or will not occur depending on the effects of the behavior (King, 2016, pg. ). There are four different ways that positive, negative, reinforcement and punishment are applied in operant conditioning. They are used as either positive and negative reinforcement or positive and negative punishment (King, 2016). Although, positive and negative apply more significance to the words reinforcement or punishment. Positive is the addition of something to the stimulus, while negative is the removal of something from the stimulus (King, 2016). For instance, with positive reinforcement, this is the addition to a factor that impacts the behavior to increase the amount of times that the behavior occurs (King, 2016). An example of positive reinforcement is when a child is given an allowance for completing their household chores; the positive reinforcement is the allowance which helps to increase the behavior of doing chores at home. In contrast with negative reinforcement which increases the possibility of a behavior occurring by removing something from the factor that is influencing the behavior (King, 2016). For example, scolding a student in the library every time they bring food into the library, results in the student not taking anymore food into the library to avoid a scolding. The behavior that was prompted to occur more was the student no longer bringing food into the library and it was
Within the early 19th Century, Edward Throne like conducted experiments on dogs and cats to determine the way these animals behave under certain conditions. These studies were conducted through replicating and standardizing the circumstances that the animals were in through a controlled environment. As such, this model demonstrated that animals had the nature to learn when they were presented with certain consequences. In 1938, Burrhus Friederich (B. F.) developed the core idea of the Operant Conditioning Skinner, which claims that operant conditioning, was brought about by the response from the operant under threat (Sakagami,&Lattal, 2016).
Operant conditioning, also referred to as instrumental conditioning, is a way for modifying behavior (an operant) which in turn utilizes contingencies among a new discriminative stimulus, a great operant result, plus a reinforce to vary your probability of any result taking place all over again in this situation. By means of operant conditioning, a connection is manufactured involving the behavior and an effect with the behavior. Behaviorist B. Y. Skinner, which explains why you may sometimes listen to this often-called Skinnerian conditioning, coined operant conditioning. Skinner used the term operant to refer to any "active behavior that operates upon the environment to generate consequences" (1953). The components of operant conditioning are reinforcement and punishment.
The principals of operant conditioning, teaches how having certain coping techniques can reward certain undesirable behaviors. Conditioning human behavior has been studied for many years, Psychologists Edward Thorndike and B.F. Skinner, have dedicated the majority of their lives to the study. Thorndike’s theory Law of effect. Thorndike suggests that certain stimuli and response become connected or dissociated from each other. His experiment worked by placing a cat in a box, then observing its behavior as it tried to escape and obtain the food on the other side. He studied several cats and plotted the time it took for them to escape from the puzzle box. The challenge to get out of the box remained the same, but the amount of time to get out of the box decreased, and while the animal may have not realized what it was doing, but knew what he had to do to receive the food. He concluded that animals learn from reward and punishment or trial and error. The theory of B.F. Skinner is based upon the idea that learning is about change in behavior. Operant conditioning is learning by consequence. To put it simply, an action which he rewarded is likely to be repeated along with an action that is punished is less likely to be repeated. B.F. Skinner introduced a new term into the law of effect known as reinforcement. Behavior that is reinforced tends to be repeated while behavior which is no reinforced tends to disappear. conducted an experiment where he placed a rat inside a special
B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) fully developed the concept of operant conditioning and how this could explain much of our daily behaviour. Operant conditioning involves an association between a stimulus, the response to the stimulus (a behaviour), and its consequence. In many marketing situations, the behaviour is an action,