Similar to the wife in this article changing her method of
nagging the husband to positively reinforcing the husband, I was positively
reinforced with homework completion. Early on in my junior year, my teacher was
unhappy that his students were not doing the homework that he assigned, mainly
because he never checked them and they were not worth any points. Until one
day, when he came up with the solution to start grading them for accuracy,
instead of not giving any value to whether his students completed them. Once we
realized that he was grading us on our homework, we began completing the
assignments. Our math teacher operantly conditioned us to complete all of our
homework assignments by positively reinforcing us. The reinforcement was
receiving a higher grade in the class. In addition to learning the material
from the homework, we also received higher grades on the test. In this case,
positive reinforcement was a very effective way for the teacher to make his students
complete the homework assignments
Nick,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great way to reinforce a positive academic turnout. The use of a fixed variable ensures that students can both comprehend and apply the lesson. As the lesson increase in difficulty, that means the more likely students will have to go in to ensure a good grade.
Nick,
ReplyDeleteIt troubles me how much students depend on grades as opposed to learning material. The teacher knows that his/her students will change their behavior as soon as their grades drop. This is a good use of operant conditioning, but I still think our society places too much of an emphasis on grades.
Nick,
ReplyDeleteThis is a true, yet aggravating example of positive reinforcement. Homework is effective. But at times I see it like busy work or work that could have easily been done in class. In this instance, where homework is usually seen as a required burden, your teacher makes it a gift, and although for points, in the way it was presented, almost like bonus points. This is just me rolling my eyes while thinking about past classes in math though. so a bit biased.
Despite my stance against homework, that is a good example of operant conditioning. The use of punishment caused the students to change their behavior. However, I believe it is up to the students to learn not the teacher.
ReplyDelete