Praise or punishment: Applying behaviorism in the classroom

By Dawn Marie Sicurelli
College of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
November, 2010

Today’s lecture was very insightful. We discussed behaviorism and learned about the operant conditioning process. For example there must be a stimulus followed by a response and that response leads to a consequence. Dr. Boyanton used her daughters’ toy birthday cake to demonstrate how learning is behavioral change. This was a very effective lesson. We also learned about the types of reinforcement which included positive and negative reinforcement, punishment, extinction, time out, and response cost. I was a little confused with the negative and punishment reinforcements but Dr. Boyanton took some time after class to explain it to me.

I believe that motivating students to learn requires both praise and punishment. In my experience, some students are more difficult to handle then others and some need to experience punishment reinforcement in order to succeed the next time around. For example, if a student submits a late assignment and receives a zero (punishment), this student will hopefully get the next assignment in on time. I think some students like to “push the envelope” to see how much they can get over on a teacher. Therefore, as discussed in class, a teacher must have clear rules for applying reinforcements. A teacher must be prompt, specific, consistent, sincere, and fair.

I personally learn better with praise. I have very high anxiety and when there is a deadline, I get very nervous and feel that I cannot perform my best. This is something I am working towards changing.

During my observation, I noticed the clinical instructors continually use praise for reinforcement. I find this technique to be better than punishment because the students are more relaxed and it created a more comfortable learning environment. Also, during one of the interviews, I asked the director the following question. How do you help increase confidence in students? Her response was “praise, praise and more praise. Every little accomplishment that the student achieves deserves praise.”