When Behaviorists Implement Technology

 When Behaviorists Implement Technology in Education

In order to see how the behaviorist theory of learning relates to technology implementation we have to first determine... 

what a behaviorist is and what they believe?

Behaviorist studies why humans behave as they do.  Their aim is in finding out how a learner's external, environment affects the learner's behavior and how modifying the learner’s environment can change behavior. The behaviorist school of thought states that learners attain knowledge through, contiguity, conditioning, reinforcement, and modeling.

Contiguity, is a simple stimuli/response relationship, when one thing is regularly associated with another. An example of contiguity the association of a school bell with the end of a class period. The behavior associated with this would be students packing away their things to get ready to leave the classroom. Classical Conditioning says that we can take the association of the school bell and end of class period and add an additional stimuli of the teacher assigning homework at the end of class and do that action over and over enough times to elicit the same response of students packing away their things when the bell is removed and the teacher assigns homework. In operant conditioning learning is achieved through reinforcement. This is where we get positive and negative incentives from. When good behavior is rewarded with positive incentives and bad behavior is rewarded with consequences. Modeling, or observational learning, states that you learn by watching others. In order for modeling to be effective, the model must be exhibiting the desired behavior, the learner must retain that information, and then imitate it.

Behaviorists advocate that: new knowledge should be given in mini lessons where information is chunked into more attainable pieces, student growth should be recognized and praised, opportunities to succeed must be given to all, learning behaviors such as perseverance should be reinforced, everyone counts and is important, and that learning is never associated with punishment.

When technology is implemented from a behaviorist view it mirrors a traditional classroom. According to one literature review (Koç , 2005), when a teacher has a behaviorist view of education and technology is implemented in their classroom, students are relatively passive, the content and interaction between the student and the software  are  predetermined,  and  there  is  a  limited  repertoire  of  acceptable  responses.

When a behaviorist implements technology the new replaces the old...

Slide presentations and videos replace lectures. Word processing programs replace paper. Google Forms replace quizzes. Regardless of the technology, the student passively consumes that information and technology is just a replacement of the original tool.

When a behaviorist implements technology they use it motivation...

According to the BYU K12 Educational Technology Handbook, since Behaviorism conditions students to properly react to stimuli, technology can help facilitate this training by providing incentives to learning, such as games or other rewards, or by providing systems to efficiently develop stimulus-response conditioning. Educational games such as Quizizz and Prodigy fall into this category. Technology integration from this perspective is commonly used to increase student motivation.

I believe there is a place for this type of technology implementation. However, this should not be the ONLY way it is implemented in the classroom. Students need to be about to create and collaborate with technology. The short video below is a good representation of how we should be thinking about technology implementation.

References:

Kimmons, R. (2020). Technology Integration: Effectively Integrating Technology in Educational Settings. In  A. Ottenbreit-Leftwich &  R. Kimmons (Eds.), The K-12 Educational Technology Handbook. BYU Open Learning Network. https://open.byu.edu/k12handbook/technology_integration

Koç , M. (2005). Implications of Learning Theories for Effective Technology  Integration and Pre-service Teacher Training: A Critical Literature Review. Journal of TURKISH SCIENCE EDUCATION, 2(1).