Personal Reflection on Behaviorism

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Behaviorism as a learning theory intrigues me. I understand its implications with both humans and animals and even want to use some of the information I learned with the organisms in my life, such as my roommate's cat, future birds, and learners I interact with in my different teaching roles. However, part of me feels a bit daunted about the implications behaviorism presents. Organisms are believed to be born with a clean slate to learn from, and that all of our responses and decisions are results of environmental stimuli that impacted our behaviors throughout our lives. This idea terminates the concept of free will. That frightens me a bit. It also makes me skeptical. Such a perspective feels too absolute in a world where not everything is so black and white as childhood rearing makes a young mind believe. Behaviors, too, can change upon reflection of past actions, future goals, friends, family, colleagues, enemies, and your own perspective of who you are and want to become. Such introspective shifts in behavior, to me, are not necessarily driven by an external stimulus that is trying to shape your behavior through reinforcement. It makes me wonder, too, how changes in understanding by sitting down with your thoughts, writing things out, having spiritual meditations, and other influences could possibly be justified by behaviorsim. When dreams are able to help you solve problems or create stories to tell, does the behaviorist say that these dreams - these concoctions of the subconscious - stem from only external forces influencing what our subconscious absorbs and delivers? What about meditation that is capable of relaxing the body on pure thought and muscle alone? This behavior could have been taught to a learner by someone until they exhibited that behavior, I suppose. I say this all in the perspective of only knowing behaviorism as a learning theory. Perhaps it would be easier to fill in these gaps and questions once I learn more about cognitivism and social learning. 

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I think this learning theory does a great job of informing instruction, and I personally hope that someday I can use the instructional design theories (literally all three of them!) in future instruction when I am a professor. I think this has a great use of application in engineering and other math and formula-based courses, such as Physics and General Chemistry. Organic Chemistry, I think, could greatly benefit from this type of overhaul. I could see myself using Criterion Referenced Instruction in my future courses as a way to assess what students know so that I am not wasting time on topics that are mutually mastered. It is something that I actually considered quite a while ago, but never knew there was a name for it! Programmed Instruction (branching, specifically) or even Mastery Learning would be great for helping students with prerequisite materials that they might need refreshers on before delving into the course content. I think the instructional design theories for behaviorism truly match what behaviorism is: a series of stimulus-response relationships aimed at changing behavior. A series of problems and feedback could easily help a student change their calculus-derivative behavior to help them address a tricky question that they struggle with, as an example. 

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The use of classroom activities also were reflective of behaviorism. It was nice to see some of the principles in action, and I actually found myself more willing to try the techniques when having witnessed and participated in them myself (talk about stimulus-response!). In the classroom, we were given an assessment about behaviorism that very much resembled branching programmed instruction in a packet form instead of a computer-assisted learning form. We read a piece of information, were asked a question, and if we got the question correct, we moved to a different part of the packet. If we got it wrong, we were instructed to view the information again (remediation). Feedback was provided whether it was correct or incorrect, and I suspect if this was in a computer format, it would be easier to "hide" the correct answer to help make remediation more effective. We were also privy to operant conditioning as reinforcers like candy and stress stars were given to us when we answered questions correctly or in a way that could be shaped towards a better response in the following questions. 

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I've definitely gathered a lot of ideas about how I can shape instruction for my students in the future after learning about behaviorism. I think the instructional design informed by behaviorism would be very useful for my engineering students, either when working with math problems or in laboratory exercises. I used that as part of the inspiration for my learning scenario for the knowledge base. I think with all the consumption of my graduate work (which is read, write, discuss), I lost sight of the importance of repetition. I think being able to practice your skills is something that is lacking in a lot of STEM education, and I appreciate the use of assessment and immediate feedback in smaller, chunked-up lessons and frames. Too often, our assessments are singular exams covering whole units pinned throughout the semester, instead of smaller assessments sprinkled in every week or so, if not every class. I think the constant need to interact with the materials through mini-assessments does a better job of "forcing" students to study each day or week as opposed to cramming for exams, which is not necessarily an effective way of "learning" (though it seems to be a great way of getting an "A"). I've included feedback on every question that I write for the course I currently teach, which is an online half credit course on the Concepts of Business. I think that has been really beneficial for students because it acts as a reinforcer for those who got the questions correct and can provide feedback and direction for those who did not (I generally tell them which materials to reference for the question and explain the concept of the right answer for that question). It is interesting because I never realized that I had been classical and operant conditioning my pets when training them to "step up" or do tricks (that was more with the dog that I puppysat). I definitely have a new perspective on learning, but I am interested to see what the other theories have to offer. It makes me wonder, what is the process of learning described by behaviorism when I read a book and learn a life lesson from it? Or learn about the world the author built? Is that stimulus - the interaction with the book - creating a response and change in behavior in me that the author, as a pseudo-instructor - was trying to elicit or change? Or is there a different explanation for this? I think those are the questions I still have about behaviorism, though I know it doesn't necessarily account for internal thought processes since they aren't "measurable". But you still have an external stimulus causing a change in behavior when reading a book? I think I'll have to think on that one a bit more, though perhaps I should try to "behave" about it if I'm going to use behaviorism as a guide.