Unfortunately for the students in Mr. Wiebe’s classroom, high school teachers don’t tend to use playtime or candy (or even stickers) as reinforcers. However, the types of reinforcers Mr. Wiebe uses to motivates students tends to be not so far off from things you would see in an elementary school classroom. Like coloring. I know what you’re thinking, does that really work? Do high school students actually get so excited to color that they do their work? The short answer is yes. Mr. Wiebe’s logic behind using coloring is very simple actually, the rest of high school is pretty stressful and if he can teach them something without adding more stress by doing it in a calm, chill way, why shouldn’t he? For example, today students were learning about different types of elements within the periodic table (like noble gases and alkali metals) and instead of having them all sit there and zone out while he lectured at them, Mr. Wiebe gave them an assignment where they color in the periodic table in a specific way (like yellow for metals, polka dots for alkaline earth metals, etc) so they could see the separate groups and how they can overlap. There was a catch though, everyone had needed to have completed the homework assignment from the night before. Which of course Mr. Wiebe had told the students the day before, to give them a fair shot he said. I didn’t know this when I first arrived at the classroom today and heard one student ask another “Victor, you better not have messed this up for us, dude, if Wiebe just talks, I’ll cry”, which now makes complete sense but at the time seemed a very odd thing to tell your friend. Luckily, Victor had indeed done the homework and everyone in that class had a very nice, calm day with no lecture.

Coloring is by far not the only reinforcer Mr. Wiebe uses. He also uses other arts and crafts! Like the element plaques assignment I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, which I didn’t know until today was also a “reward” version of an assignment. Apparently, that assignment for the eleventh graders is the fun version for if the class all turn lab reports in on time (or, as Mr. Wiebe revealed to me, they have a very good reason for it to be late). The alternative form the assignment could have taken would have been a page long “paper” (I put paper in quotes because for all the college students here the idea of a one-page paper probably seems quite bizarre) about an element instead. Whether the allure of an arts and crafts project was what worked or the desire to avoid writing a paper, the students were still motivated to turn in their lab reports on time. Another reinforcer Mr. Wiebe uses is work time, which might not really be a reward kind of positive reinforcement but definitely appeals to the students. Time and again in my observations I’ve seen students urge the other students they are working with to get back on task, since using work time to actually get an in class assignment done is what earns the students more in class work time. Let me give you an example to explain more. Say on Monday the students are given a worksheet (sadly not a coloring one) and Mr. Wiebe says they get half the class as work time to do it. If all the students finish, Mr. Wiebe lets them have more in class work time on say Wednesday to do another assignment (instead of lecturing). If once again they all do the assignment, Mr. Wiebe lets them have in class work time on Friday as well, only then he doesn’t give an assignment, so the work time can be used however the students want. They can do homework for his class, homework for another class, make up a quiz, whatever they want or need. If the students make it to Friday racking up the in class work time and there isn’t any pending assignments in his class, Mr. Wiebe lets them watch part of the “Mystery of Matter” documentary (or work quietly on other schoolwork). While watching “Mystery of Matter” would definitely be a motivator for me (my chemistry nerd definitely shows there), a good portion of the students just seem to enjoy not having work to do and either do other homework or play games on their school issued iPads. Which is also acceptable since Mr. Wiebe says the important part is just that they get a break from chemistry.

(How I imagine I sound admitting that I’d do schoolwork just to watch Mystery of Matter)

No matter which tactic for motivating students Mr. Wiebe uses, it definitely seems to explain the motivation his students show for turning in work when they seem so ambivalent towards the class. While I cannot for sure say whether these reinforcers are actively conditioning students to feel a certain way towards turning work in on time, there is absolutely no way you can say these reinforcers don’t work in getting them to do it. And it probably helps that they aren’t as traumatizing as a Skinner box.

One of the more traditional cognitive approaches I observed this week was your standard lecturing, which nowadays isn’t as standard as I am used to. While Mr. Wiebe’s job in lecturing is pretty similar to what I experienced in high school (standing by a smart board with a presentation on it and occasionally doing things on the white board), the student position is quite different. All students at Northfield high school are issued iPads (a program that started about eight years ago), which they CAN use to take notes and even annotate a copy of the lecture presentation. I stress “can” because in my observations (and Mr. Wiebe’s) they don’t always do. As Mr. Wiebe expressed today, while the iPads can be very useful and helped make distance learning a little easier, they also exacerbate some students’ difficulties paying attention in class because they could be literally doing anything on their iPad and as long as the sound if off, Mr. Wiebe would never know. For some students, I’ve seen this be a problem, where they were playing online solitaire or watching YouTube instead of following the lecture. Other students, the ones who Mr. Wiebe describes as the “already motivated to take notes” kind, have no problem paying attention when using the iPad since they don’t tend to use it for non-class material during class.

All in all, I tend to be drawn much more towards behaviorism, even though as a student I don’t mind lecturing as long as I feel like I can organize my notes well. As an observer/tutor, I definitely enjoy behaviorism because it seems to get the students more excited and (sort of a selfish reason) it gives me something to do in the classroom that’s kinda fun. I have to admit, even I’m more engaged when the assignment I’ve helping answer questions about is more hands on, like coloring a periodic table. I find it so much easier to try to help guide students towards answers in those kinds of situations and help them work through the logic than when they’re just filling in blanks and I just have to give them the answer.