This week when I was supposed to observe reinforces of student behavior, also happened to be the week I noticed posters along the wall of the classroom that listed the class expectation. There were 5 posters on the wall, one for each of Mr. DuBe’s class periods. Given the different styles of handwriting I guessed that Mr. DuBe had asked the kids to think of and agree to a list of class expectations. Examples of expectations were, “turn assignments in on time, respect everyone, keep an open mind to learning and trying new things, be on time for class, ask for help when you need it…” By asking the students to come up with their own expectations, Mr. DuBe was empowering with a cognitive approach to managing behavior. By placing the responsibility on students to set expectations for themselves and each other, the students motivation should have been internally motivated. This way of enforcing rules could theoretically require students to be more involved in the process of enforcement and understanding why certain behaviors are helpful to learning as opposed to just exhibiting the behavior. However I have seen little evidence of students holding each other accountable.

I have seen Mr. DuBe use operant conditioning techniques by starting class as soon as the 2nd bell has rung. This consistency is similar to how in Educational Psychology, Deborah closes the door and starts class at 10:10 every day.

Mr. DuBe is also very clear in his instructions whenever he wants the students to do something. For example when working on an outline or when he gives a lecture on grammar he gives students step by step instructions to find a certain document in their online portal. This type of instruction ensures that nobody gets lost or falls behind and may help people build the habit of getting out the appropriate materials for an assignment.

There are however no clear policies or conditions to students having their phones out or to playin paying attention in class which I feel could improve the student’s energy and focus. Given that the students are slightly older (14-16) years old, they should be old enough to understand why having their phone out is a distraction. Students can be positively reinforced for having the tablet out because they need it to take notes or complete an assignment, however there is no negative reinforcement for playing games on their tablet. While I don’t think the correct solution is to call out or ridicule a child for doing something wrong like playing a game rather than taking notes, I do feel that there needs to be some kind of expectation or way of excluding that kind of behavior i.e. some kind of firewall. Personally I think there are ways in which I could incorporate behaviorist and cognitivist methods in the classroom. At heart I think I’m a cognitivist because it is based in the process of learning which I think is far more valuable than learning specific facts. However I do feel that there are ways in which behaviorist methods can be used to help guide students behavior to optimize their ability to learn more complex ideas. As long as the behaviorist methods do not cross a line into belittling a student then I believe they can benefit a child’s cognitive development.

Friday afternoon Mr. DuBe asked me to work one-on-one with a students named Maddy. He briefly explained that she needed help with her outline and that she was mad at him because earlier in the week he had talked to her about skipping class. He went on to say that he had had her in the past and that she was known for holding grudges. After the students finished taking a quiz I went up to her and asked her if she wanted to come work on her outline with me. We went out into the hallway and found a nice table to work at. I then started to ask her about her essay outline, if she had picked a topic, how she was feeling about it. She pulled out her i-pad and said embarrassed that this was all she had. I took a look and saw she had picked out a question and had short brainstorm paragraph. I smiled back encouragingly saying that it looked like she had a great start. Her essay was on the American Dream, which as an American Studies major had my mind racing. We began to work through her brainstorm looking for ideas to pull out for her topic sentences. I could tell that she had really good ideas she just felt intimidated by the putting them into sentences part. Even though I’ve written a lot of essays I totally sympathized with her.

“My mind just went blank, I dunno what to say”

“Don’t worry about it sounding good yet, practice and editing will do that for you. Just tell me what your thinking about.”

This type of positive reinforcement helped her relax a little and got her out of her head. Based on Mr. DuBe’s description and her own anxiety that she expressed about writing I could tell writing was not something she felt she was particularly good at. Having a one-on-one interaction with me seemed to make her feel less intimidated. After class as students filed out of the classroom I reported back to Mr. DuBe that we had finished her outline. He appeared relieved but not particularly enthusiastic. He said that she responded well to one-on-one interactions and mentioned that she was involved in a tutoring program called Torch, but that he struggled to engage her in the classroom. Mr. DuBe negative reinforcement of Maddy’s negative behavior of skipping class had resulted in a rift between them making any kind of reinforcement tricky. I can imagine it must be really difficult as a teacher to know that a student is struggling and to know what may help them, but to not be able to deliver that help yourself.