One of the most obvious forms of operant conditioning in the classroom is Reading Rewards. Every Monday, Ms. McLaughlin announces to the class that some lucky students have won a Reading Award, which means that they have read 500 minutes (every 500 minutes they get another Reading Reward). In reward for reaching this goal, the students get the choice of a free Culver’s ice cream, making a bookmark, getting the teacher’s chair for a day, and things like that. This reminds me of the Premack Principle because the reinforcers are all things that the kids want. When I was in 4th grade, we had a similar rewards program but unlike Ms. McLauhlin, the teacher didn’t pick great rewards. Nobody really liked the teacher and all the rewards involved spending time with her. As a result, my fellow classmates weren’t enthusiastic about the rewards system and thus the work they needed to do to get the rewards. But back to the present day. The announcement of the Reading Reward recipients is exciting — the kids all sit on the edge of their seats, eyes fixed on the teacher, hoping that their name will be called. Not only is the tangible reward a positive reinforcement but so is having their names called and being congratulated. The student has an opportunity to be praised and rewarded for reading and in response, the kids read. As a result, they are reinforced positively if they meet the 500-minute work, but are punished (in a sense) if they do not meet the goal and do not get the reward/praise. This cycle of getting rewards/not getting rewards incentivizes the students to read more. However, it doesn’t seem fair that all the kids must read 500-minutes to get a reward. 500 minutes of reading is not equal for all the kids. For example, one boy has already read almost 3,000 minutes, whereas others have yet to reach 500. It seems like some kids might feel more willing to read if their reading goals were more appropriate for their reading level.

Another attempt at operant conditioning I’ve witnessed is during lesson time. Before she starts the lesson, Ms. McLaughling tells all her students to put their bins away (the bins hold the students’ books, notebooks, papers, etc.). This is supposed to act as a cue that it’s time to concentrate. However, not all kids follow this stimulus to concentrate. Allie (a 4th grader that has difficulties concentrating) often continues drawing or reading during this time. She doesn’t get away with it. Without fail, every lesson period the teacher walks by her desk and takes away her drawing notebook. One may expect that this punishment (penalty) would teach Allie not to draw during lesson time, but it doesn’t seem like Allie has picked up the signal. She learns differently from other kids, and she responds to punishment differently, too. This seems to be an example of operant conditioning not working. Perhaps eventually, having her notebook taken away every day will extinguish her behavior of drawing during the lesson, but it hasn’t yet.

In terms of cognitive approaches, Ms. McLaughlin’s class uses iPads for several “learning” activities. Instead of teaching the whole class the same thing even though kids need help with different concepts, the teacher employs the iPads so that the students can work on math and reading questions that fit their needs. The teacher can assign each student a different unit that matches their skill. For math, the students use a program called IXL and for reading they use Lexia. Although these programs help facilitate cognitive growth, there are aspects of behaviorism in them, too, as each correctly answered question leads to praise like “You got this!” and it increases the percentage marker on the top of the screen, which shows how much the students have left. Although I’ve mainly talked about behaviorism, I think I agree more with cognitivism. Behaviorism seems more structured and so, in a classroom setting, might be easier for a teacher to use and for a volunteer (me) to observe. After all, schools are based on punishment and punishment plays a prominent role in behaviorism. However, I think behaviorism is trickier because of the issue of intrinsic motivation.

Like every visit, I spent the majority of my one-on-one time with Allie, the smart, easily distracted 4th grader. Ms. McLaughlin wanted to work with a few kids on reading to helping them improve their fluency in reading out loud. She pulled three students, including Allie, to the back table and handed out colorful pieces of paper. The kids had one minute to read the story out loud and at the end of the minute, we’d record the number of words they’d read. It soon became clear that Allie needed to go to a quieter space. Instead of listening to the directions, she stared intensely at a number grid poster while muttering something under her breath. At first, I thought she was just reading out the numbers, but then I realized she was reading them in Spanish — “sesenta y nueve, setenta, setenta y uno…” “Allie, let’s go out in the hallway.” I didn’t know if I should pull her away from her practicing, but I eventually cajoled her to step out in the hallway with me.

We sat down at a table with cushy chairs that was between Ms. McLaughlin’s and another 4th-grade teacher’s class, whose classroom door was open. I put the paper on the table and started to explain the activity. “Allie, Allie, can you concentrate.” I felt a sense of despair. This was going to take a long time.

“Can we move?” Allie asked. “I’m going to be distracted by that classroom.” I was impressed. Every time we go into the hallway, Allie becomes distracted by the classroom across the hall and I was amazed that she recognized that and wanted to change her situation.

“Okay,” I said, “where shall we move? Do you want to go down the hallway?” I suggested.

“No, I change my mind. I just want to lean my head against this [chair] and sleep,” she sighed.

“Oh, are you tired, Allie?” I asked. This worried me. Why was she so tired? Why had she not gotten enough sleep? How was I supposed to have her do this activity when she was so tired? Perhaps Allie was actually not tired, but said it to get out of the activity (like we’ve talked about in class), but I don’t think that was the case.

“Hey, Allie. You’re good at reading. You’re going to be great at this activity. Can we please do this and then we can go back in the classroom?” I said, kindly. To my surprise, she sat up and looked at the yellow piece of paper in front of her. “Okay, so you’re going to read this for a minute. Ready?” She nodded and I started my timer.

Ms. McLaghlin told Logan and me that this was a new activity and she didn’t know if it’d be good or not. The student will end up reading the story multiple times and tracking their progress of how many words they read. I don’t like the assignment. Reading fast doesn’t mean reading better. When Allie started reading, I smiled. Her pronunciation (except for the name Wyatt, which she pronounced Watt) was spot on, her tone differed between dialogue and non-dialogue, and she read with a joyful expression-ness. My timer got to one minute but I didn’t stop her — she was enjoying reading and would have been confused. She read 141 words in the minutes, but she was shy of reading the whole thing. “Allie, you read so well. Your voice is full of expression when you read! You sound like a real narrator!” I said, thinking the praise would be good for her, even though she normally doesn’t acknowledge it. She looked me straight in the eye, put her hands over her heart, and said, “That warms my heart.” This was the nicest thing I have heard her say and I felt so touched that she told me how she felt. We proceeded with the activity where I read the passage to her but messed up several words. She caught every mispronunciation. Afterward, she did another strange thing. She grabbed my hand and started stroking my fingernails. “My nails are different than yours,” she said. I replied that they weren’t, that mine were just bigger because my hands were bigger than hers. She kept her hand on mine, then started touching my wrist and arm. I gently removed her hand from mine and directed us (without fuss!) back into the classroom. I found this whole event odd. She behaved much calmer today than previous days, which I appreciated, and at the same time her touch seemed strange. She doesn’t seem to understand boundaries with touch, that perhaps one should touch even one’s hand or arm without asking.

I enjoy working with Allie, even though it’s often difficult. Even though she sometimes yells at me and hit me, and sometimes acts rather peculiarly, she is teaching me a lot about how kids see the world. On Friday, when I was trying to explain some math to her, so looked at me and said, “Sophia, just because you’re a college student doesn’t mean you’re smarter than me.” I laughed, “Well,” I said, “that might be right but I can still help you.” Kids are smart but there is still a lot Allie can learn from me!