Behaviorist approach of teaching

Questions and actives

Question one

Direct instruction is one of the methods that teachers can use to disseminate knowledge and enhance understanding to their students. Direct instruction is a teacher-centered approach where a structured academic content is delivered directly to learners (Killen, 2007, p. 101). Example of direct instruction techniques is demonstrations and lectures. Direct instruction helps in promoting academic achievement, creation of environment that fosters learning, helping students to become autonomous learners, and helping in organizing and explanation of materials that are appropriate to the abilities of students (Killen, 2007, p. 102). The extent to which this method can be used in classroom pedagogy will depend on various aspects. I will use it when introducing a new concept or topic to students. This will allow students to get a wide view and key aspects about the topic making them have an understanding of what the topic entails. This will also give them confidence because they will be given directions on how to approach it. I will use it to enhance the attitude of the students about a topic. This personal interaction will enable me to address various concepts that appear difficult and demoralizing. Furthermore, I will use direct instruction, when the number of students in a class are many and from diverse cultural background. This will save time and resources. More so, I will use this approach when the resources for learning are not enough for all students. This will enable students to acquire knowledge with less resource.

Question two

According to Fetherston (2006), behaviorist approach of teaching is one of the methods that teachers can adopt in their classroom situations. The argument for adoption of this approach is that teachers should focus on environmental observable behaviors and conditions rather than the internal minds of students when teaching (Fetherston, 2006, p. 110). They should tailor their teaching by observing how the students are behaving to tailor their teaching. This approach can be implemented in a classroom situation when there is need to avoid monotony and boredom among students. It can also be used when there is need for the teacher to have in-depth knowledge and understanding about the ability of the children in other areas of life. This helps the teacher to understand the level of cognitive development of students and therefore helps the teacher to tailor the lesson to match with the children expectation and abilities. However, for this approach to be ethical and effective and to make children enjoy, the teacher should give attention and reinforce desirable observable behaviors of the children and help nature them. They should also reward their behavior at appropriate time (Fetherston, 2006, p. 110). For instance, a teacher may commend positively about the child behavior and many others.

Question three

According to Perkins (1993), education and curricula should aspire to achieve understanding and not merely knowledge. He uses a concept, “apple of understanding” to explain what is really required to achieve this. Teachers should not aspire to impact knowledge in the students, but they need to work hard to provide the students with skills that will enable them to understand various issues that pertain to their learning (Perkins, 1993, p. 32). School should not provide plain knowledge that does add value to their learning. The apple of understanding consists of the requisite knowledge. In terms of pedagogy, the apple of understanding as suggested by Perkins should have simplified agendas that teachers want their student achieve. It should also emphasis more on creating understand by restructuring of priorities (Perkins, 1993, p. 32). Teachers should also acquire more training on the best techniques to teach their students such us arrangement of ongoing assessment test for their children. Other strategies that teachers need to use are clear explanation of concept, and clarification, asking of questions, planning experiments and so forth.

Curriculum should also be restructured to address the needs of the student. It should be connected to the needs of the student by offering knowledge and should be based on future insights and applications. The curriculum should create an atmosphere that promotes acquisition of knowledge that helps student to understand, the broader experiences in life.

Activities

Learning to do skills

Molding is one of the activities that can be taught using demonstration strategies for teaching. A teacher can demonstrate to the children the techniques used to mould.

Learning to know [factual knowledge]

The fact that is identified is that dogs have four legs. The strategies that I may use in teaching this are test and quizzes. I may structure test, and ask the children to give the correct answer.

Inquiry in the classroom

Exploring these questions helps in enhancing the thinking capability of children. Through exploring these questions, student will learn how to be creative. The questions will be devised from the natural world: Who created the world? What is life? How many continents are there? What is the greatest continent? Which continent are you from?

In answering these questions, students must have skills and knowledge in the geographical location of the world. In exploring questions on citizenship, students should understand what citizen ship means.

References

Fetherston, T. (2006). Becoming an effective teacher: The body of lessons- behaviorist approaches.

Killen, R. (2007). Effective reading strategies: lessons from research and practice. Chapter 5- using direction instruction as a teaching strategy.

Perkins, D. (1993). Teaching for understanding, American Educator, The Professional Journal of the American Federation of Teachers, 17(3): 28-35.