301 Applied Lesson Plan: Behaviorism

My lesson plan is about the types of earthquakes and how they affect the Earth's surface. My goal for this lesson in the form of a behavioral objective is that students will understand the three kinds of faults: lateral fault, reverse fault, and normal fault by using their hands to model these faults. The students will demonstrate this understanding at the end of the lesson by writing a paragraph about the types of earthquakes and how they change the landforms around them.

When teaching this lesson, I will encourage class participation by using reinforcement. If I gave the student praise about how their response showed a good thought process, that would be considered positive reinforcement because I am trying to strengthen behavior (participation) by presenting a desired stimulus (praise) after the behavior. If I told my students that if they participated and showed me they understood the concepts through their written paragraphs, then I would excuse them from doing clean up crew before recess, that would be negative reinforcement. It would be negative reinforcement because I would be trying to strengthen the behavior (participation and understanding concepts) by removing an aversive stimulus (picking up scraps before going to recess).

If I decided to use positive reinforcement in the form of verbal praise, I would need to decide when to use this reinforcement. In other words, I would set up (either consciously or subconsciously) a reinforcement schedule. The type of schedule that provides the most response for the longest amount of time is the variable ratio schedule. If I decided to use this schedule, then I would vary the amount of responses before I gave praise. This shows that I value the students thinking processes, but they don't need to be praised every single time for them to keep up the desired behavior.

Another Behaviorist principle that can be employed in this lesson is using a cueing and prompting system. For example, at the end of this lesson it is suggested that students write a paragraph about their understanding of earthquakes and faults. The cue for this could be getting out a paper and pencil so that they are ready to write. The prompt could be a checklist provided by the teacher that helps the students remember what is expected when writing a paragraph like this. Points on the checklist could include writing in complete sentences, summarize principles, and connect to past knowledge. These things would prompt the students to write a paragraph about what they learned without the teacher guiding them the whole way through the process.

Using the Premack principle when teaching this lesson could motivate the students to become more involved. The Premack principle uses a more-preferred activity to serve as a reinforcer for a less-preferred activity. For example, if my students enjoy drawing pictures and coloring, I could say that if they first write their paragraph about what they learned, then they could draw pictures of the types of faults with their colored pencils under their paragraph. The more-preferred activity, or coloring, would reinforce the less-preferred activity, or writing a paragraph.

This lesson plan supports the Behaviorist principle of shaping. Shaping is reinforcing each small step of progress toward a desired goal or behavior. In this lesson, there are 3 steps that could be used in a shaping approach- making models of faults using their hands, discussing the models, and writing a paragraph about what was learned. Each of these steps can be reinforced when they are reached. This is easily seen in the task analysis that is below.