Reinforcement and punishment

When we talk about reinforcement and punishment, most of the teachers confused about this two. Sometimes they confused about the negative reinforcement and punishment at most. But this two are totally different. So in this article I will try to clarify and give some examples that will help you to identify the differences between these two terms.

When we think about the reinforcement, there are two difference types of the reinforcements. They are positive and negative reinforcements. Both types of reinforcements can be used in different situations. Before using, it is very important to have the correct information about it. Teachers should update their knowledge about it and school should take the responsibility of providing information through the professional development days.

Positive reinforcement:  Positive reinforcement is to provide a reward after a behaviour is observed, resulting in the behaviour to be repeated or strengthen. This is giving a thing that is pleasant to the students.

If we give a positive reinforcement means giving them what they want from us. For example; 

·                     Teachers give stars when they complete the home works. 

·                     Teacher praise students when they answer questions, smile, pat students’ shoulder and give presents.

·                     Mother gives a chocolate when they get an 'A' report. 

Teachers, positive reinforcement may encourage students to produce high quality work. Reinforcements given must be clear and systematic.

Negative reinforcement:  This is removing a thing that unpleasant to the students.

If we give a negative reinforcement means removing them what they do not want to keep with them. For example; 

·                     Teachers do not give a home work if they work hard in class.  Students do not like the home works. If we remove homework, that means removing a thing unpleasant to them. So this is a negative reinforcement.

Punishment:  .Punishment means removing a thing that they want. 

For example:

·                     Not give a chance to participate in inter house football competition If they not behave well in school. Students will be very much interested to participate in football competition. But because of their behaviour teachers remove it from them. So it is called a punishment.

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Types of assessments

There are different types of assessments used, and each aimed towards a different approach to assess the students. For instance, assessments vary from diagnostic/formative to summative, informal to formal, norm referenced to criterion referenced, process to product, learner judged to teacher judged, internal to external, inclusive to exclusive, and liberal to technicist (Marsh, 2001). But in Maldives we can see only three types of assessments and they are Formative, summative and diagnostic.

Formative assessment is the type of assessment that provides data about students’ progress. Assessment that is interwoven with, or conducted in parallel with, learning, where regular feedback is used to form, shape or guide students learning, and to shape the teaching program is Formative assessment (Fe, 2009). After each assessment students will be given feedback, so the assessments help the students as a guide to adjust their learning. The data helps to develop or form the final curriculum product and helps students to adjust to their learning tasks through the feedback they receive (Marsh, 2001).

 Summative assessments are taken place where an assessor intends to find the final achievement of the students. Assessment that is used at the end of a stage of learning to sum-up or summaries what the student has achieved to that point in time is summative assessment (Fe, 2009). It’s also seen that almost all the schools used summative assessments in the form of term tests. But in some cases we have seen as summative assessments because after the test reviews, the areas in which students are weak in the test are not re-taught.

Diagnostic assessment is the type of assessment that deliberately seeks to identify where students’ prior, or current, understandings and competencies are, and to drive the actions of the student or teacher to move the student forward in their learning (Fe, 2009)

References

EST 207. (2009) Lecture Notes. FE. Maldives

Marsh. C, (2001), Teaching studies of society and environment (3^rd ed.), Prentice-Hall, Sydney.

Creating Positive Learning Environment

If we have created the positive learning environment in the class room will allow students to learn comfortably and relaxed. (anonymous, 2012) In positive learning environment will provide the opportunities to learn self-motivated. This should be a primary goal for all teachers, since lack of motivation is often the root of disciplinary issues.

If the class room is a positive learning environment, then the students will be aware of the class room tasks and they will be awake for the due dates and the upcoming events. A number of factors contribute to a positive learning environment for your students. Three of the most important ones are core ideals, ambience and expectations. (anonymous, 2012)

Core Ideals: Each teacher will have different standards and values in the classroom, but the only universally important element is that these remain consistent so that students know what to expect and what is expected of them.(anonymous, 2012)

Ambience: This is an extremely important – and fun – part of creating a positive learning environment. Your classroom should be a dynamic and engaging place to be for your students. What would you think if you walked into an elementary classroom with nothing on the walls? Weird…If you have to move from room to room, have a portable poster for each group you teach, and this will establish a similar sense of belonging. Keep their past projects so that they know that their work is valued.(anonymous, 2012)

Expectations: If you establish your expectations for student behaviour early and keep them consistent, you may be able to avoid many classroom management issues. Laying down the ground rules early in your relationship with a class is quintessential to your success as a teacher. Involve your students in this to be sure that they are aware of the rules and the consequences. This is another great way to add to the ambience of your classroom – post the ground rules and always lean towards positive, rather than negative, re-enforcement of them. (anonymous, 2012)

References

anonymous. (2012). Create a positive learning environment. Retrieved from footprint recruiting: http://www.footprintsrecruiting.com/for-teachers/teachers-playground/tips-for-teachers/564-create-a-positive-learning-environment

What is constructivism? Do we practice this in our classroom?

Constructivism refers to a theory that is more likely based on a way of learning by doing. It says that pupils construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences. When we come across something new, we have to relate it with our previous ideas and experience, maybe changing what we believe, or maybe discarding the new information as irrelevant. In order to practice this teacher has to create a better learning environment which can be actively engaged in learning.

This theory is very much against the traditional way of teaching. In the traditional way teacher does everything and provides all the information and the only task for the pupils is to listen carefully and copy down what has written on the board. To make learning more successful teacher can act as a facilitator and totally student centered environment has to be build. . In the most general sense, it usually means encouraging students to use active techniques (experiments, real-world problem solving) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about what they are doing and how their understanding is changing. The teacher makes sure she understands the students' preexisting conceptions, and guides the activity to address them and then build on them.
In theoretically most of the teachers are aware of this, but how many of them actually practice this in their classrooms. If not what might be the burdens for this?

Learning theories

Teacher’s approach in a classroom is depend on how students learn the content of a subject. Psychologists have studied how learning occurs and have suggested several learning theories. These theories can be divided into behaviour, social and cognitive. Behaviourism learning theory focuses on behaviour and environment, social learning theory focuses on behaviour and thinking cognitive learning theory focuses on thinking.

According to behavioural psychologists, learning is a change in behaviour that occurred in an individual as a result of experience. This learning process will be experienced by every individual from birth that made it difficult for us to differentiate and separate learning with growth because both are inter-related. Behaviourism focuses on human behaviour that can be observed and measured. Behavioural psychologists believed all things can be observed. We cannot see thinking but we can make observation on human behaviour. From the behaviour we can make a conclusion about what is being thought. Prominent behaviourists are Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike and Skinner.

Social learning theory was introduced by Albert Bandura. Social learning theory stipulates that social, cognitive and behavioural factors play an important role in learning. Social learning theory believes that human are active creatures, able to choose and use developmental processes to relate events and communicate.

Cognitive psychologists believe that learning is an active mental process to gain, store, memorise and apply knowledge. The focus of cognitive psychologists’ research is on the process of individual’s active mind to understand his environment. The way a person thinks about his situation, including his belief, expectations and feelings, influence the facts that he learns as well as the way learn them.

In a nutshell, there are different teaching and learning theories which have been studied by different psychologists. These theories can be used by teachers to facilitate their teaching and learning process. In addition, teachers need to understand the different approaches which can be used based on these teaching and learning theories.

It is important to include thinking skills in teaching.

Thinking skill is an integral and important part of teaching and learning. It allows separating different aspects of thinking and opportunity for creativity and emotion in the decision making. Some of the thinking tools that I already know are scampers, six thinking hat, thinkers keys and other graphic organisers like concept map, fish bone diagram, 5Ws flower and mind map. All these thinking tools are very much beneficial for the students as it supports active process of cognitive processing which makes a child for better learning.

It is vital for the teachers to give learners the time and opportunity to talk about thinking process, to make their own thought process more explicit to reflect on their strategies and thus gain more self- control. Thinking skill can be taught can be learned and it can be improved. To improve the thinking skills teacher must be a facilitator instead of lecturer so that child can construct their knowledge.

Furthermore, there are certain benefits for the teacher as well as the student. Teacher feels comfortable and time saving if she/he could design an activity with help of these thinking tools. On the other hand students can learn the learning concept as it shows the specific direction at a time rather than going to different directions. Students also get more chance to build up their knowledge instead of limiting and narrow downing their mind. Moreover, the thinking skills enhance to avoid unnecessary information and it shows a path way to reach the certain goal. When they develop critical thinking it does not allows only the child to learn but it helps a child to solve problems when it arise in real life situation.  Furthermore, it allows separating out the different aspects of thinking and allows the opportunity for creativity and emotions in the decisions in the decision making. Next, it avoids confusion to do one thing at a time and speed up the process which saves every one time. Finally, it increases creative and innovative performance of the child.