Behaviourism in the Classroom

One of the biggest barriers to learning I have found whilst observing teaching to Phase Two Soldiers is the poor classroom behaviour demonstrated by some of the younger soldiers, mostly who have arrived from the Army Foundation College^[1], Harrogate. This, to me, emphasises the importance a clear understanding of the theory of Behaviourism can have when teaching younger learners.

What I noted is that they tend to be somewhat disruptive which leads to an unconducive learning environment. When the disruptive behaviour got too much, the teacher would go and get the Corporal who is normally in charge of these soldiers under training (SuT), when he entered the room, he reminds them of what is expected of them as soldiers and threatens them with a punishment of having their long weekend taken away.

 Relating this to behaviourism theory; punishment works by presenting a strong stimulus that decreases the frequency of a particular response, in this instance being the disruptive behaviour, the issue I see with this is that it labels the whole class as being disruptive, when it may only be a few individuals who are responsible. This Behaviourist type of intervention illustrates the importance of teaching students “when and how to respond” (Ayers, 1995), and positive behaviour changes can be reinforced through observing positive behaviour by peers.

When teaching this lesson, I would have firstly explained that we are going to create a set of classroom rules, emphasising that these will be enforced; I would give the students the opportunity to create the rules and consequences that they feel are fair and equitable.

Their ideas will be written on flip- chart paper and in turn, each one is discussed and once they are all agreed, everyone signs the bottom of the paper. This enables a heightened sense of accountability, ownership and motivation. Once the rules have been agreed, I would mention about rewards for good behaviour, I follow the same process as for the rules, an example of a reward may be something like:

• Leaving early at the end of the day
• Mention of good behaviour to their Chain of Command (which in turn would lead to a bigger reward
• Spend some time using social media.

The morale of the room would hopefully perk up at the possibility of leaving early. Once they realise that their good behaviour will result in positive rewards, there would have been an immediate and noticeable change in their attitude and behaviour. By doing so, they would begin to act more respectful to each other. By placing the students in charge of how they want to learn, whilst still having an air of authority will help create a learning environment conducive to a success in learning. In addition to the above, reinforces such as a reward system also could be used to accelerate or decelerate certain behaviours.