Jacob Johnston, Chapter 1

1. A. Bribery implies paying someone to do something wrong or illegal.

Reinforcement is encouraging the learner to do what is right or good for
them. Also, the learner can be weaned off of material reinforcers gradually
after the preferred behaviors have been learned or conditioned.

B. Punishment that is excessive compared to the misbehavior can create

problems of resentment or avoidance behaviors with children. However,
appropriate punishment that fits the crime has been shown to be effective as
long as it occurs immediately after the undesired behavior and its
effectiveness is increased when a reason why the behavior was wrong is
included with the punishment.

C. Rewarding one child could possibly lead to encouraging others to

misbehave in order to get the same treatment if it is misused. All children
should have their good behavior reinforced frequently, and if a specific child
requires material reinforcers to encourage good behavior, it is best that such
rewards be given discreetly to keep it from becoming an issue in the group at
large.

2. Before moving further into the process of improving Greg’s study habits, we
should establish a baseline of his behavior. We can break down his problem
into several observable categories we can focus on as we work on his
behavior. First, we can observe the completion of his assignments. Second,
we can count the number of times Greg must be told to begin assignments.
Finally, we can count the number of times that Greg is observed to be off
task. To find the baseline, we can observe Greg for a week without any new
intervention to find what his normal behavior is. To see if there is a certain
time or situation that makes it more difficult for Greg to work, we’ll break his
days up, both at home and at school, into 5-minute segments and include
what was going on in the classroom such as distractions. After establishing a
baseline and seeing if there is any external stimuli affecting his ability to
work we can finally start shaping his behavior toward our desired terminal
behavior, to begin his assignments without being asked and without having
to be asked to get back on task. The secondary reinforcer I will use is the
poker chip. It’s small enough to not be a distraction for other students but is
something Greg can see and handle to monitor his own progress. Greg will
save these chips to earn tickets for free items at the snack counter during the
schools break. Finally we will begin shaping his behavior in class. Since his
homework behavior is a problem, we will get his parents to agree to follow
the same system at home that we use in class, although the chips earned at
 Jacob Johnston, Chapter 1

home will be used to earn reinforcers his parents provide. To begin the
shaping process, we will focus on getting Greg to begin work at the
established time without being asked. In class, this established time in class
will be within 30 seconds of when the teacher tells the class to start the
assignment and at home it will be a designated homework time agreed upon
with Greg’s parents. After Greg begins his assignments without being asked
five times in a row, he will have to begin and work two minutes without
stopping before earning a chip. Gradually the time will be extended, five, ten
minutes, without exhibiting off-task behaviors before he earns a chip until he
is regularly finishing assignments as expected. It is possible that Greg’s
newly conditioned behaviors will become self-reinforcing. First, his grades will
probably improve and he may have a sense of accomplishment at being able
to complete assignments efficiently. However, not every student is the same
and we will want to help prevent extinction of the desired behavior by
gradually increasing the variable ratio of the reinforcement so that its final
disappearance is less noticeable.

3. I may be accidentally reinforcing Ursula’s behavior by giving her attention

when she gets out of her seat. For her, the scolding may be less unpleasant
than the attention is satisfying. Since Ursula is likely reinforced by attention
here and the behavior we want is incompatible with getting out of her seat, I
will praise her verbally whenever she is seated for a certain length of time. To
begin, this will be a relatively short amount of time, but the time frame will
gradually lengthen until I’m finally able to phase out regular praise and she
remains seated. If the verbal praise is not enough to work as a viable
reinforce, I will work out a system where she earns a check after each seated
time segment in order to earn some appropriate award like a special pencil or
pen.

7. For a class of unruly third graders, I would probably focus on getting students
to stay on task with their assignments, stay seated at appropriate times, and
not talk out of turn. The target behaviors can be measured by the number of
times that the students have to be redirected to the task at hand, the number
of times individuals get out of their seats at inappropriate times, and the
number of times they talk out of turn. The teacher would need to clearly
establish when it is appropriate to get out of one’s seat and when that is not
appropriate as well as clearly explain what he or she meant by talking out of
turn. The token could be customized play money so there are no issues with
students bringing their own Monopoly money and would be awarded to
students who aren’t penalized during a half-day segment for being off-task,
getting out of their seat, or talking out of turn. The play money could be
 Jacob Johnston, Chapter 1

saved up for a market day held once a month. Students would create arts
and crafts items as a part of their art class and these items would then go on
sale for the market day and could be purchased by students with tokens. My
wife used a similar system that used the arts and crafts as the back-up
reinforcers, but included fines and other aspects that I have removed or
modified for this example and she said the arts and crafts were actually
motivating for her second graders. Students who were more successful
exhibiting the desired behaviors would have more play money to purchase
items at the market day than would students who were less successful.

8. Traditional behavioral objectives include observable measurable behavior,

the conditions under which the behavior should be exhibited, and criterion to
measure the result. The observable measurable behavior is clear.
Understanding is not an observable behavior, identifying is. The conditions
refer to how the behavior should be exhibited. Should the student have to
memorize the formula or just be able to utilize it? Should they be able to
describe the workings of an internal combustion motor on paper or should
they be able to use that knowledge to build one? Finally, the criterion to
measure the result should be what level of performance is acceptable to
demonstrate the content has been learned.

An example of a behavioral objective would be: On a quiz the student should

be able to correctly identify at least 80 percent of the examples of the
different types of sound effects in the poem “The Highwayman”, which they
have not yet read. In this example, the observable behavior is “identify,” the
condition is on a quiz with a poem they have not studied before, and the
criterion is 80 percent of the examples of sound effects correctly identified.

9. Instructional objectives benefit teachers because it helps the teacher define

what exactly needs to be taught. It gives the teacher a plan for what
specifically to teach. This also helps the teacher evaluate how well the
content has been learned. If you know exactly what you needed to teach, you
know exactly what you need to test. Finally, for students, if they are made
aware of the objectives before the lesson, it aids them in their learning. Not
only does it tell them what they need to learn from the lesson to do well on
the test, it also makes the material seem less daunting by narrowing the
scope of their study. The down side is that if the teacher focuses on just
selected objectives for his or her teaching, there may be important lessons
left untaught because they were not included in the narrow scope of the
objectives.
 Jacob Johnston, Chapter 1

10.One of the principles of programmed instruction is immediate reinforcement.

This is a key aspect of effective conditioning in behaviorism. The further the
reinforcement is from the behavior, the less likely it is to have an effect on
the organism. Another aspect of programmed instruction is the active
response. The student has to respond to the information to move on.
Programmed instruction also makes use of shaping, a classic behaviorism
method for conditioning. Students receive small pieces of the information to
be learned and are required to demonstrate their competency with that piece
for moving closer to the ultimate goal of the lesson.

11.The mastery learning approach to instruction is basically a matter of making

sure that students have mastered the building blocks of a concept or task
before moving on to a more difficult lesson. This is teaching the material
through shaping. The information in a class is broken into small discrete
units. The small units allow for the student to focus on a small part of the
overall topic to be learned and master it before moving on. There is a logical
sequence for the information. Math provides an easy example of this. It
makes sense to teach addition of single-digit numbers before addition of
double-digit numbers and multiplication. Mastery learning also requires a
demonstration of mastery, like a unit test, to show that the student has
mastered the content before moving on. Mastery also has to be judged by a
concrete and specific criterion, such as having to answer a certain high
percentage of questions on the unit topic correctly before moving on. Finally,
additional remedial activities are provided when it is found that the current
unit has not been mastered. After all, moving on without having mastered
what came earlier defeats the purpose of mastery learning.

Figure 5-1 Response

Figure 5-1 charts a physical representation of the behaviorist theory of conditioning.

The top of the tree is basically reinforcement and the opposite of reinforcement. At
first, I thought it was referring to reinforcement and punishment, but the branches
on the right are only partly about punishment. The chart does detail very clearly
how reinforcement and the removal of reinforcement affect behavior and includes
practical examples of seven different principles.