Behaviorism in Practice

Reinforcing effort can lead to greater student success. I teach eighth grade language arts and I create a class chart, which shows students the correlation between the number of zeros on homework assignments and the number of students failing at midterm and the end of the quarter. This is a great tool to show middle school students the relationship between failing grades and a lack of effort. While this is effective, having students track their individual effort in relationship to their successes and failures might be even more beneficial.

Our school is part of a one to one initiative, which allows each students access to their own laptop throughout the school year. Students would easily be able to use their laptop to track their progress. This would enable them to see their hard work really does pay off, or that their lack of hard work does indeed affect their grades.

I strongly feel that homework is an effective assessment tool.  My homework policy is clearly communicated to my students at the beginning of the year. I give a wide variety of different types of assignments. This allows for all students to use their strengths at various times throughout the year. The majority of the time the homework is graded, but occasionally students are given a completion grade only and the assignment is discussed in cooperative groups.

Over the years our district has used several different word processing programs, and this summer we are being trained in yet another new program. The reading for this week provided me with several new strategies that I would like to try in the near future.

I agree with the statement, "In addition to learning from multimedia such as educational games and interactive simulations, students can learn with multimedia by creating their own projects at home or at school to develop their understanding and practice skills" (Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K., 2007). Since our school is a technology magnet school, we try very hard to integrate technology into our daily lessons and provide students with a variety of ways to demonstrate their learning. In my language arts classroom, students respond to blogs, create podcasts, design iMovies, and create iPhoto books. They also use many websites to engage in learning activities, such as Read, Write, Think and United Streaming.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD