2. Shaping -Rewarding approximations of a target behavior -When skills gradually increase, a participant will not receive a reward until a demonstration is more reflective of the target behavior.
Hi everyone, we are the Google Earthlings and our presentation about behaviorism is about to begin. We are going to move rather quickly, and those of you who pay attention and answer questions correctly will be rewarded, so lets get started. Notes: Get groups into two teams before beginning presentation.
A concept within the theory of behaviorism is "shaping." Shaping is a way of adding a behavior to a person's repertoire. In shaping, what is reinforced is an approximation of the target behavior. For example, when teaching a student to sculpt a house, you may first teach them to sculpt a cube or rectangle, rewarding the behavior when it is accomplished.
A schedule of reinforcement is another aspect of behaviorism, that pertains to when and how a behavior will be reinforced. Several different schedules of reinforcement exist. Sometimes a behavior will always be reinforced. Other behaviors may never be reinforced. The desired outcome is always to strengthen a behavior so that it occurs again wiithout reward.
One tool that educators can use in conjuction with these teaching methods is ALEKS. ALEKS is a teaching program based on a fixed interval system that occurs on varied levels. Today we will also reward correct answers with Free Pizza! Let's form two teams by combining our groups, and the team that answers first, and correctly, will get a free pizza each time.
Teachers may use the software as a way to shape student behavior. Initially the student may be rewarded for answering one question. After this becomes routine, the reward may be delayed until a set of questions may be answered. This could continue until the student is encouraged to complete the entire area of study independently. By it's nature, Aleks promotes this development through a fixed-ratio reinforcement schedule. Our short-term schedule of reinforcement today has been a pattern of rewarding each individual response, with a greater reward given for the final question. Within the ALEKS software, this is represented by the message "good!" that rewards the first correct response as well as an encouraging message about adding this "problem to your pie" after 3 successive correct answers without assistance. A long term schedule of reinforcement may include gradually reducing each individual reward, while providing fewer, yet greater, rewards for accumulating ever greater achievements. This is represented within the ALEKS program by the pie chart displaying each students growing achievements, and awarding greater content as progress is made. Speaking of pie, who likes pizza?!
