Behaviorism is a learning theory based on the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning. It proposes that learning can be described objectively without any consideration of internal mental states. [END SUMMARY]

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2. Behaviorism Menu
• What?
• Who?
• How?
• My Classroom

3. What is it?
• The prediction and control of human behavior
• Introspection and/or independent thinking play no
essential part of its teaching methods
• Learning based upon the idea that all behaviors are
acquired through conditioning
• Behavior can be studied in a systematic and
observable manner
• No consideration of internal mental states

4. What is it?
• Conditioning
• occurs through interaction with the environment.
• Classic Conditioning - naturally occurring stimulus is paired
with a response.
• Then a previously neutral stimulus is paired with the naturally
occurring stimulus.
• Eventually, the previously neutral stimulus comes to evoke the
response without the presence of the naturally occurring stimulus.
• Operant Conditioning - a method of learning that occurs
through rewards and punishments for behavior
• An association is made between a behavior and a consequence for
that behavior.
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5. Who? – Ivan Pavlov
Best Known For:
• Classic Conditioning –
• While researching the digestive function of dogs, Pavlov noted
they would salivate before food.
• He presented a variety of stimuli before the presentation of
food
• Found that, after repeated association, a dog would salivate to
the presence of a stimulus other than food.
• Research on physiology and digestion.
• 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology.

6. Who? – B.f. Skinner
Best Known For:
• Operant Conditioning –
• "cumulative recorder," which showed rates of responding as a sloped
line.
• Found that behavior didn’t depend on the preceding
• Behaviors were dependent upon what happens after the response.
• Schedules of Reinforcement
• Fixed-ratio schedules
• Variable-ratio schedules
• Fixed-interval schedules
• Variable-interval schedules
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7. How?
• A behaviorist classroom is structured and has
prepared lesson plans each day.
• The student sits in an assigned seat and listens to the
lesson taught by the
• Environmental stimuli can be produced to influence a
behavior,
• The teacher offering candy to those students who tell her three
things they learned during her lesson.
• This would encourage the students to be more aware of her
lesson.

8. How?
• Students learn without teaching in their natural
environments
• Teachers arrange special contingencies which:
• expedite learning
• hastening the appearance of behavior which would otherwise be
acquired slowly
• or making sure of the appearance of behavior which otherwise
would never occur.
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9. My Classroom
• I believe that conditioning a student by rewarding
them based on positive behaviors helps them repeat
that behavior in the future.
• Even if it’s something as simple as putting a sticker
that the top of their papers

10. My Classroom
• I don’t agree with the behaviorist theory in that it only
allows for concrete, not abstract thinking.
• Behaviorist theory doesn’t give the child the
opportunity to seek out new explanations or
observations.
• In my classroom, the student will be encouraged to
think outside of the box and isn’t looked at like a
computer
• Each student is different and independent thinking
needs to be put into consideration when teaching
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