Whilst I was on placement I realised that in order to encourage children to complete their class work the teachers used strategies like reward stickers to the children who participated in the class and who tried their best to respond and answer questions correctly and the teacher gave a special wand to the table who behaved excellently. These small rewards helped to reinforce children 's behaviour positively and it motivated them to complete their work. This shows that by rewards, children can have a positive effect on their academic progress as the children will thrive to do their best in order to get a reward. This links to Skinner 's theory of operant conditioning. In this report I will be focussing on two aspects which is discussing Skinner
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Skinner believes that language can be learnt through positive reinforcement. Also a certain behaviour in children can be reinforced through positive and negative reinforcement. He supports his view by carrying out an experiment on a hungry rat. For example, Skinner places the rat in his Skinner box and as the rat moved around, the food pellet dropped. The rat kept on repeating it 's behaviour to satisfy his physiological needs (McLeod, 2007). However, when doing this experiment Skinner stated that what works for animals should work for humans too. This is not true because humans function differently compared to animals. Skinner 's theory links to Edward Thorndike 's theory as both highlighted the importance of rewarding children. However, Thorndike critiques Skinner 's theory as he believes that learning occurs best when children are ready to learn and are willing to be educated and are not relying on rewards in order to learn (Ekong, 2014). I agree with this based on my experience. For example, when I say to my cousin, I give you a sweet if you read this book to me and he does not listen to me, instead he runs around. This shows that he is not motivated to read and he does not care what I give him instead he wants to …show more content…
For example, through the use of reinforcement, the children are encouraged to listen and imitate their teachers(Sundberg & Michael, 2001).However, I do not agree with this because children with disabilities have a lot of barriers when learning to communicate and they delay in developing language compared to children without disabilities. ' 'Intensive intervention may be considerably less successful with some children ' ' (Sundberg & Michael, 2001) This shows that even if adults support children with disabilities in there learning, it will be hard to match the same level of language development compared to children with no disabilities because children with disabilities will be slow at developing language for their age. However, there are institutions that are specialised for SEN children to help them with their learning. For example, in my previous SEN placement, I have seen a language therapist working with children one to one to help children with their speech and she used reward charts to motivate the child when they were able to say a word
Skinner believes that language can be learnt through positive reinforcement. Also a certain behaviour in children can be reinforced through positive and negative reinforcement. He supports his view by carrying out an experiment on a hungry rat. For example, Skinner places the rat in his Skinner box and as the rat moved around, the food pellet dropped. The rat kept on repeating it 's behaviour to satisfy his physiological needs (McLeod, 2007). However, when doing this experiment Skinner stated that what works for animals should work for humans too. This is not true because humans function differently compared to animals. Skinner 's theory links to Edward Thorndike 's theory as both highlighted the importance of rewarding children. However, Thorndike critiques Skinner 's theory as he believes that learning occurs best when children are ready to learn and are willing to be educated and are not relying on rewards in order to learn (Ekong, 2014). I agree with this based on my experience. For example, when I say to my cousin, I give you a sweet if you read this book to me and he does not listen to me, instead he runs around. This shows that he is not motivated to read and he does not care what I give him instead he wants to …show more content…
For example, through the use of reinforcement, the children are encouraged to listen and imitate their teachers(Sundberg & Michael, 2001).However, I do not agree with this because children with disabilities have a lot of barriers when learning to communicate and they delay in developing language compared to children without disabilities. ' 'Intensive intervention may be considerably less successful with some children ' ' (Sundberg & Michael, 2001) This shows that even if adults support children with disabilities in there learning, it will be hard to match the same level of language development compared to children with no disabilities because children with disabilities will be slow at developing language for their age. However, there are institutions that are specialised for SEN children to help them with their learning. For example, in my previous SEN placement, I have seen a language therapist working with children one to one to help children with their speech and she used reward charts to motivate the child when they were able to say a word