Every day a person wakes up, gets out of bed, and begins the tasks for the day ahead, yet, many of these people do not realize that they had to teach themselves how to wake up every morning. This method of teaching, as described in the brief example, is known as classical conditioning. One must condition themselves to respond to the alarm clock that is used to arouse them in the morning. Using this same example, many of the aforementioned people have also experienced another form of learning known as operant conditioning. Every time they hit the snooze button, they are putting themselves further and further behind. Sometimes when this happens the person will be late to work or school, which is embarrassing and continues to put them behind.
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Take Cassie, for example, who has just received a new book from her parents. She plays with this book all of the time, because it is new and exciting. Like most of Cassie’s other toys, the book eventually gets tossed aside because it is no longer interesting to her, for she has explored all of the avenues of the book and playing with it has become quite repetitious. One day, Cassie’s dad notices that she is not playing with her new book anymore and wonders why. Since it makes noise and tells the story, he thought it would keep her attention for a long time. He then realizes that he forgot to turn on the “on” switch. As soon as he does so, the book begins to sing and Cassie’s interest is returned to the book. Cassie’s increased interest in the book is known as recovery. She begins to play with the book again because her interest in it has been rediscovered. Referring back to the alarm clock scenario and the scenarios with Alayna, Billy, and Cassie, we can see that classical conditioning, operant conditioning and habituation/recovery happen all of the time without our realization. It is important to know and study these forms of learning because children learn this way, and teachers need to know how to instruct using these methods. Clearly, the main objective of a teacher is to teach her students, but without the proper knowledge on ways children learn, an educator will have a very hard time teaching his or her students
Take Cassie, for example, who has just received a new book from her parents. She plays with this book all of the time, because it is new and exciting. Like most of Cassie’s other toys, the book eventually gets tossed aside because it is no longer interesting to her, for she has explored all of the avenues of the book and playing with it has become quite repetitious. One day, Cassie’s dad notices that she is not playing with her new book anymore and wonders why. Since it makes noise and tells the story, he thought it would keep her attention for a long time. He then realizes that he forgot to turn on the “on” switch. As soon as he does so, the book begins to sing and Cassie’s interest is returned to the book. Cassie’s increased interest in the book is known as recovery. She begins to play with the book again because her interest in it has been rediscovered. Referring back to the alarm clock scenario and the scenarios with Alayna, Billy, and Cassie, we can see that classical conditioning, operant conditioning and habituation/recovery happen all of the time without our realization. It is important to know and study these forms of learning because children learn this way, and teachers need to know how to instruct using these methods. Clearly, the main objective of a teacher is to teach her students, but without the proper knowledge on ways children learn, an educator will have a very hard time teaching his or her students