Learning
Thoughts on Learning
“Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.”
– W. Edwards Demming
“Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.”
– B.F. Skinner
“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
– Pablo Picasso
What is Learning?
A relatively permanent change in behavior that results from experience
Types of Learning
• Classical conditioning
• Operant conditioning
• Cognitive and social learning
Classical Conditioning: Examples
• Sound of a dentist’s drill: sweaty palms
• Smell of mom’s perfume: smiling
• Sight of certain restaurant: nausea
• Noise of a can opener: cat comes running
• Smell of a hospital: weakened immunity
Classical Conditioning
• Discovered (accidentally) by Ivan Pavlov
Pavlov’s Observation
• Studied digestion in dogs
Pavlov’s Experiment: Phase 1
• Food (US): salivation (UR)
– Reflexive response
• Tone (CS): nothing (CR)
Pavlov’s Experiment: Phase 2
• CS is repeatedly paired with the US
– A tone is sounded before the food is presented
Pavlov’s Experiment: Phase 3
• Eventually, the CS elicits a new CR
– Hearing the tone by itself causes salivation
Classical Conditioning:
Conditioned Emotional Response
• Avoidance learning
• Conditioned phobias
– Little Albert
Classical Conditioning
• Extinction
• Spontaneous recovery
Classical Conditioning
• Stimulus generalization
• Stimulus discrimination
Higher Order Conditioning
• Pair CS1 with a new CS2
• CS2: CR
• But, CR will be weaker
Classical Conditioning Applied
• Drug overdoses
• Smoking: environmental cues
• Systematic desensitization
• Advertising: sex appeal
• Taste aversion
• Conditioning and the immune system
Types of Learning
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Cognitive and Social Learning
Operant Conditioning: Examples
• Tantrums are punished: fewer tantrums
• Tantrums bring attention: more tantrums
• Slot machine pays out: gamble more
• Reward dog for sitting: dog is likely to sit
Operant Conditioning
• Thorndike’s puzzle box
– Law of Effect: actions that have positive outcomes are likely repeated
• Skinner box
Operant Conditioning: Principles
• Stimulus-Response
• Reinforcement
– Positive reinforcement
– Negative reinforcement
Effective Punishment
• Should be
– Swift
– Consistent
– Appropriately aversive
• Challenges
– Physical punishment may be imitated
– May fear the person who punishes
• Most effective when paired with reinforcers
Reinforcement
• Primary reinforcers
• Secondary reinforcers
• Behavior modification
• Immediate versus delayed reinforcement
Beyond Basic Reinforcement
• Generalization
• Discrimination
– Discriminative stimulus
• Extinction
• Spontaneous recovery
Classical conditioning and operant conditioning play a huge role with the future use of a drug. First, just like in the theory of Pavlov, classical conditioning with the role of substance and addiction can start to form much similar. For example, if an individual sits in traffic after getting off work every day and pulls out marijuana to smoke in the car, the car will then start to become the conditioned stimulus to the substance, the individual will pair sitting in traffic now as its time for the daily joint. Since the car is now the conditioned stimulus to the individual, the person will now start to experience those cravings every time they are sitting in the car. Most of the time, the individual will experience relapse, since the body is now fully conditioned to
“I have lived every day of my life asking myself ‘is what I’m doing reflective of who I am? Or who I want to be?’ If not...”
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”
In the case study, Jim Colbert, a third grade teacher, struggles to help a boy named Carlos. This Public School 111 was located in a metropolitan, run down neighborhood. The school was surrounded by drug dealers and trash. However, the inside of the school was bright and welcoming. Here the students were placed according to their abilities, and Jim had a 3-A class for the high achieving students. Jim had a routine that he followed every day. He would take the learning and apply it to the student’s lives with practical examples. To begin the day Jim would go through the homework with the students, and here he began to notice that Carlos was misspelling many of his words. Carlos comprehended the readings, but he was behind in his spelling. Jim talked with the other third grade teacher, Paul, about Carlos. Then, he talked to Carlos about the problem, asking him if he could get help at home. Here Jim discovered that Carlos would get little to no help at home. Jim sent home a dictionary with Carlos so that he could check his spelling, and he saw
"Only look up clear: To alter favour ever is to fear. Leave all the rest to me"
Since the arrival of our twins undesirable behavior has manifested in one of our 11 yr. old. While initially very conscienscious in helping attend to the infants & her ordinary duties, she has become accustomed to playing with them mostly now. This play in itself is great, except they no longer get the changing & feeding expected. Furthermore she uses them as an excuse now to put off doing the minimal domestic maintenance formerly performed. She is generally unresponsive to negative reinforcement options. Past experience shows she responds best to tactile & humanistic behaviorist techniques, backed up by specific instruction from our sacred texts observed in our household.
Operant conditioning is a kind of conditioning, which examines how often a behavior will or occur depending on the effects of the behavior (King, 2016, pg. ). The words positive and negative are used to apply more significance to the words reinforcement or punishment. Positive is adding to the stimulus, while negative is removing from the stimulus (King, 2016). For instance, with positive reinforcement, there is the addition of a factor to increase the number of times that the behavior occurs (King, 2016). An example of positive reinforcement is when a child is given an allowance for completing their household chores. The positive reinforcement is the allowance which helps to increase the behavior of doing chores at home. In contrast with negative
Pavlovian Conditioning can be used to treat and explain addiction. We must first discuss Pavlovian conditioning and addiction before we can even begin to talk of the two together. Pavlovian Conditioning is better known as Classical Conditioning, which was created by Ivan Pavlov and later used by John Watson to explain human psychology. Classical conditioning is defined by Meriam-Webster dictionary (2016) as a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired; a response that is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone. For example, with Pavlov’s dogs, the unconditioned stimulus is food, the conditioned stimulus is the bell and the response is salivation, which we will discuss
I. Introduction of classical conditioning Classical conditioning also called as Pavlovian conditioning or respondent conditioning. It is a kind of learning a new behavior through association that when a conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US) and evokes a conditioned response (CR). It also is a learning process that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus (Cherry, 2014). Classical conditioning has much strength such as can help to explain all aspects of human behavior and many of advertisers will use classical conditioning to advertise their produces, however it also have some weaknesses such as all classical conditioning responses must involve a reflex and classical conditioning is a completely physical process, learning is not important as reflected in scenario. This paper will talk about the strengths and the weaknesses of classical conditioning theory followed by a brief description of the scenario and the strengths and weaknesses of applying classical conditioning on it.
“Start by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”- Francis of Assisi.
I think that B.F. Skinner shares my philosophy in the behavioral aspects of education. There are many points that have expanded my philosophy. One was the operant conditioning theory, which is when the behavior is changed through positive and negative consequences depending on one’s behavior. Positive Reinforcements can be anything from food and candy to a toy or sticker. Negative reinforcement could be a timeout, scolding, or maybe a spanking. It all depends on their behavior. One thing that surprised me was when Skinner said, “punishment is generally ineffective in controlling undesirable behavior.” I thought that was always the best route to go. Skinner also states that it is better to just ignore the bad behavior until it stops. That to me doesn’t sound like the best idea considering that the child wont know that is not how they are supposed to act and if you don’t let them know then they wont stop. I guess that people didn’t believe that it could work so he put it to the test. He tried it on his daughter and though it took some time he finally found that there are better ways ...
Nevid, J. S. (2012). Essentials of psychology: Concepts and applications. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Classical conditioning and operant conditioning both played a key role in the history of the study of learning, but, as argued by B.F Skinner, there are key differences to be noted between the two (Gleitman, Gross, Reisberg, 2011).
"The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as every child should be instilled with the wish to learn."
From the time humans are born, they begin the process of learning and trying to understand the world. Conditioning is one way of learning in which a response becomes more frequent as a result of reinforcement. We can also learn through associations and punishments. There are two types of conditioning that will be discussed within this paper, classical conditioning and operant conditioning. I will further discuss how both classical and operant conditioning are prevalent within my article claims and then explain why both conditioning methods are important in everyday life.