Free Response - Chapters 9/10 - M Swaney

What ideas/concepts caught your attention and why?

The concept of classical conditioning with the story of Alan who played baseball and got hit when a ball was pitched to him caught my attention. My oldest son was hit by a baseball that was pitched to him and then it happened a second time in the batting cage. Being able to relate to this story made it much easier for me to think about the process of classical conditioning and behaviorism.

What ideas/concepts did you struggle with and why?

The concept that I struggle with is positive and negative reinforcement. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the negative reinforcement being a removal of a stimulus rather than a type of punishment.

What are your unanswered questions about the material?

In thinking about a Deaf/Hard of Hearing student who is in a mainstream school/classroom setting, I'm curious if there has been a study regarding the use of the different theories and how students learning is/was impacted. It would be interesting to see the level of self-efficacy of children who were studied and how they positively or negatively responded to the approach. Were there areas that either the teacher or interpreter could have made a greater impact on the students level of learning?

Can you relate to any of the concepts on a personal level? How so?
Group contingency was used in EDPY 201 and for the most part the use of this approach was very effective. I know that for me getting together with other individuals and working together to help one another provided me with much needed feedback in areas that I was lacking.

As a teacher/interpreter, how do you see the ideas in the chapter applying to you?

I think as an interpreter and possibly as a teacher I lean more to the social-cognitive theory/approach. I believe strongly in modeling behavior and leading by example. I believe that individual we are teaching/leading are not going to produce a behavior that we are not exhibiting ourselves.