Using Technology to Motivate Student Achievement

As teachers or psychologists we have all heard of behaviorism and remember experiments done by B.F. Skinner (rat presses lever, gets food) or Ivan Pavlov (dog salivates when bell is rung). Almost every teacher I know uses behaviorism in their classroom with their students in order to keep students in control and to behave. Teachers give rewards for students who are behaving appropriately, and punish or give a consequence to those who are not behaving in the appropriate way. How can we use technology as an instructional strategy while incorporating behaviorism? In the book Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007) I have found several strategies that are simple and helpful for students and teachers.

The Reinforcing Effort chapter discusses using software computer programs such as Microsoft Excel to track student effort and achievement. Teachers can show students how to do this and students will see the relationship between their effort and grades. This will in turn, give students confidence because they can visually see themselves grow in a specific content area. Personally I wish I could have done this throughout high school with math in particular because I never felt confident in math, and I began to have a negative outlook on all my math classes and assignments.

Homework; it’s been a topic of controversy with students, parents, and teachers for years; should students have it, how much, and what it should look like. Pitler et al (2007) has a whole chapter dedicated to homework. “Typically students need about 24 practice sessions with a skill in order to achieve 80 percent competency” (As stated in Pitler, et al., p. 188, 2007). This tells us that students do need practice; enter- homework. Teachers and parents can work with students to help them do homework with a few tools described by Pitler et al. (2007). When a student is using a work processor, they can use tools such as research, thesaurus, definition, and auto summary to guide them to a successful paper. Also teachers can expose great educational websites to students where they can practice skills learned for the test on Friday. Some I liked were:

www.starfall.com
www.iknowthat.com
www.flashcardexchange.com
www.brainpop.com
www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise

“Technology is most effective when remediation activities are minimally incorporated” (Laureate Education, 2009). We have all heard the phrase “practice makes perfect”, and in education it does sometimes work that way. Integrating technology into the classroom is something that is not a ‘quick fix’. If students are performing lower than expected sending them to the computer lab for an hour or so to play an educational game or practice a skill will not dramatically raise their performance or test scores. Technology can however be a great tool for students and teachers to use in combination with effective teaching. In conclusion, behaviorism is connected to observing and measuring human behavior. When students put forth the effort in their classwork or homework the outcome is the grade they earned. By using graphing tools or spreadsheets, students can see their effort (hours spent studying/completing) and their outcome (grades/scores).

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.