I believe that the "drill and kill" method of teaching in the classroom is a great way to get the students to fully grasp the idea of the content that is being covered in your class. I think that too many times teachers are trying to be too detailed and do projects or assignments that are too difficult and too in depth for students. I know I have made this mistake in my few years of teaching. I assign too much for each student and sure they may complete the assignment, but did they fully understand what was happening. Another issue teachers face is trying to cover too much material in a short amount of time. The "inch deep and a mile wide" idea of teaching lends itself to favor because they students are not getting the full context of the material and just the basic ideas. I have the theory that you need to teach "an inch wide and a mile deep" in order for your students to fully understand. The issue with this is that there will not be enough time to cover areas you may like and also if some of your students are getting it and others are not, it may become repetitive for those students.
Behaviorism as a classroom management tool is very necessary for most teachers. The reason you are punishing a student is because of undesired behavior and the best way to fix it is to take away privileges and choices of that student. The "experts" who claim that the behaviorist theory of teaching is dead must not be teachers themselves. They are using scientific theories that state that children do not respond, yada yada yada... I agree with Dr. Oley that these behaviorist theories are alive and well in our classrooms today.
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Aaron,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree that the behaviorism is alive and well. Every teacher uses these skills in there classroom management techniques because if they didn't the students would run the classroom and it would be very difficult to achieve any learning. Teachers have to have control in order to make sure students are learning in the classroom.
Most of the things I learned as a child that I can still remember I learned through drilling. For a lot of things, I just cannot see how you can NOT use that method to help a child learn. Even if one kid gets it and others don't yet, the kid who has it down can only get better and can use this new knowledge to perhaps help another student who is struggling.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that behaviorism is still around and will likely always be around. If a student is disruptive, disrespectful, throwing stuff, etc, that student needs to have consequences. If no consequences are given, that student will continue the behavior and spawn more and more problems with more and more students. Good luck trying to teach with students running amok. Ha! So yes, I agree with you and the "real" authorities on the matter who actually know what goes on in classrooms. :-)
I completely agree. How many of us learned our math facts using flash cards and board races. I'm all for the games that we teach with today and I fully believe in teaching kids strategies to figure out complicated problems. But when it comes down to it, you have to know your basic facts by heart.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that as long as we have behavior issues then teachers will practice behaviorism. Praising positive behavior and having consequences for negative behavior is a fact of life. That's why we have jails and employees of the month. The sooner our students learn this fact of life the better.
Heather-
ReplyDeleteI like the correlation between school, prisons and employees of the month. It is so true that we are teaching our kids life skills. Its not all about important historical dates or mathematical formulas. We need to make sure our students know the difference between right and wrong.
I appreciated your comment about an inch wide and a mile deep. There are a 182 days in a school year, isn't it more important that students master the material rather than just be exposed to it? To me, moving too quickly does students more harm than good. But you are right, moving too slowly may bore some students but that's where the big word "differentiated" instruction comes into the picture!
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