Behaviorism in Practice

The instructional strategies, "Reinforcing Effort" and "Homework and Practice" are fairly common practices until spiced up with technology; they then become incredibly innovative practices. As a Physical Education major and P.E. teacher and football coach for several years, I was thoroughly impressed by the collaboration of Coach Turnage and Mrs. Baker. What an creative way of bridging the worlds of academics and athletics and using technology as the catalyst. I was equally impressed with the idea of having students use the "research" tool as a word processing application as opposed to using other search engines. What a great idea for all students, but particularly those students who are new to research and could benefit from a reduced number of findings to select from.

I really feel like both of these strategies are greatly enhanced by technology and serve as positive reinforcement for learning. Most times students are simply told about the value of education as opposed to being provided experiences where they can clearly see the benefits of education. Both strategies discussed give students an opportunity to enjoy the educational process because the strategies lend themselves to a deeper level of engagement which often produces a greater level of understanding of the subject matter.