Module 3_Porter

Hi everybody, hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

            I was actually very surprised while reading chapter 7 of this week’s reading because I was fairly familiar with lots of the material already. I took a class my senior year of high school called Animal Behavior and we learned all about classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and much more. I was never really aware that it had anything to do with psychology until now! One section of chapter 7 really stood out to me, and to be honest, made me laugh a little. Woolfolk wrote “Using these three elements- the food, the salivation, and the tuning fork- Pavlov demonstrated that a dog could be conditioned to salivate after hearing the tuning fork” (Woolfolk, 2019, p. 265). To the average person, this might not sound very funny, but in my family, it is an ongoing joke. I have a 110-pound black lab/great dane mix named Bear, but we joke around and call her Pavlov. She is definitely a creature of habit. We keep her treats in a jar with a metal lid on top, and just like in the quote, she starts profusely drooling anytime she hears it. We think it is hilarious, but that’s not all. We trained her to go to the bathroom at night in the backyard when we shine a flashlight. So now, she will not go to the bathroom at any time of day unless we shine a flashlight and yell “come on Pavlov”. It can be broad daylight and she won’t move unless we show her the flashlight. Although it is silly, it really is just because she is so smart and was conditioned to think this way.

Another aspect of this weeks of this reading that I found particularly interesting was also in chapter 7. It was figure 7.2 on page 277, a basic contingency contract. I think this is an incredible idea. It isn’t just saying to a student “you’ll get a prize if you do good”, it is a written contract. It is a list of goals which allows each student to plan smaller steps that will help them reach their own goals and what positive things will happen if they reach the end result or what consequences will happen if the goals are not met. It is super easy to understand and is able to be incorporated into the classroom for any age group. I like that it is very personal and is not just a class wide goal. I would really like to use this with my future students.

Finally, one more aspect of the reading that I found to be extremely enlightening was in chapter 13. It was table 13.4 on page 534 and it discusses reasons for bullying and how schools can handle each reason. Bullying is almost inevitable, and you will most likely experience or see it at any school you go to. With that being said, I think it is very important to be able to distinguish the different reasons for bullying, because then you can decide the best way to resolve the situation. Although, to some people, bullying is bullying, but there is a huge difference between a bully who does it because they think it is funny and a bully who actually has something against their victim. As an educator, we must know how to handle each individual situation in a way that helps both parties, and I think this table would be very beneficial for that.

Good luck this week!

Steph