Behaviorism and Education

When I was seven, my mom had me take piano lessons. I took lessons until I was twelve years old. Having taken lessons for five years, I do not play piano at all today. Now that I think back about it, I wish I would have taken that opportunity that I was given. What was my problem? Why did all those lessons I took not stick in this brain of mine? There is only one word to explain my lack of talent in piano. That word is practice. I hated to practice.
Learning to play the piano is no different than learning at school. I strongly believe that practice is very important. I teach high school math. In order for my students to truly understand the concepts taught in class, they must spend time working out problems. They need that practice; in other words- Homework. According to James Hartley practice is very important in learning. “Frequent practice - and practice in varied contexts - is necessary for learning to take place. Skills are not acquired without frequent practice.” (Smith, 1999)
Behaviorism is a conditioning as a response to behavior. The idea is to reinforce good behavior and punish bad behavior. Programmed instruction is a type of behaviorism (Laureate, 2008). Today, programmed instruction can be seen through online tutorials. A good tutorial will provide immediate feedback for students. Tutorials can be like video games where the player gets a score for correct answers or they can let the player retry missed questions after an explanation of the ones missed.
Until researching behaviorism, I did not realize that I use it in the classroom as often as I do. I found this link to be interesting in its thoughts on behaviorism and learning.
http://smartworkethics.com/index.php?/blog/comments/what_is_behaviorism_and_why_is_it_so_important_to_smart_work_ethics/
Here is another link that I found:
http://www.scumdoctor.com/psychology/behaviorism/How-Education-Uses-Behaviorism.html

References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.
Smith, M. K. (1999) 'The behaviourist orientation to learning', the encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/biblio/learning-behavourist.htm.