Conditioning in The Teaching Practice

Conditioning is something that fascinates me. It is a teaching practice that was pioneered by a man named Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s. The form of conditioning that Pavlov studied is known as classical conditioning.

Classical conditioning is the process of pairing a neutral stimulus, such as a bell in Pavlov’s case, with a meaningful stimulus, such as food. This is a psychological phenomenon and once the pairing has been made enough, the presence of the neutral stimulus alone is strong enough to naturally trigger the behavior. Studies suggest that it is never too early to try to condition a person. For example, there is a study where infants are presented with an odor for 30 seconds while simultaneously being given a tactile stimulation similar to caressing. In this study there were also two control groups. One of the control groups received the odor alone while the other received the stimulus, caressing, without the odor. One day later, with all of the infants still being less than 96 hours old, all of the infants were presented with the same odor. Only the infants who received both the odor and the stimulus the day prior showed increased levels of activity when presented with that odor again. The neutral stimulus, the presented odor, was meaningless unless paired with the meaningful stimulus, caressing. This demonstrates that classical conditioning can occur in newborns since neither of the control groups showed increased signs of activity when presented the odor. This could be useful in schools because if a teacher pairs the classroom, a neutral stimulus, with a meaningful stimulus such as high-fives or sweet aromas, the children are likely to start associating the class with good feelings and thus become more likely to attend and participate. I have experienced classical conditioning in my own life as well.

Growing up, I was sick a decent amount like most other young children. My father gave me chocolate milk whenever I felt sick and told me that it would make me feel better. At first, he waited until I was already naturally getting better to give me the placebo since I was skeptical that chocolate milk had any healing properties. Since I kept getting better every time I was sick after I had the chocolate milk, my mind automatically paired the neutral stimulus, chocolate milk, with the unconditioned response, feeling better. This pairing still causes me to crave chocolate milk when I’m sick to this day. Although I know that the chocolate milk has no healing properties, I have formed an involuntary response of craving the milk. A more common example of classical conditioning is something that a lot of people have experienced in advertisements. A lot of beer or cigarette companies feature beautiful young women dressed in very little clothing in their ads. A substantial portion of these companies target audience have an unconditioned response of having a pleasant feeling about a beautiful woman. Once paired enough times, the target audience pairs the good feeling with the cigarettes or beer which makes them want and subsequently buy the products. In schools, there is typically a bell that rings which signals lunch time. Students automatically pair the bell, a neutral stimulus, with the food at lunch, a meaningful stimulus. After the pairing had been made multiple times and just the sounds of the bell is likely to make them feel hungry. I have personally witnessed that if something happened to disrupt a school’s schedule so that lunch is later than usual but the bell still rings at the regular scheduled lunch time, students begin to get more restless and hungry after the bell has rang.

A man named B. F. Skinner believed that there was a more effective way to teach people through conditioning so he pioneered what is known as operant conditioning. This form of conditioning, sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning, refers to a method of learning that occurs through a series of rewards and/or punishments for behavior. Once the association had been made in the brain, the person begins to associate the behavior with the consequence of that behavior. Operant conditioning is used more frequently in classrooms than classical conditioning. Teachers can use operant conditioning in other situations but they can run into a problem when using material objects such as candy or stickers as positive reinforcement. Using these material objects can cause the student to start to expect the reward for doing the positive action and it forms a contingency. Through that contingency the child could start exhibiting the negative behavior again if not properly conditioned and lessened off of material reinforcements. Luckily, there are nonmaterial forms of positive reinforcements. In my experience working with children in a classroom we sometimes try using operant conditioning to see more positive behaviors from our students. For example, we are constantly praising children for good listening skills and the positive reinforcement that praise gives makes a child more likely to continue the positive behavior. Classrooms also typically have a chart listing the rules and expectations of the classroom. A lot of these charts have velcro stars next to each rule. Even though there is usually no rewards given for keeping all of the stars on the chart, students still tend to behave better in order to keep all their stars. If the class misbehaves after several warnings, the teacher can use negative reinforcement and take a star off the chart which is likely to increase the good behavior that the teacher wants to see.

Conditioning is a phenomenon that has been around for over one hundred years and, although we have newer and more efficient teaching methods, it doesn’t seem to be a method that is abandoned any time soon.