Learning Activity 9

Time is necessary in behavior modification, since it obviously takes a significant amount of time to make or break any habits. Reinforcement should be delivered immediately following the good behavior, and punishment should be delivered immediately after bad behavior - otherwise the consequences are not pertinent because the student will not understand what the consequence is relating to. It's actually quite similar to training a puppy, (if you yell at a puppy 3 hours after it goes to the bathroom on the carpet, it won't understand why you're angry, and if you give it a treat a half hour after it sits for you, he won't correlate the treat with sitting). As pathetic as it sounds, modifying student behavior can be done in much the same way. Eventually, rewards can be fewer and further between until the student - or the puppy - eventually don't need any reinforcement for their behavior and it just becomes second nature. Partially reinforced behavior is often the most difficult to get rid of. With partial reinforcement, students only see the times they get rewarded or the times they do not get punished for their behavior, without there being any consistency to the consequences. Being consistent is the most difficult part of disciplining students because it is challenging to act on every behavior we see.