BEHAVIORISM

*Why Teach?

 Behaviorist schools are connected with the modification and shaping of student's behavior by providing for a favorable environment, since they believe that they are a product of their environment. They are after students who exhibit desirable behavior in society.

**What to Teach? 

Because behaviorists look at "people and other animals... as complex combinations of matter that act only in response to internally or externally generated physical stimuli", behaviorist teachers teach students to respond favorably to various stimuli in the environment.

*** How to teach?

Behaviorist teachers "ought to arrange environmental conditions so that students can make the responses to stimuli. Physical variables like light, temperature, arrangement of furniture, size and quantity of visual aids have to be controlled to get the desired responses from the learners... Teachers ought to make the stimuli clear and interesting to capture and hold the learners' attention. They ought to provide appropriate incentives to reinforce positive responses and weaken or eliminate negative ones." (Trespeces, 1995)