Blog Entry #2

The teacher in my service-learning placement seems to use Behaviorism the most. She has a rug that has spaced apart dots for the children to sit on during different parts of the day which include giving instruction, reading stories, going over math problems. This rug controls the environment that the children are not in too close proximity, which is an example of her controlling the environment. She does not call on, or even acknowledge student's questions until they have raised their hand. She reinforces not having negative behavior by immediately having the students sit at their desk, with their heads down for 1 minute when they have acted out negatively. 

She address the developmental levels of the individual learning preferences by explaining the activity they are working on, such as counting the dots on dominoes. Then she walked around to see what learning level the children are on, and spent extra time at the desks of those that were struggling. She did a great job of verbally explaining the activity, letting the kids handle the papers and dominoes, and visually giving them an example of what they should do by her doing it two or three times. One student has autism, so she slows down the process for him to grasp what is expected, but at the same time expects him to do the assignment.