ABSTRACT
In schools today we are under pressures from different directions, most with the same aim of increasing learning but some having a differing impact. Teachers are under pressure arising from the need to justify their current position (for example, peer appraisal and performance management procedures); the need to make professional progress (evidencing threshold standards of performance); the requirements arising from increased adherence to codes of conduct; the workload of an increased and changing prescription of the curriculum; the additional tasks from an increasing bureaucracy of rules and regulation; the tensions arising from public scrutiny of performance (through examination results and league tables); the challenges of changing mores of learner attitudes to both education and each other; the challenges of changing mores of learner behaviours; the demands of changing expectations of the learners in terms of teaching methods and resources; and the increasing complexity of classroom resourcing, in particular the technology associated with administration as well as teaching. This chapter will outline the theories associated with learning and behaviourism and make direct reference to these environmental, personal and behavioural aspects of teaching.
