ABSTRACT
In order to understand how to help students improve, one needs to know why behavior occurs. This chapter presents the mechanisms by which actions become stronger or weaker. Understanding the principles involved will help to better manage the classroom and teach the skills the students need to become proficient in a subject. Learning involves changes in thinking and other internal actions as well as changes in overt skills such as writing an essay. The term learning encompasses two different processes, respondent conditioning and operant conditioning. Skills from talking to reading to math or science or art are acquired through operant conditioning. Reinforcement is contingent on the ebb and flow of behavior. It consists of a relation. Respondent conditioning describes how new reflexes are created. Through pairing with an eliciting stimulus, a novel “neutral” stimulus gains power to elicit the same kind of response.
