Chapter 9 questions to consider

How would you define successful mastery of your lesson objectives from a behavioral view of learning?

Consider your CSEL intervention case study. Are there tools from a behaviorist view for either encouraging productive behaviors or discouraging undesirable behaviors that you could apply to the case? What are they?

     In music, the students strive to be complimented on their performance.  If students are playing out of tune and missing notes, and the teacher allows this to continue, then the expectations are not set high enough and the students will continue this behavior.  When playing out of tune is not allowed by the director, the students begin to engage more and realize that just playing and not listening is not good enough.  This active listening results in a much better quality band program, and much better quality musicians. 

     I would say that in band, the behaviorist tools are more for rewarding the musicians for playing well.  It is not often that the musicians need to be convinced to sound good, as all musicians want the band to sound good, so rewarding them for playing well tends to have better results than punishing them for  playing poorly.  Some "old school" directors go with the philosophy that you tell the band they are playing poorly until the day before the competition where you tell them they are playing excellently.  From experience playing in bands with directors of this mentality, the students realize what the directors are doing, and the meaning of the criticism and compliments diminishes.