B.F. Skinner - obstacles to learning

[Tommy Grand]

Friends,

I just pulled this off Wikipedia, I wonder if any of these principles
are applicable to guitar education?

Skinner influenced education as well as psychology. He was quoted as
saying "Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be
taught more effective ways of teaching." Skinner asserted that
positive reinforcement is more effective at changing and establishing
behavior than punishment, with obvious implications for the then
widespread practice of rote learning and punitive discipline in
education. Skinner also suggests that the main thing people learn from
being punished is how to avoid punishment.

Skinner says that there are five main obstacles in learning:

1. People have a fear of failure.
2. The task is not broken down into small enough steps.
3. There is a lack of directions.
4. There is also a lack of clarity in the directions.
5. Positive reinforcement is lacking.

Skinner suggests that any age-appropriate skill can be taught using
five principles to remedy the above problems

1. Give the learner immediate feedback.
2. Break down the task into small steps.
3. Repeat the directions as many times as possible.
4. Work from the most simple to the most complex tasks.
5. Give positive reinforcement.

TG

[TonyMorris]

This is exactly correct.

tm

[child...@aol.com]

On May 20, 8:14 am, Tommy Grand <howardj...@yahoo.com> wrote:

There was an interesting study in the JRME decades back regarding
positive reinforcement in correcting remedial hand positions of violin
students. There were various methods used to correct the left hand
position: initial training without reinforcers, trainig with negative
reinforcement (alerting - ringing a bell - the student when he/she was
doing it wrong), and training with positive (alerting - ringing a bell
- the student when doing it right and not alerting the student when
doing it wrong).

The positive method was more effective by a very large degree in
establishing a long lasting correction.

The study did not discuss the mechanisms of why the third method
worked, but I have used this in my teaching and it can correct
improper kinetic patterns very quickly (within 10 minutes) and
permanently. We have also instructed parents in this method and those
who use it are astounded in its effectiveness.

Kevin Taylor
Childbloom-Austin

[edspyhill01]

I'm with Tony - all 5 apply. Number 2 has had me on a quest for a way
to study CG and not get thrown into the deep end with pieces too
freaking complex for my skills. The quest was for a teacher that
adheres to number 4.

Ed