Behaviorist and Constructivist Interventions to Misbehavior

I am again going to refer to the case study about third grader, Lisa. She is refusing to do her share of group work because she dislikes her assigned role in the group. In an earlier post, I described an intervention to this behavior that I might take, and looking back at it now, it seems the only behaviorist action I suggested was negative punishment. After trying a few different ways to get Lisa motivated, I suggested removing her from the group in an effort to decrease her off task behavior and increase her desire to work productively in a group. This is an example of negative punishment because I would take away the benefits of working with a group in an effort to decrease distracting and off task behavior.

I feel that it might have been more effective to include some sort of reinforcement. For example, I could praise Lisa every time she does do her job and is on task. Or as other groups are working, I might highlight the work of Lisa's classmates who have the same role that she has. She might see the importance of that role and be more motivated to do her job.

These interventions would be very different if I were looking at this situation through Constructivism. I would likely not give reinforcement or punishment. I would logically explain that there are consequences for her actions. I would ask Lisa how she thinks her actions affect her group. Once she realizes the problems her behavior causes, I would ask her to consider ways to fix this problem.

Here are some Constructivist alternatives to punishment and reinforcement. I found this very interesting.

 http://tigger.uic.edu/~lnucci/MoralEd/practices/practice1devries.html