2. Classical Conditioning is a
learning theory, first
discovered by Ivan Pavlov
in 1927.
Pavlov was a Russian
Behavioral Psychologist
who actually stumbled
upon the theory accidently Pavlov realized his dogs
in his own house using his associated the bell with
dogs as the subjects. food, thus they began to
salivate.
He kept his dogs locked up
for many hours due to his Intrigued by this
different research. When phenomenon, Pavlov did
he got the chance to feed extensive research on this
them, he would ring a bell type of learning.
and the dogs knew that it
meant dinner time and
responded by salivating.
3. How do his findings impact
human learning
Pavlov found that by creating a stimulus (the bell) one will
learn and eventually respond in someway (his dog’s
salivating). Humans can also be classically conditioned.
For instance, a smoker wants to quit smoking but every time
they get in the car they associate smoking while driving and
buy a pack of cigarettes when they fill up next. A good idea
to help the smoker quit could buying gum or sunflower seeds
instead of cigarettes and keeping that in the car so they can
slowly develop a healthier habit while driving.
How is the example of a smoker trying to quit when driving
similar to Pavlov’s dogs associating the bell with dinner?
4. Stimulus and Response
An unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is something that creates an
unconditioned response (UCR) on a subject.
The food was the UCS and the salivation of the dogs was the UCR in Pavlov’s
example, while driving was the UCS and smoking was the UCR in the example
on the previous slide.
A neutral stimulus (NS) is given to a subject until they respond,
then the NS becomes the conditioned stimulus (CS).
The ring of the bell and chewing gum as opposed to smoking are the NS and the
CS in the previous examples. They subjects didn’t make the association till done
consistently.
A conditioned response (CR) is the response the subject has
after being conditioned by a CS.
The salivation the dogs and quitting smoking by chewing gum while driving are
the CR’s.
5. Impact on teaching
A great way a teacher
could use it without
technology would be if
they had a final exam
coming up and the teacher
held an after school study
session with free pizza but
the students couldn’t eat it
until have way into the
study session.
With technology, a
language teacher could
play an audio track of
vocabulary at the
beginning of each class.
6. Impact on students
Students can create a
specific night or day of the
weekend where they get
most of their homework
done. They will eventually
associate that day of the
week with school work.
By using computers every
day for educational
purposes, students can
associate using the
computer with homework
and learning.
7. My Opinion on it’s effects on
teaching
I believe that it can be very helpful to
know how to use different stimuli to help
students respond unknowingly with
more knowledge and better grades.
It should be used for teachers to help
the students succeed more.
8. Credits
All pictures from Google Images
Information from:
http://www.learning-theories.com/classical-
conditioning-pavlov.html