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Tamara Ramos

Katerina Calderone Salini

PSY 1010

28 April 2017

My Significant Learning

Psychology 1010 was one of my most entertaining class of my spring semester. Taking

this class has opened my mind to how people behave and why they do certain things. The

majority of my time in class, I applied to circumstances I have experienced outside of college.

Having to work with children in an after school program makes me realize why children behave

they do with positive reinforcement and not so much with negative punishment. This class not

only expanded my creative thinking on note taking and better ways to study, but as well on

problem solving skills and critical thinking skills in situation that deals with behavior.

I work in an after-school program which I teach and plan activities for kindergarten and

first graders. Many people underestimate me by saying my job is easy or I am a babysitter, but

when three children are fighting constantly, someone needs to change the behavior. When in

class we were learning behavior, we discussed the subject of positive or negative punishment and

reinforcement. The things we take away for a behavior is less impactful than giving something

for a behavior. Punishment, no matter if it is positive or negative, does not give the person of

consequence a new path follow. Professor Katerina explains positive enforcement gives someone

new behaviors to follow the reward. In my job, a child is becoming more disrupted when I am

speaking. Every time I tell him to be quiet, he does for a short period of time and starts again.

After our lecture of behavior, I started to only give him attention when he behaves. He begins to

start yelling and I stay quiet. And surprisingly all the children follow my example and stay silent
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as well. This boy who is now noticing that I stop speaking, starts to calm down. This pattern

continues until the rest of the time at my job. He becomes less disruptive. Until one point, in a

week he has completely changed. I was surprised by one simple teaching in my class has affect

the way I handle my student and in turn has made my job less stress-inducing.

Through-out my life education has not given me the tools to put out into a real world

situation and for the most part, my last semester did not give me skills either. Psychology

discuses behavior and reason of why we do the things we do. Critical thinking is developed in

this class because of how much of it you can take outside of class. Not only has psychology

taught me Freuds weird psychoanalysis pertaining to having sex with your mom, but why

someone with neglectful parents enjoys bad behavior. Not because the child is necessarily bad

but the need of affection and attention is prominent. Psychology is a class to take, not because of

the how to determine personality but to understand the people your surrounded with.
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Work Cited

King, L. A. (2016). Experience Psychology. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill