Mrs. Martin, a third-grade teacher, is teaching cursive writing. At first, she reinforces even crude attempts to reproduce letters with an encouraging word; as time goes on, though, she reinforces only well-formed letters. By reinforcing progressively better attempts at writing letters, Mrs. Martin is using:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Shaping involves reinforcing successive approximations of a desired behavior. In this case, Mrs. Martin is reinforcing progressively better attempts at writing letters, which is an example of shaping. Classical conditioning involves pairing a neutral stimulus with a naturally occurring stimulus, such as Pavlov's dog experiment. Partial reinforcement involves reinforcing a behavior only some of the time, rather than every time, and modeling involves observing and imitating the behavior of others.

Mrs Martin, a Third-Grade Teacher, Is Teaching Cursive Writing