Analysis of Thomas Paine's 'Common Sense' Writings in Psychology

This assignment analyzes Thomas Paine's 'Common Sense' writings through the lens of behaviorist learning theories. The student explores how principles such as classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and connectionism can be applied to understand learning processes. The paper is divided into three parts, the first two describe classroom activities designed to demonstrate these learning theories using visual stimuli and patriotic video clips. The third part of the paper discusses Intellipath, examining how it reflects behaviorist principles and its advantages and limitations. The student concludes that behaviorist principles are essential in understanding how behavior impacts learning, highlighting their role in identifying problems and facilitating effective interventions in educational settings. The paper includes relevant references supporting the analysis.

Running head: THOMAS PAINE "COMMON SENSE" WRITINGS 1
Thomas Paine "common sense" writings
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

THOMAS PAINE "COMMON SENSE" WRITINGS 2
Thomas Paine "common sense" writings
Learning in a behaviorist context seeks to use behavior together with added skills to
express feelings, outlook, and connection with the education material. Learning theories such as
connectionism, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning largely apply in behavior-based
learning. Consequently, the emphasis remains on designing material that learners could use for
learning in the classroom setting to model the given behavior. Its comprehensive approach favors
participation in learning as an experience that incorporates out-of-classroom aspects.
Part One
The activity will involve the teacher placing different numbered images on a screen and
explaining to the students the various aspects of behavior noticeable from an image. He/she will
require learners to indicate the images containing friendly faces after which they will go to the
next set. The teacher will move around the classroom, marking the answers and offering
feedback accordingly.
Terminal Course Objective
The terminal course objective for this 20-minute activity is that given a variety of images
to choose from, the learner should be able to pinpoint all the images depicting friendly faces
without error.
Activity Described
With its basis on the classical conditioning as well as the connectionism theory, the
exercise makes a connection between the images (stimulus) and answers (response) (De Houwer,
2018). The connection is reinforced by the consequence in the form of feedback and being
allowed to proceed to the next set. The approach has strong stimulus-response connections which

THOMAS PAINE "COMMON SENSE" WRITINGS 3
become reinforced through repetition of the images. Consequently, it effectively applies to
participatory learning.
Part Two
The activity will involve the teacher obtaining two five-minute videos of patriotic events
from history. He/she will display the first video on a screen and use marked aspects of the video
to facilitate the students’ connection with the sought responses. The teacher will require the
students to point out patriotism acts in the first video before allowing them to proceed to the
next. By individually mark the students’ answers and providing feedback, participatory learning
will take place.
Terminal Course Objective
The terminal course objective for this 30-minute activity is that the learner in the
patriotism session should be able to recognize at least 4 actions of patriotism from a video that
has 5 actions of patriotism.
Activity Described
The exercise seeks to enable the learners to use motion pictures of events, and then
interpret them in line with acts of patriotism. It is based on operant conditioning which teaches a
range of nonverbal and verbal behavior to facilitate learning (Usman & Ogbu, 2019). It also
encourages learners to demonstrate their attention to instruction by repeating the initial video.
This idea works effectively with the learners as it focuses on behavioral aspects of people in
different settings and bringing their relevance in facilitating learning (Zulu & Haupt, 2017). A
striking aspect of this activity is that it provides the basics to begin to appreciate the different
behavioral principles in learning that students encounter in their interactions with each other and
society.

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Part Three
Intellipath illustrates specific characteristics and principles of behaviorism in different
ways. First, it ensures that education principles apply correspondingly to diverse behaviors and a
range of ages (Atlas et al., 2018). For instance, it applies behavioral aspects such as observation
and responses for both adults and children. It focuses on noticeable and quantifiable stimuli and
reactions. It eliminates internal processes as they lack direct observation or measurement. By its
model, it follows the principle of learning through observable behavior change. Holding that
human behavior and learning largely result from environmental events, Intellipath keeps the two
aspects intertwined (Dziuban, et al., 2017). For instance, before a student proceeds to the next
step of a learning process, Intellipath subjects them to specific behavioral tests which upon
passing, the student proceeds to the next step.
Without a doubt, Intellipath possesses different advantages such as facilitating
substantiation of content mastery, demonstration of competency and providing students with
learning choices. Likewise, it improves the teacher’s engagement and involvement with learners
(Truong, 2016). Its limitations remain in its inability to influence learners’ evaluation. As
revealed, its evaluation overlooks the various stages, processes, and constituents of adaptive
behavior. Towards overcoming such limitations, the learner can attempt engaging in new
material or revise and engage practice material focusing on specific areas.
Conclusion
The principles of behavioral learning remain strongly founded in nature and provide an
assumption of behavioral impact in influencing learning. The assumption explains the position of
behavior and environment as having a natural basis whose exploitation results in vast gains in
learning as experienced in present times. The utilization of behavioral concepts fundamentally

THOMAS PAINE "COMMON SENSE" WRITINGS 5
eliminates different learning barriers between faculty members and students hence facilitating
learning. The inclination towards behavior seems to stem from the essential aspects of behavior
that separate mastery from the lack thereof. Learning activities between the teacher and students
under the behaviorist approach facilitates the identification of problems and effective
intervention.

THOMAS PAINE "COMMON SENSE" WRITINGS 6
References
Atlas, L., Doll, B. B., Li, J., Daw, N., & Phelps, E. A. (2018). How instructed knowledge shapes
adaptive learning.
De Houwer, J. (2018). Eelen 1980 Classical Conditioning.
Dziuban, C., Moskal, P., Johnson, C., & Evans, D. (2017). Adaptive learning: A tale of two
contexts. Current Issues in Emerging eLearning, 4(1), 3.
Truong, H. M. (2016). Integrating learning styles and adaptive e-learning system: Current
developments, problems, and opportunities. Computers in human behavior, 55, 1185-
1193.
Usman, U. A., & Ogbu, J. E. (2019). Application of Classical and Operant Conditioning
Theories of Learning in Cooperative Member Education and Staff Training. Global
Journal of Applied, Management, and Social Sciences, 16.
Zulu, E., & Haupt, T. (2017). An Analysis of Connectionism and Schema Construction in
Construction Studies Undergraduate Students. In 2017 7th World Engineering Education
Forum (WEEF) (pp. 355-360). IEEE.