Reinforcement
Reinforcement is something that is
near and dear to me because I was a psychology major in college with a special
focus on educational psychology. I took two different classes on behavior
modification and analysis, and I had an internship with Marcus Autism Center in
Atlanta, a center that focuses on practices revolving around systems of
reinforcement. I might get a little technical in this post, but I will do my
best to keep to mostly language that we have used in this program.
In the
classroom, it is important to remember that reinforcement of desired behavior
is important, both because it makes it more likely that the individual engaging
in the desired behavior will exhibit that behavior in the future and because it
points out exactly what types of behavior are desired to students who may be
engaging in undesirable behavior. It is easy to forget how much of an impact
just a small “Great job!” can have on a student and on those around him or her,
and as teachers, this is something that we can use to our advantage.
Positive Reinforcement: Adding
something that makes it more likely that the desirable behavior will occur
again in the future.
Positive reinforcement can be
anything from praising a student for doing something desirable to giving a
student a piece of candy to allowing a student one “pass” on a late homework
assignment. Ideally, teachers would have a system that lays out exactly what a
student would have to do to get each type of positive reinforcement so that all
students are treated fairly in this respect. Teachers could also employ
something called a token economy in their classroom. A token economy sets up a
token (this could be a physical token, a sticker, or even just a point), and
after a student has earned a certain number of tokens, they can choose a
reward. A token economy can be a bit
difficult to implement and often works best with younger students, so it is
likely something I would avoid using unless I see that my students need extra
motivation.
Walking
through Office Depot today, I actually came up with an idea that I would like
to use with my future middle school students. I would like to get a big
corkboard and call it my “Brag Board.” On the board will be Post-It notes with
accomplishments and positive things that students have done throughout the
year. It would be at my discretion to dole out Post-Its for the Brag Board, but
students can earn these Post-Its for anything from doing an outstanding job on
a homework assignment to helping a friend who was confused to performing well
at a sporting event (I will keep myself apprised of my students’ extra
curricular activities). The goal is to reward all sorts of positive behavior,
whether it is academic, social, or purely behavioral. I’m sure that someone
else has come up with this idea before, but I was just so excited when I came
up with it that I could not bring myself to look it up and see that I was not
the first one.
Negative Reinforcement: Taking something
away that makes it more likely that the desirable behavior will occur again in
the future.
Although that wording is a
little bit confusing, negative reinforcement is a relatively simple concept. An
example of negative reinforcement in the classroom would be allowing students
to skip one homework activity (i.e. taking away the homework) or to turn in an
activity late without penalty (i.e. removing the penalty). Negative
reinforcement is a powerful tool because it allows students to avoid something
that they find aversive. This increases
desirable behavior because the student is rewarded (i.e. the aversive stimulus
is removed) when the desirable behavior occurs. Like with positive
reinforcement, when other students see the removal of the aversive stimulus,
they will be more likely to engage in the desirable behavior in hopes of
getting the reinforcer.
Example of Reinforcement in Action
A teacher that I know uses a
token economy (she used those flat marbles that you see in fish tanks as
tokens) in her EC classroom. One of her students who we will call Carl often
has trouble staying on task during work time. The teacher makes sure to be
especially attentive when the class is having work time to look for
opportunities to praise Carl and to give him a token. When she first started
this with Carl, she rarely was able to give Carl tokens for his behavior. As
time went on and Carl was able to turn in his tokens to get small rewards, he
realized that his ability to get rewards was directly contingent on his on-task
behavior. The teacher noticed that Carl started staying on task more and more,
and he would even glance at her to see if she had noticed his behavior. She
overheard him tell another student that he was “way better at working now
because [he] gets cool stuff when [he] works hard.” Her token economy was
working well for him, and she was able to offer bigger rewards (like a late
pass to be used to receive full credit for an assignment that was up to three
days late) once the system began working.
Punishment
Of course, in an ideal world, we
would only need to use reinforcement with our students. However, that is not
always the case. Sometimes students exhibit undesirable behavior despite seeing
that only desirable behavior receives reinforcements, and we have to intervene.
Now, when I say punishment, I imagine that something very negative springs to
mind for you. Maybe yelling is what you picture. Maybe some form of old-school
corporal punishment. This, however, is not what I mean. When we talk about
punishment in a behavior modification sense, we just mean something that will
make an undesirable behavior less likely to occur. As with reinforcement, there
are two different kind of punishment.
Positive Punishment – Adding something that makes it less likely that
the undesirable behavior will occur again in the future.
Positive punishment, despite
sounding like an oxymoron, is actually quite simple. The word positive just
refers to adding something. When you pictured punishment earlier, you likely
pictured some form of positive punishment. Just as psychologist use this as a
last resort, teachers also do their best to steer clear of positive punishment
if another option will work better. Generally, some sort of negative punishment
is quite effective when attempting to alter an undesirable behavior.
Negative Punishment - Taking something away that makes it less likely
that the undesirable behavior will occur again in the future.
Negative punishment is very common,
both in school and at home. Negative punishment often manifests itself as the
loss of a privilege or the removal of a desirable activity. Generally speaking,
negative punishment is implemented when the use of reinforcement is just not
enough to kick the undesirable behavior. In school, this might look like a time
out (for younger students), the revocation of recess privileges, or even a
detention (the removal of free time).
While I personally do not think that the loss of recess is a good idea,
especially for younger children, I definitely see how negative punishment can play
an important role in the classroom. One way I could see myself using negative
punishment is if a student is incredibly off task during group work and is
talking to his group mates rather than working, the privilege of working with a
group could be taken away. Of course, this would not be my first line of
defense with something like this because I believe that group work is
important. However, for a student who desires the attention and social
interaction that group works inherently brings, removing that would likely make
the student rethink his or her approach to group work and behavior during work
time.
Example of Negative Punishment
Another teacher friend of mine
teaches elementary school, and she gives her students a second recess every
Friday. Because this is a privilege rather than their regular recess time, she
feels this is an appropriate privilege to take away if students are
misbehaving. She uses a card system throughout the week (green, yellow, red,
and blue, just like the traditional system), and if a student gets two red
cards or one blue card during the week, the student must stay inside and do
school work during second recess. The teacher is able to do this because she
has a teaching assistant who stays inside with the kids who have had their
recess privilege revoked. Although I definitely see why this system would
improve behavior, I do not like the idea of using schoolwork as punishment.
Students should not feel like they are being punished with the material they
are learning and the assignments they are required to complete. However, I do
understand that this can be a powerful motivator for students.
My Classroom
Ideally, my classroom would have a
system for both reinforcement and punishment in place that looks like the
following flow chart. This chart would help me decide what kind of
reinforcement or punishment to implement. Remember, punishment is used
differently in behavior modification that it is in regular life. Also, keep in
mind that I am going to be working with middle school students, so all of my
strategies must be appropriate for that grade level. Something like removal of
recess in not applicable to this grade, so more creative solutions may have to
be implemented.
