| Subject: Re: Reinforcement schedules that don't kill teachers |
Author:
Danielle Murphy
|
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Date Posted: 15:06:38 01/20/08 Sun
In reply to:
Peter V.
's message, "Reinforcement schedules that don't kill teachers" on 13:41:38 01/20/08 Sun
Although I have never taught before, I do spend a lot of time learning about behavior modifications and reinforcement strategies that can be used in the classroom. Depending on how your classroom is setup, and what grade you teach, you may be able to use some variation of a token economy to reinforce your students to attend class and be on time. Since checking roll by hand and keeping up with points has become too time consuming and too much to keep up with, you could try using a token or 'on-time' pass that you give each student as they come in the door before the bell rings. At the end of the two-week period, students who have ten token or passes can exchange it for a homework pass. Tokens or passes could make the build-up to the reward more tangible and take the time of checking roll away. If you find that students are being tardy at the beginning of the two week period and essentially blowing their homework pass, you may need to rethink the reinforcer. Because of the Premack Principle discussed in class, a reinforcer will not act as reinforcing if it has no value to the student. Effective reinforcers can be found by the use of a Reinforcement Menu. Your students will know what is reinforcing to them, so ask them to list things that they'd like to work towards (realistic things that you can actually work with in the classroom). Sometimes after an extended period of time, reinforcers can start to lose their effectiveness. In this case, you can go back to your Reinforcement Menu and choose a new reinforcer. Rotating reinforcers can help keep them effective.
Depending on the setup of your classroom environment, these suggestions may or may not work, but I hope some of these ideas are helpful!
>Yesterday's class caused me to consider several
>practical issues in reinforcing excellent work and
>good behavior. For me, I have found that I often stay
>very busy as a teacher and while I have come up with
>several incentive programs for my class (relating to
>warmups, homework and punctuality), I get hung up on
>the amount of work involved in doing my part of the
>deal on a weekly or daily schedule. Also, I have
>found that my fixed-interval schedules don't work for
>motivating some students because two weeks is "too
>long to wait".
>
>For example, I put into place a punctuality and
>attendance incentive saying that any two week period
>in which a student was present and on time each day
>for the two weeks, he or she would get a homework pass
>and some extra credit. I started getting behind,
>however, because of the work involved in checking my
>roll by hand to see who should get one and also
>filling out all of the homework passes and putting the
>extra credit in my grade program.
>
>Also, some students will accidentally be tardy the
>first day of a two-week fixed-interval for this
>program, and then they will realize that they have
>already lost their chance for the homework pass and
>will not be motivated at all for the rest of the two
>weeks.
>
>Does anyone have ideas relating to any sort of
>reinforcement system that is working for them? Does
>anyone have ideas for how I could improve mine?
>
>Thanks!
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