Rewards And Punishment At School Learning

Margaret Heffernan once said, “For good ideas and true innovation, you need a mix of human interaction, conflict, argument, and debate.” In the article it is debated if there is any benefit in monetary rewards for students. Teachers, and parents alike are always trying to find the best way to reward and inspire there students to do well in school. Matthew G Springer is a professor of Public Policy and Education at Vanderbilt University. He is also the director of the National Center on Performance Incentives. He wrote this article to display his research and studies.

Operant conditioning is the effects punishment and reinforcement have on behavior; “the law of effect, which states that behaviors associated with good consequences (satisfiers) are more likely to occur again in the future, whereas behaviors associated with bad consequences (annoyers) are less likely to occur again” (Durwin 162). This is a necessary component used by many psychologists and educators to provide the best positive outcome in a child’s behavior. When analyzing the “Billy Scenario,” it is obvious that the teacher, Ms. Allen, tried different techniques of punishment to decrease the students’ misbehavior, but was unsuccessful; leading to an increase in the frequency of response or more disruptive behavior.

Following the introduction of the whole school behaviour policy, it was also made compulsory for schools to include a system of rewards and sanctions (Elton, 1989, Steer, 2005; DFE, 2014; Payne, 2015). Within school X it was found that this system was based on the behaviourist principles of Skinners (1974) theory. The use of rewards and sanctions in school X consisted of positively reinforcing desirable behaviours and correcting negative behaviour through sanctions. The behavioural theory underlines that by reinforcing a particular behaviour, children will repeat it as they begin to associate rewards with a particular behaviour (Skinner, 1974; Morgan, 2009; Rogers, 2011a). For example it was observed that when a child was positively praised for helping others, the teacher would reward the child by awarding a dojo. A dojo is used as a form of praise which amounts to a score at the end of the week based on how many dojos a child receives. This will then feed on to the merit card and sticker system enabling children to be rewarded by prizes. Consequently children were able to make associations between the desired behaviour and its outcome. This is therefore identified as a form of extrinsic motivation (Roffey and O’ Reirdan, 2001; Payne, 2015).

The term punishment as used in operant conditioning refers to any change that occurs after a behavior happens that reduces the likelihood that the behavior will follow again in the future. Punishment occurs when a response is followed immediately by a stimulus change that decreases the future frequency of similar responses. Behaviorist B.F. Skinner was the first psychologist to identify

My teachers in lower grades used punishments more than rewards to influence my behaviors. Starting from kindergarten the punishment system was introduced to me. Whenever I misbehaved, I had to move the clothespin with my name on it, up the next paper plate which symbolized a higher tier of punishment. The three levels were green, yellow, and red. The first tier, green, symbolized freedom to play during recess, the second tier, yellow, symbolized a penalty of time that had to be sat on a bench, and the final tier, red, symbolized a trip to the principal’s office. The fear of having to go see the principal or having to sit on the bench for a period of time was my motivation to not misbehave.

„X     Punishment & Reinforcement ¡V Parents and teachers use punishment and reward to socialize children into conforming to social norms. Do something that is inappropriate by society¡¦s standards and be punished. Do something correct, and be rewarded.

In Hallie’s Ted Talk Dan Phink gave me a new insight into how motivation can shape ones production. He argued that the conventional ideas of incentives were wrong. I agreed with his reasoning that in some circumstances incentives such as “Do this in five minutes!” is detrimental to one’s thinking capabilities. In elementary school my school had us learn addition and subtraction via timed quizzes called Speed Drills. The method was effective at drilling the process of doing math, but when it came to fixing puzzles many in my class struggled. I do not like time limits on assignments or activities. They do not motivate me to finish faster as depending on the activity I AM A SLOW WORKER. I fully agree with the notion that the reward punishment

Positive punishment is involves presenting an aversive stimulus after a behavior as occured. Where aversive is causing avoidance of a thing, situation, or behavior by using an unpleasant or punishing stimulus, as in techniques of behavior modification. For example, during learning process in the class, Ishaan did not pay attention of what his teacher told in front of the class. Besides, he was unconsciously focused on a bird feeding it’s children outside the window. Then, Ishaan was asked by the teacher to go in front of class and get the punishment as a reminder for him for not repeat the same mistake again. This situation show that when response leads to the arrival of something aversive, and this response tends to be

Skinner believed that behaviour is shaped and maintained by a reinforcing stimulus and that schedules of reinforcement are important factors in the learning process. There are many situations in the classroom where a behaviourist approach is likely to work well. For example, when I teach, I have started to pick out students who are making the right choices throughout the lesson. I call attention to the student who is doing the right thing and use verbal praise, which is quite an effective way to let other students realise what the expected learning behaviour is. The Year 6 students in the class are aware of the school’s reward system; ten credits lead to one merit, which is recorded in their merit book. They are also aware that bad behaviour in the class or on the playground will be followed by negative consequences. To warn against unwanted behaviour, I have seen teachers use negative reinforcers such as verbal warnings, timeouts and losing privileges.

When it comes to inspiring behavioral changes positive reinforcement is more effective than punishment in terms of changing the behavior in the long term. How effectively positive reinforcement affects behavioral changes is closely tied to how behavioral changes are incentivized and rewards bestowed. The case is similar for the application of negative reinforcement. However, rewards and punishments must significantly affect a person’s current situation--for better or worse--in order to inspire change. Let’s look at how positive reinforcement typically results in long-term behavioral change more effectively than punishment overall.

They were able to control the curricula and everything about the entire learning experience along with conducting small scale complimentary experiments to better understand why the effects observed were happening. The hope was to determine which key skills children should acquire to prepare them for later success. The overarching theme in this experiment was that parents, teachers, and students from preschool to ninth grade were motivated to perform better when they were incentivized. Additionally, when students and teachers were provided with an incentive and threatened with the loss of the incentive, everyone preformed

If discipline is used to motivate a student to improve test scores then scores will increase more than just with a reward.

Negative and positive reinforcements and extinction strengthen certain kinds of behavior of individuals. Punishment is a big form of operant conditioning used all over the world. When people are punished, it is to decrease that certain behavior produced by the individual. Therefore, behavioral theory refers to conditioning which leads to different behavioral pattern of juvenile offenders.

Classroom reward systems provide teachers and students with guidelines to follow when dealing with behaviour. Every school has some form of behaviour management in place to deal with both good and bad behaviours and children with special needs who often need structure, planning and daily goals. Integrating technology into classroom reward systems, rewarding good behaviour, hard work or improvement, can have a positive impact on students, as Merrett, A., and Merrett, L. (2013) described, due to the materials being more stimulating and more interactive than other methods commonly used. Also digital rewards systems are easier for educators to edit and tailor to students or classrooms, individual needs, abilities and/or year group.

One of the simplest and most commonly-used methods of conceptualizing learning is that of reinforcement theory (Noe 2010: 142). Every time a parent promises a child a toy for being good during a grocery store trip or threatens a teen with being grounded for bad grades, he or she is using reinforcement theory. Reinforcement theory is based upon the assumption that people want to experience as much pleasure as possible and avoid pain. Thus, businesses offer workers bonuses for good work, and issue reprimands (such as docking pay or denying a promotion) for poor behavior.