Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Reward Systems in the Classroom

The topic of my blog post for this week is reward systems.  Differentiated reward systems are seen in classrooms throughout the U.S. When teachers create their classroom management, they must consider consequences for interfering behavior and then also consequences for positive behavior.  Students need a consistent system for both positive and negative reinforcement that they can relate to and comprehend.  A reward system is a great way to give positive reinforcement to those students who show positive behavioral and academic choices.  Through my experiences in the classroom, I have seen many examples of reward systems.  One example that I have seen is teachers hand out dollars to students who make good choices and then at the end of the week students can spend those dollars in the classroom treasure box.  Another example is the teacher gives her students tickets for good choices and then the students put the tickets into a jar to be picked on Friday to go to the treasure box.  Another component of this specific reward system is when the class's tickets reach a certain line on the jar then the whole class gets a reward.  I like this component because it is rewarding the entire class for a series of positive choices.  In my own classroom, I think I will have a reward system based on each student and based on the class.  I like the second example's system and would envision something similar in my classroom.  To my reward system, I would also add that whenever the student receives tickets she or he should write it in their agenda to their parents.  I have seen this technique before and I really like it because students get excited about letting their parents or guardians know that they behaved and worked well that day.  Ultimately, I would like the students to be working towards a reward that is not materialistic, but is intrinsic.  When students are intrinsically motivated to make positive behavioral and academic choices, they are able to begin self-regulating their behavior and performance.  Self-regulation will be the ultimate goal of whatever reward system (and consequence system) that I will create one day in my classroom.

1 comment:

  1. I like the addition of the agenda as well. This does two things- reinforces the behavior for the child and keeps the parent in the loop.

    ReplyDelete