Oh the joys of being a child, right? Lately I have been offering incentives as a Sub. to kids who are doing what is right. Stickers. These stickers came to me free from different mailers and such so it was a free incentive. I was amazed by the affect it had on 1st graders today. The students were coming in from PE and loud. They were somewhat hyper from having an easy PE day outside in the beautiful weather. They came in and were to sit at their seats and quietly work on a workbook for handwriting. Most were being extra loud but a few were doing their work without talking.
I decided to bust out my Disney stickers and assortment of other stickers for those students to choose from. I offered a sticker to a few that were working nice and quietly and sure enough a particually loud student perks up and says "Hey, they get a sticker, that's no fair!" He was wronged in a major way. I did not say anything and just continued to give stickers to a few more students working hard on their work. One of the students who had already gotten a sticker pipes up and says, "He's giving stickers to people who are working hard, (she looks at me) right?" She got the jist of it. After that, the sound in the room dropped by 1/2 db. I started walking around to more and more students giving them stickers. Eventually, I got to all the students and the atmosphere in the class was so much quieter. It didn't last the rest of the day, to say the least, but I was just floored at how effective that Positive Reinforcement was.
I am certainly a teacher who likes using Positive Reinforcement rather than any other types. I would much rather praise a child for doing right, than curse a child for doing poorly. Or giving bad stuff for bad behavior or taking away bad stuff for good behavior.
Yay, for stickers (although, not sure it works all that great for children above 4th or 5th grade) Then the reinforcement is "Stupid") hehe.
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