One of life’s greatest lesson is learning that there is a right and a wrong. As we grow from infancy we are conditioned by everyone around us, such as teachers parents and friends on how we should and shouldn’t act. We also learn that every action has a consequence, whether it be good or bad. The consequences can be defined as positive and negative reinforcements. Positive and negative reinforcements help to maintain, decrease, or increase a behavior. School is a prominent place where this is constantly taking place. This paper highlights some of the ways that teachers use positive and negative reinforcements to better their environment, as well as to help students learn and live better lives.
According to Raymond Miltenberger, reinforcement
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Natural reinforcements occur through schools and at home. At home is where parents are able to motivate their children to organize and clean their rooms, as well as household chores (Wheeler 2010). Growing up, I always had chores. My parents would use payment, or trips to the movies as motivation for my sister and I to keep our rooms cleaned. Unplanned reinforcement can happen when children work hard to complete an assignment in class, because the teacher recognized the effort and complimented them on it (Wheeler 2010). As a student I always loved when a teacher complimented me on my work. It always felt good to be recognized and knowing that your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed, is truly motivation to do better. Planned reinforcement is an approach that rewards the student for completing homework or class work early. Also, it can be when parents verbally praise and/or reward the student for completing housework (Wheeler 2010). For a teacher to be effective with the reinforcement method, they have to take in account the learning preferences of each student and use reinforcement tactics that work for them (Wheeler 2010). Reinforcement can also be used to help teach a child. Reinforcement can be a way to make learning their subject more appealing. This I find very true. I never had a favorite subject, just favorite teachers. The teachers who made learning content more …show more content…
That being positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is the occurrence of a behavior, followed by the addition of a stimulus or the increase of a stimulus, which results in the strengthening of the behavior (Miltenberger, 2015). Negative reinforcement is the occurrence of behavior that is followed by the removal of a stimulus or a decrease in the intensity of a stimulus, which results in the strengthening of a behavior (Miltenberger, 2015). Positive reinforcement is most commonly used in the classroom. In the classroom, positive reinforcement is shown when a teacher gives her students free time, such as playing outside and even rewards the student for good behavior (Reinforcement, 2010). A positive reinforcer isn't considered effective if the desired behavior doesn’t increase. So just because a teacher smiles at a student, or gives them candy, if the student doesn’t increase on the desired behavior it didn’t work. Negative reinforcement is when a student acts out because they are having a hard time understanding an assignment. If the student is having a hard time understanding and decides to disrupt the class, and gets sent to the principal's office, the student is no longer required to complete his or her assignment because the student was removed. By removing the child from class, it encourages the student to act out in the same way, the next time they feel frustrated by their work.
If a behavior is desirable, consequences called reinforcers are used to encourage the behavior in the future, via the process of reinforcement. Reinforcement can be positive (presenting reinforcing stimulus) or negative (removing a negative stimulus). However, if a behavior is undesired, a negative consequence can be used to discourage the behavior, through the process of either positive or negative punishment. In positive punishment, a negative consequence is presented after the undesired behavior occurs. When negative punishment it used the idea is the same “to discourage future display of undesired behavior,” but instead of presenting a negative stimulus, a desired stimulus is removed following the behavior.
Lee, D. L., & Belfiore, P. J. (1997). Enhancing classroom performance: A review of reinforcement
"Negative Reinforcement." Teaching Aids for Children with Special Needs. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.
Positive reinforcement works by presenting something positive to the person after a desired behavior is exhibited, making the behavior more likely to happen in the future (McAdams, 2009). An example of this could be when a child helps their mother with the dishes and the mothers rewards the child with ice cream. Negative reinforcement, is when a behavior is strengthened by stopping, removing or avoiding a negative outcome or aversive stimulus (McAdams, 2009). An example of this could be when the light goes green at a traffic light, the car in front of a person does not move. The person hates when this happens and from experience knows that honking the car’s horn gets cars that are in front of them to go
In second grade I was apart of a wild classroom. Their was a lot of chaos from all the young children. My teacher struggled to get everyone on task and to complete our work. After some time my teacher decided to make up a reward system (positive reinforcement). The children in the classroom were able to earn tickets for doing their homework, being respectful, and many other things. We were able to save these tickets and cash them in on fridays for treats, toys, or even sometimes extra recess. The teacher had a separate system for when we misbehaved. There were 3 colors you could earn everyday. If you weren’t on task, out of your seat, or just being disruptive she would change your color from green to yellow. If it happened again you got a red card and lost your tickets you earned for that day. This is a perfect example of positive punishment. It gave each child an opportunity to earn tickets for good behavior, and a warning system with the cards that possibly would lead to losing your earned tickets. Our teacher was using operant conditioning to produce a change in our
Operant conditioning is a kind of conditioning, which examines how often a behavior will or occur depending on the effects of the behavior (King, 2016, pg. ). The words positive and negative are used to apply more significance to the words reinforcement or punishment. Positive is adding to the stimulus, while negative is removing from the stimulus (King, 2016). For instance, with positive reinforcement, there is the addition of a factor to increase the number of times that the behavior occurs (King, 2016). An example of positive reinforcement is when a child is given an allowance for completing their household chores. The positive reinforcement is the allowance which helps to increase the behavior of doing chores at home. In contrast with negative
Positive feedback is all about promoting change in the behavior. I was raised within a household that rely on negative feedback and punishment to promote good behavior. Sometimes I did reward my nephews for positive behaviors but it was not done continuously or in a way that would result in positive behavior change. I come to believe that negative reinforcement was the key to ameliorating bad behaviors until I took notice the positive feedback I was given minimizes the bad attitudes and behaviors of the children. They were getting along well and whenever I praise one the others wanted to get that praise also, I believe that motivate them to behave appropriately. For instance, when one did a good deed I would make all the other clap while saying “well done” or something positive. It was a very long process because children do not change their ways from one day to the next, I couldn’t say I was very patience but see them attempt to better themselves, was what motivate
Negative reinforcement should not be alone because doing so can increase the likelihood of the behavior. Negative reinforcement is not
Positive reinforcement is a method of presenting to children the appropriate behavior from the inappropriate behaviors. This is done by pointing out the correct behavior and giving some form of encouraging reward. The idea is that all behaviors
First of all, I was highly interested in the concept and various factors that together make up positive reinforcement. I had a premise that I could do some experimental work on the three children for whom I baby-sit during the week after school. They leave school full of energy and it is my job to get them to complete a series of tasks before the end of the evening. I imagined that some positive reinforcement might get them on their way to handling their responsibilities in a timelier manner. My first step was to come up with a specific instrumental response that would produce reinforcement. This took no time at all because by far the most painfully difficult thing for me to do is get the children to sit down and do their homework. I then spoke specifically to each child and asked them what they would rather choose as an after school activity. They named video games, television, and going to play with other neighborhood children. I had expected these types of answers from the children and made them into the positive reinforcers that would be contingent on the children’s performance of the instrumental response; namely completing their homework. I explained to the children that if they behaved and finished their homework, then directly following they could spend an hour doing an activity of their choice.
.... I feel that in most cases, once a student has been punished through negative reinforcement for doing wrong, the student will attempt to correct such behavior in the future to avoid punishment. In addition, positive reinforcement should be given for those students who are the majority and behave, as well as for the students who are occasional troublemakers because positive reinforcement helps show what is correct behavior in response to bad behavior.
Positive reinforcement is a gentle and effective method to implement discipline in the classroom, where students understand the importance of good behaviour, and as an outcome students behave well (S, 2016).
Negative reinforcement is removing something that is not enjoyable as the result of the behavior that is acceptable example is in Skinners box experiment, a loud noise continuously rang until the rat did what Skinner wanted the rat to do (Cervone, Pervin, Cervone, & Professor of Psychology Lawrence A Pervin, 2013). Positive punishment is used to eliminate a certain behavior and is giving something unenjoyable after the behavior. Negative punishment is used to eliminate a behavior and eliminating something you enjoy after the
Levine, A. (1999). What is negative reinforcement? Negative Reinforcement University. Retrieved on November 14, 2003 from http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/proj/nru/index.html
The reward system is a beneficial behavioral modification teaching method, which promotes more positive behaviors in the classroom (Charles & Barr, 2014). Many teachers generally use the reward method of praise within their classrooms for a variety of reasons. The first advantage of using praise within the classroom is because it encourages students do repeat positive behaviors in the classroom. Many children are simply looking for attention and enjoy it, which makes it a great technique to use in the classroom (Charles & Barr, 2014). Another advantage for this reward type is that due to the encouragement, the students are able to perform at a better rate; students excel academically. A final advantage to using praise is that it is easily implemented into the classroom and requires little to no preparation. This makes the reward method a great addition for teachers as well as students because students get instant feedback without