Rewards
- mmaloni
- Nov 14, 2016
- 2 min read
In my internship classroom rewards are mainly used when my CT notices that a student/students are on task or if they did a good job on something. My CT gives out a lot of verbal rewards to the students. For example, when my CT finds out the class did an awesome job in music she always praises them and tells them to give themselves a pat on the back for doing such a good job. Giving students verbal rewards are less likely to affect intrinsic motivation (Levin, & Nolan, 2014, p.96). Also, if my CT notices students staying on task or listening to her while she is talking she gives those students "bucks," and the students save them to buy stuff with them later. So the rewards are given to the students when they have good behavior. Also, giving these rewards to the students in some way is fostering teacher control over the students' behaviors (Levin, & Nolan, 2014, p. 95). When my CT gives out the "bucks" to the students on task the other students that were not on task change their behavior really fast and get on task like the other students. In a way the students only change their behavior so that they could get rewarded with the "bucks" and not because they really wanted to be on task.
My thoughts on the role that rewards might play in my classroom is that they might backfire and not really serve as a good thing. For example, I have to remember to not use verbal rewards, "...as tools for controlling students' behavior or for manipulating them to engage in a task that they would otherwise perceive as boring..." (Levin, & Nolan, 2014, p. 96). I don't want to have to manipulate my students to be engaged in a task by using rewards. I want my students to really find the topic/task interesting and want them to want to learn without rewards. This doesn't mean I won't give rewards out like, stickers or free time, but I have to make sure to not use rewards all the time where it causes a negative impact in the classroom.
References:
Levin, J., & Nolan, J. F. (2014). Philosophical Approaches to Influencing Students. In Principles of
Classroom Management (Seventh ed., pp. 95-96). Boston: Pearson.
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