Behavioral Theory
- mmaloni
- Nov 15, 2016
- 3 min read
During my internship class I observed many concepts that we went over in my Learning & Development within the School Context class. The three concepts from the readings in class were task-contingent rewards, performance-contingent rewards, and praise (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012). All of these three concepts I noticed throughout one day in my internship class.
When I walked into my internship class one morning one student came running up to me and said that the whole class was eating lunch with my CT and myself that day. Later that day, during a lesson the class was not paying attention, so my CT had to remind the students if they kept on getting off task and not working on their reading worksheets the class would not have lunch with her or myself that day. So my CT was using task-contingent reward, which is rewards that “are given for participating in an activity…or for completing an activity” (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012). Right after my CT said that to the students the whole class started to complete their worksheets and stay on task. I think the only reason the class started to do their work was because they didn’t want that reward to be taken away from them. “Students tend to perceive task-contingent rewards as controlling- the student must only do what the teacher wants to get the reward.” (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012). I feel the class did exactly that, they only went back to work because they wanted that reward and I don’t think that the students are really learning intrinsic motivation that way. I would want the students to be engaged in the activity no matter what.
Another, concept I noticed that day from our readings was performance-contingent rewards. “Performance-contingent rewards are those given for doing well or achieving a certain level of performance.” (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012). There is this one student that comes into the classroom for RTI and he has to sit at a desk by the teacher’s desk so he can stay on task. This student also has some behavioral problems and the teachers try to reward him if he is doing a great job in class. This day I worked with this student during RTI and I had him read a passage to me. He was doing a great job following my directions and reading the passage. When I asked him questions about what he just read he was answering all the questions right and with no hesitation. When RTI was over I asked him, “How do you think you did today” and he said, “I think I did okay.” I said, “Well I think you did an awesome job today and I really liked how you answered all the questions I asked in complete sentences.” I then took out a sheet of stickers and put three star stickers on his paper. The performance-contingent reward was me giving the student stickers for correctly answering the questions I asked him and staying on task. “Students who receive performance-contingent rewards for successful performance on an activity continue to express interest and enjoyment in the activity…” (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012).
The last concept I saw that day during my internship was praise. Praise is “positive feedback in the form of written or spoken comments, is useful for providing individuals with feedback.” (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012). During math I walked over to one of the lower-achieving students in the class and observed how she was working out a word problem. I noticed that she picked up manipulatives to help her solve this problem and while using them she got the right answer. I praised her by saying, “I really liked how you used the manipulatives to help you solve the problem before you asked for anyone’s help. Keep up the good work!” The student was so happy about the praise I gave her she went right back to solving the next word problem. “Lower-achieving students…tend to benefit academically from praise. Students who are more likely to be discouraged academically may interpret teacher praise as more meaningful.” (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2012).
Also, when talking about these concepts there is somethings to think about when coming across them again in the future. If task-contingent rewards undermine intrinsic motivation should it even be used in a classroom? Is there a point were performance-contingent rewards can turn into a negative thing? And is there a thing as too much praise. If yes, why and if no, why not? These questions are something all teachers should think about and could help them when they are the classroom.
References:
Bohlin, L., Durwin, C. C., & Reese-Weber, M. (n.d.). EdPsych Modules (Second ed.). New
York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
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