3.3.1 What is Reinforcement?

Review Question
What are several things a teacher must learn and understand when it comes to reinforcement?
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Reinforcement is the sum and substance of classroom management. If you can use and understand reinforcement, then you can manage a classroom. I am a control freak as a teacher. If I am going to have the responsibility of being a teacher then I have to have enough authority to make it happen. I want to give students all sorts of privileges, but on my terms. The teacher is responsible for what happens during the year, and there is just no way to avoid that.

The authority of teachers, however, is largely an illusion. You have only as much control as you can talk your students into letting you have. If students don't want to come to class, they don't come to class; if students don't want to do assignments, they don't do them; if students don't want to learn, they don't. What you can control is the motivation system of the classroom. Reinforcement is a powerful motivational tool. When used effectively, it can get students involved and interested and keep them from being bored or acting up.

Reinforcement is a broad topic. Our focus will be on the forms of reinforcement, and strategies for knowing when to use the different types. Reinforcement can be either positive or negative or verbal or non-verbal.

Positive reinforcement can be used to either: 1) encourage desirable behavior or 2) encourage the absence of undesirable behavior. Negative reinforcement is used only to encourage the absence of undesirable behavior.

Encouraging desirable behavior with positive reinforcement is fairly straightforward. However, encouraging the absence of undesirable behaviors through positive reinforcement may need a little clarification. The absence of undesirable behavior is a very powerful tool of reinforcement, and it is something that you want to reinforce. To illustrate this I use Henry as an example. Here is Henry, who has been a difficult kid. All of a sudden Henry is sitting there doing nothing. Encouraging the absence of undesirable behavior means that you as a teacher should say 'Hey Henry, it's really neat that you are sitting there doing nothing and not getting in the way'. This is something that most teachers are not good at, because it is kind of counter-intuitive. When Henry gets in the way you are going to remember to say something, but when Henry isn't in the way it is counter-intuitive to say something. Can you see how it would be powerful to recognize the absence of Henry's negative behaviors?

Negative reinforcement can be thought of as strategies for discouraging undesirable behavior. When Henry is doing something bad and you say something to stop it, that is negative reinforcement. This does not need very much explanation because it is fairly clear-cut.

Positive or negative reinforcement can be given or received through verbal or non-verbal cues. "Verbal" refers to words, and "non-verbal" encompasses body language and other cues. As a teacher you will use a mixture of verbal and non-verbal cues to manage your classroom.

	What is included in positive reinforcement?	Answer Here
	Mr. Taylor is a fifth grade teacher that has around twenty students in his class. How can he control the behavior of all of his students, even if they each misbehave at different times?	Answer Here