How to Use Positive (and Negative) Reinforcement in the Classroom

Using positive reinforcement is one of the most powerful strategies you can use to impact behavior change. Sometimes we associate positive reinforcement with an item or token as opposed to an event that increases the future likelihood of the behavior in the future. In this episode we talk about what reinforcement really is and how to use reinforcement in your classroom.

First, we talk about positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement involves adding something to a situation that increases the likelihood of that behavior in the future. Examples of positive reinforcement certainly include things like tickets, tokens, small objects, but it is so much more than that. Positive reinforcement can be praise for appropriate work, a smile, a nod, a high five, reciprocal interactions with peers, it can literally be so many things.

The main aspect of using positive reinforcement is that you are adding something to the situation that increases the likelihood of that behavior occurring again in the future. Which brings us to the next point about reinforcement. Everyone finds different things reinforcing. Some people like public praise while others despise the thought of being recognized in front of a group of people. We know something is reinforcing if we see an increase of behavior in the future.

At times I hear from educators that the reinforcers are not working. If something is not increasing a behavior than it is not a reinforcer. When we are analyzing a plan, we want to make sure the behavior we want to increase is actually increasing, if it is not, we may not have the right reinforcer.

The second type of reinforcement is referred to as negative reinforcement. This can be a really confusing term. By negative reinforcement we are talking about taking something away from a situation that increases the likelihood of a behavior in the future. For example, if a student completes all of their independent work within the given time they might be excused from a homework assignment. In this situation we took something away, that may increase the likelihood of using independent work time wisely and getting all of the work done.

Just like with positive reinforcement, the key is that the behavior increases in the future. If the behavior we are focusing on is not increasing, we are not reinforcing the behavior.

In this episode, we also talk about naturally occurring reinforcers, they can be positive or negative and occur naturally in the environment. For example, if we are hungry and eat a sandwich the feeling of hunger goes away, this increases the likelihood we will eat when we are hungry again in the future. Our goal is for behaviors to occur naturally occurring reinforcers. Some people at times refer to this as intrinsic motivation. In some ways, this makes sense. In other ways, there are other mechanisms at play that may not be intrinsic motivation.

We do not have to get into the technical aspects intrinsic motivation, but naturally occurring reinforcement will probably be the closest you get to a true intrinsic motivator. Our goal is for our students to go from reinforcers we deliver as the adults to more naturally occurring reinforcers as this will lead to the most powerful behavior change.

Now do not get me wrong, sometimes this can be a goal that might be years in the future. It is important we use a behavior change framework that allows us to plan for naturally occurring reinforcers in the future. I am by no means saying go throw out your token boards and class treasure box, just that we should keep in mind that naturally occurring reinforcers will maintain the behavior over time as opposed to those traditional extrinsic reinforces.

Lastly, in the episode we talk about how to use reinforcement to maximize success of all your students by tying in all of these concepts together. Listen today and start reinforcing skills tomorrow.

Using positive (and negative) reinforcement in the classroom can be very effective at reinforcing (increasing) desired student behaviors. Reinforcement in classrooms increases desired behaviors and allows our students to build skills and success. However, there are a couple of things we need to discuss and understand about reinforcement before we can carry out these procedures effectively.