In your practice, how do you plan for reward and encouragement?

Is the reward linked directly to the desired behaviour, or is it more of an incentive?

Consider what we have already learned about behaviour design and rewards – What could you do to make your classroom-based rewards more effective?

As we have previously discussed in this MOOC, the role of celebration, incentives, motivation and rewards, I will instead reflect on the need for explicit, timely and relevant feedback.

On the Japanese railways, before and after each train's arrival and departure, you will see train officers pointing and calling out the names and status of each safety concern on the platform that day.

They might point to the lights and say the light is green, or they may point to the tracks and say the rail is clear.

They do this because pointing and speaking involve the cognitive co-creation of behaviours and require cognisant thought. This cannot be done on auto piolet.

Why is this important, you ask?

Well, suppose you go through your day constantly predicting and unconsciously reacting to all of your stimuli. In that case, you fail to register the small changes around you that can lead to significant consequences.

This is the same for providing feedback – if you are constantly telling people good job or well done! Then they begin to predict and automate their response to that encouragement.

An example of this kind of process is the social nicety of saying ‘how are you?’ it is not actually an inquiry but a perfunctory greeting to which we expect a commensurate ‘Fine, how are you.’. When this is the case, we are caught off guard and surprised when people tell us how they are going.

The same is true of feedback if we expect a well done, then it does not elicit a positive emotion, and as we know from earlier, emotions help wire in behaviours.

So, what is the solution? Just like with the Japanese rail workers, point and call the behaviour.

Instead of saying ‘good job!’ Say, ‘I really like how you did _________; I can see you worked hard.

OR

I can see you really tried, next time we can try ___________

OR

I am so happy you did your work, I noticed ____________

By making our feedback specific and relevant to the behaviour we are seeking to elicit we have another strategy to give a boost of positive emotion to the student and another chance to help wire in that desired behaviour.

Set yourself up an action plan to respond specifically to student behaviour –

After a student does the desired behaviour,

I will give specific feedback about the behaviour and one thing I liked about it.

I will then give myself a celebration because this is a step towards becoming a better PBIS user.

Take between a day and a week and focus on implementing specific feedback for your desired behaviour.

What do you notice changes when you give specific feedback over general feedback?

Has there been any change in the student’s speed of adoption in behaviours or lessons because of the feedback methods?

How could we teach students also to give specific feedback?