Praising Students Improves Behavior, Academics

February 10th, 2010 By: Diane Trim in Articles, School Climate, Teachers' Corner

Studies like the one from graduate students at the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University affirm what you already know: praise works.

Students like to feel good about themselves, they gravitate towards teachers and classes where they feel good, and they like subjects that reinforce the notion that they’re good at something.

It’s nice, though, to see what we all accept as good classroom management and good teaching backed by research. It’s also good to be reminded of some simple truths that surround the simple concept of praising students for good behavior and good work. However, we all know that implementing these simple truths isn’t always so simple.

In the article, “Using Teacher Praise and Opportunities to Respond to Promote Appropriate Student Behavior,” I learned that not all students receive the same amount of attention. Indeed, the authors wrote that, from a very young age, kids learn that they receive more of a teacher’s attention for inappropriate behavior than for appropriate behavior.

That’s part of the problem, isn’t it? The kids who act out in class receive a lot of the teachers’ attention; however, good behavior goes unrecognized. Really, teachers are encouraging the cycle of disruptive behavior.

The authors also wrote that teachers tend to avoid engaging students with poor behavior, so these students don’t receive a great education. The student’s records of misbehavior and the many negative student-teacher interactions leads to fewer engagement attempts from the teacher. Teachers who have really disruptive students, the authors wrote, might try to tiptoe around the difficult kid so as to avoid setting the student off.

Of course, these teachers are trying to survive their school days the best they can, but when we look at it, avoiding students won’t improve their behavior or their education.

Prevent off-task behavior. The researchers wrote that it’s best to prevent poor classroom behavior before it starts. But, if I’m the beleaguered teacher with the out-of-control seventh period, I’m rolling my eyes right now. My class is well beyond the prevention stage.

Actually, it’s not. The researchers wrote that teachers can use two easy methods to prevent off-task behavior and promote learning. They are: targeted, meaningful praise for appropriate behavior and many opportunities for students to respond correctly to content questions. In other words: praise good behavior instead of punishing bad behavior and give students a feeling of success. It’s all about feeling good.

Teacher praise. These researchers aren’t the first to write about the efficacy of praise in the classroom. However, they do bring something new to the discussion: they write that praise is effective with all ages, all skill levels, and all children, even those with disabilities. They write that praise not only increases good behavior and decreases bad behavior, but, when combined with decreasing attention to bad behavior, it can actually lead to fewer student-teacher power struggles and other disruptions.

Students aren’t widgets and they don’t all respond to praise in the same way. Some might want a quiet word or a nod, some might want a whole class announcement about a successful pencil sharpening. They offer some guidelines for giving praise:

• Praise must be specific and linked to behaviors that the teacher wants to promote
• Praise must be tailored to each student
• Praise is meaningless if the teacher has no other positive, personal interactions with a student
• Some students need praise for small acts that other students might take for granted, like sharpening a pencil at an appropriate time. Give into that kid’s need. Praise doesn’t cost anything.

Opportunities to respond. Hand-in-hand with teacher praise are the opportunities for students to respond in class, the authors write. The more opportunities the students have to respond to academic questions correctly, the fewer classroom disruptions occur.

I was surprised to learn the number of opportunities to respond that the authors recommend. For new material, teachers should shoot for four – six opportunities to respond per minute, with students answering correctly 80 percent of the time. If the teacher’s reviewing material, the opportunities to respond should increase to between eight and twelve responses per minute, with a 90 percent accuracy rate.

I can tell you, I know I didn’t have that many opportunities to respond in my classes. Unfortunately, the authors of this study didn’t offer any strategies beyond visual response cards to increase the number of times students could respond per minute. There’s always the one-two-three finger method where students hold their hands close to their chests and signal with their fingers the answer to a question. Small whiteboards and dry-erase markers are effective, if the students can tolerate the overwhelming marker fumes.

Teacher reflection. The authors’ strategy to increase student opportunities to respond didn’t lie in teaching strategies, but in teacher reflection. In the study, the researchers recorded teachers in their classrooms once a week for 15 minutes and ticked off the number of times a teacher offered praise and opportunities for responses. They shared the results with the teachers. Over the course of the 15-week study, the teachers increased their praise rates and opportunities to respond as a result of the researchers’ feedback. One teacher in the study tripled her praise rates to 25-30 incidents per 15 minutes of instruction. Her opportunities to respond rose from 40-60 every 15 minutes to more than 100.

I think that taking a good look at your own teaching practice is a healthy thing. Graphing praise and response rates will surely help a teacher reflect on best practice and focus on improving one area of her teaching style.

Praise and opportunities to succeed help students to learn. Teachers who use these two strategies have more on-task behavior in their classes and fewer behavioral disruptions. Of course, studying and reflecting on one’s own practice is helpful, too.

However, I can’t help but think about that gal stranded in seventh period with her out-of-control class. She’s a nice person. She tries to be positive. She tries to teach. She reflects on her practice. She works hard. Praise and opportunities to succeed seem like simple solutions to implement, but this gal needs tools she can use today. Maybe she needs to write down a list of praise phrases that she can look at when she can’t think of anything but the final bell ringing. Maybe she needs some teaching strategies to give her students more opportunities to respond.

Do you have some ideas that might help this gal survive her seventh period? How do you give your students 6-12 opportunities to respond per minute? Let’s start a list in the comments.

Reference:

Partin, T.C., Robertson, R.E. Maggin, D.E., Oliver, R.M., and Wehby, J.H. (2009) Using Teacher Praise and Opportunistic to Respond to Promote Appropriate Behavior. Preventing School Failure. 54(3): 172-178.

Tags: academic, behavior, Classroom Management, research