The Positive Reinforcement Behavioral Strategies: Teacher Interventions to Manage Student Behavior

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. In particular, behavioral psychology theorists and practitioners have observed that by giving or withdrawing certain positive, and/or negative reinforcers after a student’s behavior is emitted, that student’s behavior can be changed or modified.

The chart at the top of the post identifies several ways that teachers can modify a student’s behavior through manipulating the consequences. You can present something positive- (box 1), present something negative-(box 2), withdraw something positive-(box 3), or withdraw something negative-(box 4). The arrows indicate that behavior will either increase (i.e. arrow pointing up), or decrease (e.g. arrow pointing down).

In today’s post we will describe and give concrete examples of positive reinforcement behavioral strategies.

In Box 1 you see that you can PRESENT something POSITIVE to the student, after he or she has performed some appropriate behavior. We call this positive reinforcement. There are three types of positive reinforcers that you can give a student: (1) concrete rewards, (2) social rewards,and (3) self rewards. Notice that the arrow in Box 1 points upward, suggesting that the positive behavior will increase. The chart below will give more specific examples of these rewards or positive reinforcers.

On the next post we will explain and give concrete examples of the teacher interventions in box number three including Time-Out, Response Cost and Extinction.