Reinforcement

It is difficult if not possible to measure what’s going on in a student’s mind at a specific moment. The students appeared to be paying attention were actually thinking non-academic issues, is not interested, is not motivated, is preoccupied with himself, among many other reason for non participation at school. Reinforcement rooted in the classic work of James Watson and B. F. Skinner. My discussion will include techniques, for increasing, decreasing, and maintaining behavior. There are many things to consider in the application of reinforcement so as to elicit behavior or the desired behavior.

To give into consideration is that, reinforcement is more effective when it is immediate. If a response of a student is no longer reinforced, as in ignoring a given answer of a student every time a teacher throws a question or unintentionally took it for granted, the learner if again called his attention to give his answer will eventually given up the response. Another is, desired action are encouraged by a reinforcement specifically social reinforcement, which typically include attention can be verbal or nonverbal. For example, the expression on your face can carry an unmistakable message to a student.

Usually, however, social reinforcers are verbal either accompanying some other form of reinforcement (“John, you can act as class monitor because of the way you behave in gym”) or taking the forms of words or phrase that signal your pleasure about the specific behavior. Social reinforcers expression, contact, proximity, privileges, and words. Giving positive remarks as the reinforcement every time the student performed better, finished a task or cooperate in the school activities are helpful in strengthening the students behavior or the possibilities of the repetition of the same positive behavior.

A very shy child may find it difficult to join into classroom activities, specially if the school experience is new to her. The teacher’s role is to involve the child in the classroom activities. The child’s behavior should only be recognized when she is at the activity, though not necessarily participating. For example, when the child sits with the group at circle time, sits at a table where manipulative games or arts projects are provided.

An activity within easy reach, when she is within easy reach of an activity, reinforce her, by praising and recognizing her behavior. Provide a reinforcement for every involvement in classroom activities as you notice it. A good reinforcement starts out with continuous reinforcement at the beginning stage of learning. Tangible reinforcers such as cookies and badges for young students or notes to parents or certificates for older students are just few examples which are necessary in the appliance of reinforcement so as to achieved desired outcome.

In giving reinforcement, as progress in the skill or behavior develops, less emphasis should be placed on tangible reinforcers, such as food and tokens, while more emphasis should be given to social reinforcers, such as praise and attention. Reinforcement is given only after the learner gains sufficient skill at a task, be it participating in group work or writing, that later be strengthened or reinforced that later becomes automatic and habitual. Constant reinforcement means reinforcing the behavior of the student every time he participates.

Applying a continuous reinforcement produces best results especially in new learning or conditioning situations. In education, we invoke behaviorism by awarding grades for various levels of performance that the more a student manifests interest in school/ classroom the more the behavior is reinforced so as to expect the same responses or behavior. If you wish to use positive reinforcers, and we all do, deliberately or otherwise, then you must be aware of how you use them. The following should put into consideration first; consider the age, interest, and needs of the students.

Pieces of candy are not too motivating for adolescents, but they must be great for first-graders; know precisely the behavior you wish to strengthen and make your reinforcers sufficiently desirable; list potential reinforcers that you think would be desirable; vary your reinforcers and keep record of the effectiveness of various reinforcers on individual students. Positive reinforcement is a powerful principle and can be applied to great advantage in the classroom. All of us who teach, from the preschool to the doctoral level, use positive reinforcement.

We must avoid, however, making students too dependent on the reinforcement we provide, particularly if we have initiated structured programs for students. We want them to work for those reinforcers that are natural to them. Punishment is a stimulus that follows a behavior and decreases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated. It can be use to reduced inappropriate behavior but should be done sparingly as even psychologists advice it’s application in moderation. For instance, giving deductions or minuses on the accumulated grade in assignment every time a student misbehave e.

g. shouting while the class in going on, decreases the likelihood of the behavior to be repeated. But when a student is not rewarded for appropriate or adaptive behavior, inappropriate or maladaptive behavior may become increasingly dominant, then punishment sinks in to eliminate such undesirable behavior. Sometimes, however, when the goal is to reduce or eliminate misbehavior, teachers consider using punishment (aversive procedures). A word of warning. Don’t fall into the trap of relying punishment.

It’s easy; it frequently works for a short time (although not as well with the secondary school students); and gives you a feeling of having established control. Punishment can destroy rapport with the students if excessively used, it produces a ripple effect that touches all students and affects one’s teaching and it may have side effects of which a teacher is unaware. In general, reinforcing alternative behavior is a far better method than punishment. Sources: Elliot et al. ,(2004). Educational psychology 3rd ed. USA: McGrawHill. Essa,V. (1999). A practical guide to solving preschool behavior problems. New York:Delm

In the early 1960s Bandura and other researchers conducted a classic set of experiments that demonstrated the power of observational learning. In one experiment, a preschool child worked on a drawing while a television set showed an adult behaving aggressively toward a large inflated Bobo doll (a clown doll that bounces back up when knocked down). The adult pummeled the doll with a mallet, kicked it, flung it in the air, sat on it, and beat it in the face, while yelling such remarks as “Sock him in the nose … Kick him … Pow! ” The child was then left in another room filled with interesting toys, including a Bobo doll.

The experimenters observed the child through one-way glass. Compared with children who witnessed a nonviolent adult model and those not exposed to any model, children who witnessed the aggressive display were much more likely to show aggressive behaviors toward the Bobo doll, and they often imitated the model’s exact behaviors and hostile words. In a variant of the original experiment, Bandura and colleagues examined the effect of observed consequences on learning. They showed four-year-old children one of three films of an adult acting violently toward a Bobo doll.

In one version of the film, the adult was praised for his or her aggressive behavior and given soda and candies. In another version, the adult was scolded, pked, and warned not to behave that way again. In a third version, the adult was neither rewarded nor punished. After viewing the film, each child was left alone in a room that contained a Bobo doll and other toys. Many children imitated the adult’s violent behaviors, but children who saw the adult punished imitated the behaviors less often than children who saw the other films.

However, when the researchers promised the children a reward if they could copy the adult’s behavior, all three groups of children showed large and equal amounts of violent behavior toward the Bobo doll. Bandura concluded that even those children who did not see the adult model receive a reward had learned through observation, but these children (especially those who saw the model being punished) would not display what they had learned until they expected a reward for doing so.

The term latent learning describes cases in which an individual learns a new behavior but does not perform this behavior until there is the possibility of obtaining a reward. B of Imitation According to Bandura’s influential theory of imitation, also called social learning theory, four factors are necessary for a person to learn through observation and then imitate a behavior: attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. First, the learner must pay attention to the crucial details of the model’s behavior.

A young girl watching her father bake a cake will not be able to imitate this behavior successfully unless she pays attention to many important details—ingredients, quantities, oven temperature, baking time, and so on. The second factor is retention—the learner must be able to retain all of this information in memory until it is time to use it. If the person forgets important details, he or she will not be able to successfully imitate the behavior. Third, the learner must have the physical skills and coordination needed for reproduction of the behavior.

The young girl must have enough strength and dexterity to mix the ingredients, pour the batter, and so on, in order to bake a cake on her own. Finally, the learner must have the motivation to imitate the model. That is, learners are more likely to imitate a behavior if they expect it to lead to some type of reward or reinforcement. If learners expect that imitating the behavior will not lead to reward or might lead to punishment, they are less likely to imitate the behavior.

C Theory of Generalized Imitation An alternative to Bandura’s theory is the theory of generalized imitation. This theory states that people will imitate the behaviors of others if the situation is similar to cases in which their imitation was reinforced in the past. For example, when a young child imitates the behavior of a parent or an older sibling, this imitation is often reinforced with smiles, praise, or other forms of approval.

Similarly, when children imitate the behaviors of friends, sports stars, or celebrities, this imitation may be reinforced—by the approval of their peers, if not their parents. Through the process of generalization, the child will start to imitate these models in other situations. Whereas Bandura’s theory emphasizes the imitator’s thought processes and motivation, the theory of generalized imitation relies on two basic principles of operant conditioning—reinforcement and generalization. D Factors Affecting Imitation Many factors determine whether or not a person will imitate a model.

As already shown, children are more likely to imitate a model when the model’s behavior has been reinforced than when it has been punished. More important, however, are the expected consequences to the learner. A person will imitate a punished behavior if he or she thinks that imitation will produce some type of reinforcement. The characteristics of the model also influence the likelihood of imitation. Studies have shown that children are more likely to imitate adults who are pleasant and attentive to them than those who are not.

In addition, children more often imitate adults who have substantial influence over their lives, such as parents and teachers, and those who seem admired and successful, such as celebrities and athletes. Both children and adults are more likely to imitate models who are similar to them in sex, age, and background. For this reason, when behavior therapists use modeling to teach new behaviors or skills, they try to use models who are similar to the learners. Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2003. © 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

While the writer of this article gives the definition of reinforcement and some of the measures that would ensure there is reinforcement, she fails to answer the question initially asked. The author would have started by giving some of the common characteristics of effective reinforcers such as individualism, personalized, frequent, immediate, varied and random. It is after this that she would have looked at some of the effective types of reinforcers.

However, she does analyze some few types of reinforces such as recognition, appreciation and praise which according to Burden, (2010), are applicable at places of work and in schools. In addition, she fails to list the ten sample classroom reinforces such as allowing students to participate in different activities, rewarding them for good performance, and praising them in case they make extra ordinary performances in classroom. Response to Moriah The answer by Moriah has a good start where it defines the term reinforcement as defined in the textbook.

She goes ahead and explains how we can apply this in real life as teacher. This gives us a good base as it helps us in understanding what reinforcers are and how we can make use of them. According to Burden, (2010), there is a difference between reinforcers and incentives. An incentive is a promise to do something in case the other person achieves a set target. This second answer offers an explanation, which helps us to understand the difference between an incentive and reinforcement.

This second answer also offers a list of the ten samples of reinforcers in a classroom. All the samples are reinforcers and this is a clear indication that the author of the article fully understands the difference between reinforcement and incentives. However, even though the author of the article has offered a good explanation of the term reinforcement, she fails to give the characteristics of effective reinforcers, which would assist in better understanding.

References

Burden, R. (2010). Classroom Management: Creating a Successful K-12 Learning Community. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

You know those plastic bags you get when you shop at the ? Well, Apple is so proud of its paper bag variant, that the company just submitted a patent for it.

The paper bag comes with strong handles and thick paper construction, however, if you want to figure out what it looks like, Apple’s 5,243 word patent filing should help you out. “Bags are often used for containing items,” reads the patent patent. “For example, retail bags may be used to contain items purchased at a retail store.”  Apple’s patent does offer some innovations though, as it suggests the bag is made with  a minimum of 60% post-consumer content, including its adhesive. The also goes on to describe how Apple makes its bag so strong.

The patent further reads, “To help compensate for reduced strength and increased susceptibility to tearing that is attendant to SBS paper having greater than 50% post-consumer content, bag container 200 may include a reinforcement insert, such as, for example, corner reinforcement insert 250. Since the paper material of bag container 200 may be weakest and most susceptible to tearing at its folds (e.g., container folds 220), the reinforcement insert may traverse such a fold and extend past it on either side of it in order to contribute additional strength to the fold.”

Additionally, Apple also wanted to make sure that the bag handles would not cut into the user’s skin, as the patent reads “The knitted construction of bag handle 300 gives it a soft feel and high flexibility similar to a textile, such as a shoelace, rather than the stiffness conventionally associated with paper.”

This is not the first strange patent from Apple, as Apple previously submitted patents for glass staircases to in-store stands. Anyways, Apple has just submitted this patent, but the US Patent & Trademark Office has to decide whether to grant it.

This article was originally published on  and has been reposted on Entrepreneur Middle East based on a mutual agreement between the websites.

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When the low rate of management training provision by small firms was highlighted at an industry group meeting of small business owner-managers, one owner-manager of a successful firm responded that “Learning through real work is sufficient to produce a manager fully capable of managing effectively in the modern business environment”. Learning is often taken for granted in organizations. New ways of working, new equipment and technology are frequently introduced without planning either for the learning or the training needs of workers; typically there is an assumption that people will ‘pick it up’ as they go along.

And of course this does happen. The informal learning that Reid and Barrington (1997) talk about in Training Interventions is a daily, ongoing occurrence. It can happen by: Trial and error The person does something, which may or may not work and eventually the person works out a way that seems to get the job done. Reinforcement The person gets feedback from their boss when they do something that either shows the that this was appropriate or not. They will learn to do the same again or avoid the things that cause reprimand.

Experience The person carries out a task and afterwards thinks about what they have done, perhaps realizing they could do it differently or better. They work out a plan to try out the next time. Whatever the method, we see the potential outcomes to this informal learning as: People take a long time to learn what to do in order to perform their jobs to an acceptable level. People may not learn the right things. People may get inappropriate feedback that encourages them to do their jobs in ways the organization does not intend.

People often cannot find ways of doing things differently. People are often unaware of this informal process and are unable to explain how or what they have changed in their job. I don’t agree with above assertion. Encouraging training in small firms has been in the policy since early 90’s. Organizations become successful by developing new markets or Improving on what they already do. Either way, significant, sustainable gains can only be made through people.

Even technology has its limits. It doesn’t matter how fast the microprocessor becomes if your operations are constrained by systems or people. People are the only means of sustained business development; people are the only means of making your systems work better. (Norrie, 1997) You have probably been frustrated at one time or another by the apparent inability of your systems-take for example, your information technology system-to produce what you think it might be capable of.

Investing in a more powerful, more sophisticated package will be a waste of money without investing in the skills and abilities of your people to use it more effectively. Skills that managers should develop A manager’s job is varied and complex, managers need certain skills in order to perform the duties and activities associated with being a manager. Research by Robert L. Katz found that managers need three essential skills or competencies: technical, interpersonal and conceptual.

He also found that the relative importance of these skills varied according to the manager’s level within the organisation. It could be described as follow: for top management, conceptual skills and human skills are the most important, technical skills less required; for middle management, human skills is the most important, conceptual and technical skills are less important; for lower-level management, both human skills and technical skills are important, less conceptual skills required.

Conceptual skills are the ability to think and to conceptualise about abstract and complex situations. Human or Interpersonal skills represent the ability to work well with other people individually and in a group. Managers with good interpersonal skills are able to get the best out of their people. They must know how to communicate, motivate, lead, and inspire enthusiasm and trust. Technical skills include knowledge of and proficiency in a certain specialised field, such as engineering, computers, finance or manufacturing.