Selecting Rewards That Motivate: Tips for Teachers

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Selecting Rewards That Motivate Tips for
Teachers
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NYC Schools Pilots Pay for Student Performance

• 200 schools participating in pilot
• Reward system designed by Harvard economist
  Roland Fryer
• Program is funded through private grants
• Students are paid for high performance on NY
  State tests
• Teachers also receive bonus pay for improved
  student performance. NOTE Most schools elect to
  share bonus monies across all staff.

Source Medina, J. (2008, March 15). Next
question Can students be paid to excel? The New
York Times, pp. A1, A19.
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Big Ideas The Four Stages of Learning Can Be
Summed Up in the Instructional Hierarchy
(Haring et al., 1978)

• Student learning can be thought of as a
  multi-stage process. The universal stages of
  learning include
• Acquisition The student is just acquiring the
  skill.
• Fluency The student can perform the skill but
  must make that skill automatic.
• Generalization The student must perform the
  skill across situations or settings.
• Adaptation The student confronts novel task
  demands that require that the student adapt a
  current skill to meet new requirements.

Source Haring, N.G., Lovitt, T.C., Eaton, M.D.,
Hansen, C.L. (1978). The fourth R Research in
the classroom. Columbus, OH Charles E. Merrill
Publishing Co.
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Tying Reward Schedule to Students Stage of the
Instructional Hierarchy (Daly, Martens, Barnett,
Witt, Olson, 2007)

• During acquisition of a skill and early stages of
  fluency-building, provide reinforcement (e.g.,
  praise, exchangeable tokens) contingent upon
  on-task behavior (time-based reinforcement). This
  approach avoids penalizing students for slow
  performance.
• During later stages of fluency-building, change
  to reinforcement based on rate of performance
  (accuracy-based contingency). This approach
  explicitly reinforces high response rates.
• As fluency increases, maintain high rates of
  performance through intermittent reinforcement,
  lottery, etc.

Source Daly, E. J., Martens, B. K., Barnett, D.,
Witt, J. C., Olson, S. C. (2007). Varying
intervention delivery in response to
intervention Confronting and resolving
challenges with measurement, instruction, and
intensity. School Psychology Review, 36, 562-581.
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Activity Take a Reinforcer Survey

• Pair off.
• Read through the 8 items on the mini-reinforcer
  survey appearing on the next slide.
• Each person should select their TOP 2-3 reward
  choices.
• Note similarities or differences in the types of
  rewards that each of you chose.

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Activity Reinforcer Survey Pick Top 2-3 Choices

• The student will select the pizza toppings for a
  class pizza party.
• The student will have the teacher call the
  student's parent or guardian to give positive
  feedback about him or her.
• The student will be dismissed to go to a favorite
  activity such as recess 2 minutes early.
• The student will post drawings or other artwork
  in a public place such as on a hall bulletin
  board.
• The student will select friends to sit with to
  complete a cooperative learning activity.

• The student will tell a joke or riddle to the
  class.
• The student will draw a prize from the class
  'prize box'.
• The student will have first choice in selecting
  work materials (e.g., scissors, crayons, paper).
• The student will be able to take one turn in an
  ongoing board game with a staff member (e.g.,
  chess). The staff member will then take their
  turn at a convenient time.
• The student will select a friend as a "study
  buddy" to work with on an in-class assignment.

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Selecting a Reward 3-Part Test

• Do teacher, administration, and parent find the
  reward acceptable?
• Is the reward available (conveniently and at an
  affordable cost) in schools?
• Does the child find the reward motivating?

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Creating Reward Deck Steps

1. Teacher selects acceptable, feasible rewards
   from larger list
2. Teacher lists choices on index cardscreating a
   master deck
3. Teacher selects subset of rewards from deck to
   match individual student cases

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Creating Reward Deck Steps(Cont.)

1. Teacher reviews pre-screened reward choices with
   child, who rates their appeal. (A reward menu is
   assembled from childs choices.)
2. Periodically, the teacher refreshes the childs
   reward menu by repeating steps 1-4.

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Creating Reward Deck Example