Lesson Five | Selecting Positive Consequences for Following Rules
Rules alone do not bring about appropriate behavior. School and classroom rules are part of the management plan that must also include frequent reinforcement for appropriate behavior. (Reinforcement is a consequence that increases or maintains a behavior. A teacher may reward a student with public praise or a grade, but if such a consequence does not increase that student’s behavior, it is not a reinforcer. However, if the student smiles and continues to work, or to work harder, the praise or grade would be called a reinforcing consequence. See the next module for a more detailed description of reinforcement.) A key theme of schools that have successful schoolwide discipline programs is that they reinforce students for performing behavioral expectations through the provision of an ongoing recognition system. Reinforcers must be delivered for rule-following. Rules will be followed only when differential consequences are applied for compliance and noncompliance. When rule-following is reinforced consistently, and infractions are not, the environment will soon cue the students to behave in accordance with the rules.
People learn to behave differently in different contexts because they have experienced the distinctive consequences for acts that they have performed in those contexts. For example, students learn to raise their hands in Ms. Smith's classroom because she only recognizes students who have their hands up, but they learn to speak out freely in Ms. Freebee's classroom because she sometimes recognizes students who speak out (even though both teachers have the rule to raise your hand). Discriminating how to behave often stems from students' experiences with their teachers. When rule-following is reinforced, the students learn which behaviors are acceptable under what circumstances. However, if rule-following is not reinforced, it eventually will cease. If Ms. Freebee fails to call on those who raise their hands, hand-raising will probably not occur regularly, if at all, in her classroom.
In the early stages of instruction in rule-following, reinforcement for adherence to schoolwide and classroom rules needs to be delivered very frequently, perhaps several times during the class period, and daily or weekly for schoolwide rules. The teacher might, for instance, plan to terminate instruction 5 minutes early for each class period in which the students, or those who complied with the code, are permitted a special event, such as a song, a dance, free time, or something similar. Later on, once adherence to rules reaches a high and steady rate for several weeks, praise and recognition can be gradually reduced to less frequent levels. Remember to intermittently reinforce students after they have learned the behavior so that they will know that it is appreciated and continue to exhibit it.
