The most important quote from this chapter is connected with its most important analogy "Long journeys require lots of mangoes." The idea being that as an agent of change it is imperative that you provide positive reinforcement throughout the process. The book suggests rewarding bright spot behaviors and focusing on any element of what was done that would contribute toward the end that you have in mind. There was even a story about a woman who changed the behavior of her husband using an incremental praise method.
Although the book points out the importance of using positive reinforcement, it also indicates that we (people) generally struggle more with providing praise than we do with punishing or admonishing those who do wrong. The book points out that it is easy to identify and react to problem behaviors, but much more difficult to find those behaviors which contain elements of the ultimate goal. I find myself struggling with this at times as a teacher. A student who completes 50% of his or her homework did -some- of the work. By assigning the 50, am I focusing only on the negative behavior rather than the bright spot? That same child may typically only do 25%, which would make 50% an incremental change. Having said that, the positive reinforcement here isn't to raise the child's grade. In reflecting on that, I have begun to make sure I praise the effort to get some of the work done and encourage the student to do a little more next time.
The one major question that I have been pondering since I read this part is: If an individual is aware that you are trying to encourage change using incremental praise does that make the praise ineffective because it seems contrived? How do you make your praise genuine and appropriate if the individual who you are praising knows that you have a specific goal in mind?
I was looking at Justin's final comment about praise being contrived and, therefore, ineffective. I believe that kids know when we are lying, so then the praise needs to be legitimate and truthful. I think, from other readings, that it needs to be specific to the child's work. For example, "Good job, Johnny!," does not tell Johnny what he did correctly. I find myself doing that and try to correct it. So, I agree that contrived praise will fall flat. I also agree that, for me, it can be hard to notice the positives especially when they may be small and incremental. We want kids to be successful faster sometimes than they are able to perform. In addition, our system isn't set up for individual learning which happens at different times for different learners. This makes incremental praise that much more necessary. Students who progress more slowly need to hear that they are showing improvement along the way in order to increase their stamina and motivation. Otherwise, I would think they would be more inclined to give up thinking they are not doing anything correctly. If you keep your target goal in mind, your praise should focus on that goal only and not look at other skills that are not part of the goal.
ReplyDeleteI hope this is clear :)
I often have that feeling of contrived praise. It's a difficult thing, when teaching students who are working at a lower level, to find QUALITY praises to give out. Maria, I feel like what you said is totally true-at this level, we need kids to progress must faster than many can handle. How do you tell a kid more than "good job" or "nice try," when he/she is still working so far below grade level that you can't even tell there's been progress? I think finding ways to praise students throughout their process is something I definitely need to work on. I read once that every kid needs to be praised 10 times for every 1 time he/she is criticized. I don't do much criticizing in AIS class (at least not the way we think of the word, "criticize") but I know what these kids experiences outside of my classroom. Kids who struggle in reading and writing are naturally the misbehavers, the late workers, the NEVER workers. These kids don't get praised by anyone. If I want them to be successful, I need to make sure they're getting praised 100 times by me to make up for the criticism they receive elsewhere. Honestly, that's a hard thing to do. When I've told a kid something 20 times and he finally does it on the 20th time, it's VERY difficult to praise him. It's difficult not to say, "Finally!" I know I'll get there... :-)
ReplyDeleteThese comments make me think about Dweck's book on growth mindset! Praising the effort not the grade...interesting how it all comes together.
DeleteI am all for praising students and pointing out things that they do well. However, I struggle with it a bit more as students get older. When a student fails a paper, but I write nice job trying to organize your paragraphs, I feel that the message is still you fail vs. they have made improvements. So, how do I give students a failing grade and praise them? I know if I received a paper back with positive and negative comments that I will focus on the negative. The positives do not matter because I still failed or did something wrong.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up something I have been thinking a lot about - specific targeted feedback. I think you give good feedback when you specify that they are working toward the goal of having organized paragraphs. Therr is a problem with our system of giving grades????
DeleteDawn and Jen bring up a good point about grading students and how this supports their development. If we praise a child for making progress but still give them a failing grade, are we supporting their development? We talk a lot about differentiation and meeting every child where they are, but this conflicts with the idea of standards based grading. By focusing on students reaching content specific grades, we at times neglect the attributes of truly successful individuals. As a district we are building up our PBIS program to teach students the attributes of successful individuals, but when reporting on their progress we are putting less emphasis on their effort and focusing on ones, twos, threes, or fours for academic accomplishments. After reading this book, I think that we need to focus on the idea of a successful journey “requires lots of mangoes”. By putting more emphasis on student’s behavioral attributes and less on content mastery we might find more success by developing 21st century learners rather than 3s and 4s on assessments. Praise is a powerful thing, but sometimes the methods we use to assess our students do not allow us to support them to persevere and overcome hurdles.
DeleteMuch of this is chapter is(in my mind) connected to Dweck and her work and research. Justin's point about how difficult it is to give positive praise and how human beings can accuse or admonish easily.
ReplyDeleteI think we all need to get some mangoes! :-)
ReplyDeleteI liked the quote on page 253- "Change isn't an event: it's a process." The fact that the context of the quote was about positive reinforcement with regard to animal training was interesting.
Another quote I connected with, "To lead a process requires persistence" (254). I think this may be a big take away for me...so often I want immediate change, a quick fix. I need to remember that new behaviors take time to learn and solidify.
In reflecting back on this book I realize, for me, since I do not have a classroom, the thing I have most control over is my environment...I have little control over the many elephants and riders that I interact with, but I can control MY environment. This was a big aha moment for me.