Reward Vs. Punishment: Which works better in the classroom?

Goals: The goal is to determine if students with minor behavior problems will respond better to being rewarded for things done correctly vs. being punished every time they do wrong. There will also be an element of team peer pressure to assist with motivating these students to behave correctly.
Activities: Individuals with model behavior will be given reward tickets that they can cash in for various rewards. The class with the best record or most reward tickets at the end of the year will receive a class party.
Resources: Reward tickets will have to be made or purchased. Office referrals will need to be collected and analyzed for repeat offenders and number of various offenses. Daily charts will have to be kept for individual classes. A tally of reward tickets will have to be taken at the end of the time period or school year. Copies of the previous year’s discipline referrals. An end of the year pizza party will be provided for the class with the most number of reward tickets.
Timeline: We would start the reward tickets on the second six weeks and continue to use this rewards system every other or every even numbered six weeks. The last week of regular classes will be the timeline for the completion and pizza party.
Persons Responsible: I would be responsible for the implementation of the plan that will be carried out by the individual teachers. Each teacher will be responsible for handing out the reward tickets and keeping track of the total number of tickets per class. I would be responsible for collecting the data on discipline referrals, repeat offenders, and major discipline problems. I will also be responsible for looking over the previous year’s discipline referrals to properly analyze if we have an improvement in the overall behavior patterns of individual students as well as the school as a whole.
Monitoring: Throughout the course of the year, there should be a decrease in the number of repeat offenders and overall discipline referrals for minor offenses. There should also be less discipline issues than the previous year. Weekly reports will be compiled of the number of tickets handed out and the number of discipline referrals submitted to the office.
Assessment: As data is collected throughout the year, there should be an increase in desired behavior. Every six weeks I will analyze data like office referrals, repeat offenders, and number of reward tickets handed out and compare the periods when reward tickets were given vs. the period of time when reward tickets were not given. There will also be a report submitted by each individual teacher describing the overall behavior and attitude of the students during each six week period. This report will provide information on if the behavior and attitude got worse or better. There will be another assessment at the end of the school year when the classes that are not in the running for the pizza party realize they have no shot at the desired goal. Finally, a total number of discipline referrals compared to the previous year will be tallied.

What I learned this week about action research...

Action research must be practical and have personal interest. The purpose of action research includes 4 areas. The purpose includes what will be accomplished, a focus, it should be reasonable and feasible, and it must be ethical. There are many things in education today that need to be researched, but they must all have a legitimate purpose. I will be conducting an action research during the upcoming school year to see if I can get discipline issue students to conform to the desired behavior by rewarding those that doing what they are expected to do. I will still use a system of punishment for flagrant issues, but will use a system of reward for model students to help teach the discipline problem kids see what is expected of them. I have no doubt that this research will be beneficial to students, fellow teachers, principals, and parents.

Administrators Blogging?

As an adminitrator in today's educational world, blogging is a magnificant tool that allows many people to stay informed, make inquiries, or help solve problems. Adminitrators can use blogging to get help or suggestions from colleagues, they can post blogs to keep students and parents informed of upcoming events, or they use blogging as form of survey. Blogging has may valuable uses for administrators.

Action Research Today

Action research or administrative inquiry is a powerful tool that can be used by anyone wanting to improve their leadership skills and abilities. I have learned that action research is a professional development that is long term, planned, and job-embedded. This process allows administrators to engage in systematic, intentional study of their own administrative practice. That being said, the administrator is able to take action based on what they have learned or discovered from the research or inquiry. Action research or administrative inquiry is continual with reflection and action. It involves diagnosing the problem, formulating an action plan, implementation of the plan, evaluation of the effectiveness, clarifying, reflection, and then repeating all necessary steps. Reflection is a vital step in the action research process and is also an important leadership skill. The skill of reflection allows the administrator to analyze prior experiences that will result in a better understanding of the course of actions. Leaders need to be able to have the end product in mind while making adjustments along the way. After reflection and re-evaluation, decisions or actions may need to be tweaked or discarded. In my opinion, administrative inquiry or action research is much more personal and important to the development of the administrator than traditional educational research.