Dubai - Rewarding good behaviour had a bigger effect in their classrooms than focusing on the negatives.
Published: Mon 23 Jan 2017, 9:39 PM
As the UAE government is moving towards accomplishing high rankings in international assessments as part of its National Agenda targets 2021, schools are upping their efforts to exceed expectations and move closer to targets.
It was recently announced that Dubai private school students performed equally to high-achieving countries in international assessments of science, reading and math, sometimes even exceeding the global average. The results were in line with the UAE's national agenda goals in becoming among the world's top 20 countries in score. The question becomes: how to encourage students to reach their best academic performance?
The way rewards and punishments influence behaviour has occupied psychologists for over 100 years since American psychologist B.F. Skinner discussed it extensively during the early 20th century through his Operant Conditioning theory.
The latest study conducted in 2015 argued that punishments - such as losing points or money tokens - had changed behaviour two to three times more than winning money. The study, published in the journal Cognition, revealed that students showed a strong and consistent tendency to avoid a mistake when punished no matter how big the magnitude of punishment.
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However, UAE-based education experts argue in today's modern world, rewarding good behaviour had a bigger effect in their classrooms than focusing on the negatives.
Robert Stokoe, managing-director of Al Futtaim Education Foundation, said recognition is key. "Giving rewards for great things students do adds motivation to the learning process. Happy children are emotional millionaires, and making the curriculum engaging and recognising them for good results are important factors of success," said Stokeo.
He added that linking studies to real-life problems is the best way to get students motivated and open to learning. "Getting children to learn life skills and applying what they study to the real world is encouraging enough for good behaviour and faster learning process."
Schools, parents and teachers should work together towards the same goals, which is to motivate students to perform better. He added while schools are introducing the right system in encouraging students towards best results, there would always be room for improvement.
David Hicks, principal of Emirates International School, noted that with the presence of technology and modern educational tools, students come well-motivated to classrooms. The main key to motivate behaviour is by adding joy to their learning experience, which will not happen if penalties were continuously enforced.
"While we sometimes introduce sanctions when necessary, it isn't the first reaction we turn to. When a mistake is made, we ideally try to get students to think of their actions and reflect on it. Mistakes will happen and what matters is making sure they learn from them, which doesn't happen when they are punished."
He added: "It is important for students to see purpose and understand the consequences of their choices now that we encourage genuine problem solving academically and outside school."
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Clive Pierrepont, director of communications at Taalem, noted that focusing on negative behaviour doesn't create innovative minds. As education providers work to promote critical and logical thinking and problem-solving, Pierrepont said students should be encouraged to find their own answers.
"With current world problems that have no specific answers, we try to encourage students to look at things from different perspectives. Only a calm mind would have high capabilities of better thinking and analyzing."
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He noted that a good teacher is one that recognises good behaviour with constructive criticism on missing desired behaviour in a way that allows students to correct their mistakes.
Source: KHDA, Edarabia.com
- sherouk@khaleejtimes.com
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