It is Dr. Riffel's opinion that we should refrain from tangible reinforcers as much as possible; however, the caveat being that some students really need the tangible to make the connection. These students are very young and/or on an IEP where the specific behavioral intervention plan includes tangible reinforcers. This presentation is geared toward 80% or more of students in the classroom.
When each of us began walking, our family members cheered and clapped for our attempts. They gave us behavior specific praise. We know this works and research backs this strategy (Shores, Gunter, Jack, 1993). However, educators are so busy teaching and juggling the 50 things we must accomplish before 10 a.m. that we forget to give behavior specific praise. We have found that when we pair behavior specific praise with a piece of paper called a "gotcha" that has a token economy value, the students will remind us to give them out.
Dr. Riffel and Jean Ramirez were visiting a school and we found the school giving out bicycles to students with good behavior. We were flabbergasted. We said, "I bet not one student ever asked for a bicycle." We bought spiral notebooks and started asking students at our schools what would be a valuable reinforcer to them.
Some of the things students asked for made us cry because they were so simple,
- "just tell me I did a good job."
- "I used to be on drugs, just once I wish someone would tell me they like me better off drugs than when I was on drugs."
- "teach me how to throw a football straight."
Unfortunately, Dr. Riffel left Georgia in 2005 and Jean passed away in 2014. Dr. Eggleston took up and began asking students this question in 2005 with Dr. Riffel.
This is a one hour presentation with one hour of looking through the book and developing your own menu of reinforcers for your school or classroom. You will receive two hours of credit for this course.