Behavior Incentives and Classroom Rewards

Behavior Incentives and Classroom Rewards Classroom incentives, prizes, and punishments are part of a controversial topic for teachers. Many teachers see extrinsic material rewards as an appropriate and effective way to manage behavior in the elementary classroom. Other teachers dont want to bribe the kids to do work that they should be intrinsically motivated to do on their own. Should You Offer Classroom Incentives Early in the School Year? The idea of classroom rewards is an important concept to consider at the beginning of the school year. If you start off the year showering students with rewards, they are going to expect it and will most likely only work for the rewards. However, if you limit prizes from day one, you may find that you can get away from the material aspect a little bit and save yourself a significant amount of money in the long run.  Here is an example of what worked for me and thoughts about the concept of rewards. Rewards in First Classroom? In setting up my first classroom (third grade), I wanted to avoid rewards. I dreamed of my students working for knowledges sake. However, after trial and error, I found that kids respond to rewards well and sometimes you just have to use what works. The teachers before us most likely showered our current students with rewards, so they probably expect it by now. Also, teachers (and all employees) work for a reward - money. How many of us would work and try hard if we werent getting a salary? Money and rewards, in general, make the world go round, whether its a pretty picture or not. Timing When Incentives are Needed At the beginning of the year, I didnt do anything with rewards or behavior management because my kids started out the year quiet and hard working. But, around Thanksgiving, I was at the end of my rope and started introducing rewards. Teachers might want to try going as long as they can without rewards because the prizes start losing their effectiveness after awhile because the kids expect them or get used to receiving the rewards. It also works to change the rewards as the year progresses, just to add a little excitement and a boost to their effectiveness. Avoiding Material Rewards I dont use any material rewards in my classroom. I dont give out anything that costs money for me to buy. Im not willing to spend a lot of my own time and money to keep a store or prize box stocked for daily rewards. Good Work Tickets In the end, positive reinforcement of good behavior worked best for my students and me. I used Good Work Tickets which are just leftover scraps of construction paper (that would have been thrown away otherwise) cut up into little 1 inch by 1-inch squares. I have the kids cut them up for me after school or whenever they want. They love to do it. I dont even have to do that part. Involving Students in Giving Rewards When kids are working quietly and doing what they are supposed to be doing, I give them a good work ticket. They put their student # on the back and turn it into the raffle box. Also, if a child finished his or her work or has been working well, I let them pass out the good work tickets, which they love doing. This is a great thing to do with problem children; kids who are usually in trouble will love monitoring their classmates behavior. The students are usually more strict than I am with handing them out. Since they are free, it doesnt matter how many you give out.   Awarding Incentives On Fridays, I do a little drawing. The rewards are things like: Sit at the teachers desk for the day15 minutes playing an educational computer gameBe the caller for multiplication bingoMake up a math problem for the other children to solveGo to lunch 5 minutes early with a friendStay out for a longer recess with a friendChoose your seat for the dayRead out loud to the class You can tailor these rewards to what the cool things in your classroom are. I usually pick two  or three winners and then, just for fun, I pick one more, and that person is the Cool Person of the Day. The kids and I just thought that was a funny thing to do and a nice way to wrap up the drawing. Also, I keep a bag of candy in my cupboard for a quick reward (if someone catches a mistake I make, goes above and beyond the call of duty, etc.). Its a pretty cheap thing to have around just in case. Just throw candy to the kid and keep on teaching. Dont Overemphasize Rewards I didnt place a large emphasis on rewards. I tried to make learning fun, and my kids genuinely did get excited about learning new things. I had them begging me to teach them harder math concepts because they knew they could handle it. Ultimately, how you use rewards in your classroom is a personal decision. There are no right or wrong answers. Like everything in teaching, what works for one teacher may not work for another. But, it does help to discuss your ideas with other educators and see what others are doing in their classroom. Good luck!

Comparison of The Whole Towns Sleeping, written by Ray Bradbury, and The Landlady, by Roald Dahl Essays

Comparison of The Whole Towns Sleeping, written by Ray Bradbury, and The Landlady, by Roald Dahl Essays Comparison of The Whole Towns Sleeping, written by Ray Bradbury, and The Landlady, by Roald Dahl Paper Comparison of The Whole Towns Sleeping, written by Ray Bradbury, and The Landlady, by Roald Dahl Paper Essay Topic: Literature Ray Bradbury Short Stories The Whole Towns Sleeping, written by Ray Bradbury, and The Landlady, by Roald Dahl, are two short stories that have many facts in common; including the setting, the plot and the main characters. The first one narrates the story of a small town where a woman is strangled every month or so by a serial killer. One evening, a group of friends find the dead body of a girl from the town. From then on, the girls become obsessed with the idea of the killer going after them. On the other hand, Dahls story describes how a man arrives to a town (Bath) late at night and is pulled in by a notice on a window into a Bed and Breakfast. The woman in charge of the place does not seem too weird, but even though the protagonist does not notice anything strange, the reader becomes aware of the old womans immoral intentions. The main common aspects are that they are both tales based on fear and apprehension, as well as having opened endings. The setting, the plot and the attitude of the characters are going to be analysed having as an aim, the need to create tension. One of the main parts of a story is the setting. Both of these stories have two different major settings where the plot takes place. In The Whole Towns Sleeping, which takes place in Illinois, the first place you first meet is Lavinias home. There, she feels secure and comfortable. Home. Oh safe at home. Safe, safe and safe at home! (The Whole Towns Sleeping, 56). This fragment of the short story is of great importance because it explains Lavinias personal feelings towards her home, which later will turn out to be wrong. However, the other main setting where most of the story takes place in is outdoors. The story happens an evening when the main characters have decided to go to the cinema. Outside its cold and dark. To get to the cinema they have to go through a scary ravine. They stood upon the edge of the ravine that cut the town in two. Behind them were lighted houses and faint radio music; ahead was deepness, moistness, fireflies and dark. (The Whole Towns Sleeping, 38). This passage full of imagery, it illustrates the unpleasing look of the appearing place of the narrow valley. The ravine is the place where the dead bodies of the victims of the serial killer are found, which makes it even a scarier place. The Landlady also has two principal settings. The story begins in Bath, where a young businessman has arrived. Outside, the air was deadly cold and the wind was like a flat blade of ice on the cheeks (The Landlady, 80). This section of the book shows the protagonists need to find a comfortable place to stay for the night. After looking around town he finds a Bed and Breakfast, which in this story stands out for being the set where most of the plot happens. It is a comfortable house with a fire warming up the living room. In front of the fire, a pretty little dachshund was curled up asleep ( ) The room itself, so far as he could see in the half-darkness, was filled with pleasant furniture (The Landlady, 81). This passage explains how the protagonist sees the Bed and Breakfast as a great place to stay because of its appearance, which does not come out to be a great idea. Concerning the setting, both stories are quite similar. Both of them have a place where the protagonists feel most secure in (Lavinias house, and the Bed and Breakfast respectively), however, as the story flows, they will turn out to be not as safe as they looked like. When writing the plot of these stories, both authors had one aim in mind; to create tension. However, they turned out to achieve their aim by different means. The Whole Towns Sleeping plot consists mainly on a series of continuous mini-climaxes, thought of to create a steady tension around the fear of being attacked by the strangler. The Lonely One might follow us and kill (The Whole Towns Sleeping, 38). The quotation clearly shows the fright that the women experiment. On the other hand, The Landlady works in a different way. Even though it also creates the reader to become nervous and tense, the author uses little hints throughout the story, which will turn out to be related and predestine the young protagonist to his own fate. Hes still here. (Mr. Mulholland). Mr. Temple is also here. Theyre on the third floor, both of them together (The Landlady, 89). This quote shows how the old lady is giving hints to the young man about the danger he is in, however, he does not get the message. Despite the fact that the authors of these two short stories used different techniques to achieve the same aim, they both decided to give the same type of con clusion to the two of them; an opened ending. An opened ending is a story, which does not have a resolution. The last aspect of the stories to be analysed are the characters thoughts. Bradburys story has Lavinia as its protagonist. Francine and Helen are two friends of her in their thirties too. Lavinia is an adventure seeker. She thinks life is boring and has to be spiced up. Going through the ravine on her own, the narrator gets into the protagonists mind and the reader is able to feel empathy. There, there! she screamed to herself. At the bottom of the steps. A man under the light! No, now hes gone! He was waiting there! (The Whole Towns Sleeping, 53). The quotation shown makes the reader understand Lavinias distress while being followed by a stranger. The Landlady is made up of two main characters; Billy Weaver, a young businessman and protagonist of the story, and the old lady owning the Bed and Breakfast. This time the author does not go through the characters thoughts, however, it is obvious that Billy being seventeen years old is not mature enough and he is blindly guided by his misjudgements. She seemed terribly nice (The Landlady, 83). By making this first-sight judgement, he has prearranged his friendship with the old lady. Once that he trusts her, the old lady has to do something truly bad, for him to end up his confidence on her. As he says, briskness is the common characteristic of all successful businessmen, which probably makes him very vulnerable at the time of taking decisions. Though, they are quite different when the time of expressing the protagonists feelings comes, these two stories do appear quite alike in the aspect of their characters if looking at how they are used in each story. Both narrations have an evil person who tries to harm these protagonists without any apparent reason for doing so. Although two stories may look different at first sight, they surely have common aspects, which can be compared to find similitudes. In the case of The Whole Towns Sleeping and The Landlady, they are very similar stories that can be compared very easily. This occasion, the features contrasted were the setting, the plot and the main characters attitude of the short stories. Every time we were able to find at least one common point between the two stories to make them look alike, which means that they are quite similar. They both have a similar setting where the tale takes place, they have comparable plots with the same type of ending, and they have pretty related major characters, in the way they are chased by evil.

Brand Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Brand Marketing - Essay Example According to the report findings a mass-market product has little differentiation, and is often marketed as a generic, low cost alternative. Of course, no marketing would exist without two driving forces to sustain it. These forces are the consumer and the competition. The consumer can be generally placed into two categories, a hedonic or utilitarian purchaser. Competition is based solely on brand ownership and product differentiation as they are marketed towards the customer. As the paper declares consumer’s can be identified as hedonic and utilitarian. This is an important concept of product and brand marketing, because consumers perceptions of a purchase based on their personal desire to fulfill a need or fulfill a self-indulgence has a strong bearing on why there are different types of products. To better understand the branding of products as prestige, masstige, or mass-market, a short background of the average customer is presented here. The traditional concepts of cost and benefit values are perceived as having characteristics of exclusively product and price, the standard economics of supply and demand where the consumers experience is exclusively based on the products quality and price evaluations to control consumption choices and demands, and yet this does not define the reasoning of consumers emotional connections, where "A fourth definition equates value with an overall assessment of subjective worth considering all relevant evaluative criteria" (Babin and Darden p 645 1994), in a sense the overall assessment is the consumers emotional constructs, the sociological and psychological desire to feel rewarded in more than the physical sense of achievement. Babin and Darden analyze that shopping has both utilitarian and hedonic traits, where a methodology only encompasses the consumable and its dimensional and monetary values lacks the ability to fully measure the shoppers' experience, a concept expressed as having importance in other research, although "Far less research has been conducted to examine whether contrast effects occur among hedonic experiences (i.e., experiences of pleasure or pain)" (Novemsky and