Behavior Intervention Strategies: Incentives

Another trick in behavior intervention strategies is using incentives to motivate the students. Following are some suggestions on how teachers can create additional incentives in the classroom and motivate struggling learners:

• Reward student effort along with quality of completed work. One way to do this is to use frequent encouragement for good effort along with praise for finished work.

• Build in short-term rewards (e.g., increased free time, pencils, positive note home) for student effort, work completion.

• Create high-visibility location for displaying student work (e.g., bulletin board, web site). Encourage students to select their own best work to be posted.

• Have students monitor their own progress in accuracy/work completion. For example, have students create graphs charting academic achievements or even assignments turned in. Reward students when they set ambitious performance goals and then reach them.

The use of incentives in behavior intervention strategies gives the students something to work towards.

What incentives do you offer your students as rewards for good performance?

From Professional Learning Board’s online continuing education course for teachers: Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies