Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition                                     home

Enhance students' understanding of the relationship between effort and achievement by addressing students' attitudes and beliefs about learning. Provide students with rewards or praise for their accomplishments related to the attainment of a goal.

Generalizations From Research

1. Not all students realize the importance of believing in effort.
2. Students can learn to operate from a belief that effort pays off even if they do not initially have this belief.
3. Rewards do not necessarily have a negative effect on intrinsic motivation.
4. Reward is most effective when it is contingent on the attainment of some standard of performance.
5. Abstract symbolic recognition (praise) is more effective than tangible rewards (candy, money).

Example Activities

• Class Website with student work
• Electronic Portfolios

Recommendations & Ideas

1. Personalize recognition
2. Use the “Praise, Prompt, and Praise” strategy
3. Use concrete symbols of recognition
4. Explicitly teach students about the importance of effort
5. Ask students to keep track of their effort in relationship to achievement

Web2.0 Tools: My preferences*

Category Key: and links to more web tools

SD = Identifying Similarities and Differences CL = Cooperative Learning SNT = Summarizing and Note-Taking ER = Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition HP = Homework and Practice NR = Nonlinguistic Representation OF = Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback HYP = Generating and Testing Hypotheses QCO = Questions, Cues, and Advance Organizers