Applying Technology to Learning Styles

Technology can be a powerful resource for reinforcing good behavior or negating bad behavior. Students in today's society love computers and are eager to play games (even learning games)! We can build about this eagerness using positive reinforcement. Say, for example, that students are supposed to be silent and stay in a straight line while walking from the classroom to the lunchroom. For the week, I could give them points for how well they performed this task, and each point would earn them 5 freetime computer minutes. This positive reward would increase the good hallway behavior coming to and from lunch.

Going along with reinforcement and the example of computer freetime, I could go so far as to take away points if students don't behave down the hallway to lunch. Rather than giving them points, they could start with a specific number of points, and for each mishap, they would lose a point. This negative reinforcement would decrease the behavior of being rowdy in the hallway. Both positive and negative reinforcements are looking for the same results, but they get to that behavior by either positively rewarding or negatively taking away. Technology is so exciting for students, that it's easy to use it as a reward.