I scrolled by a meme on Facebook the other day. Interested in all potentially funny memes, I paused on the photo. The photo showed an illustration of a boy at a school desk looking at the teacher with sad eyes. The teacher’s hand pointed to the paper on the desk, the floaty text between the two figures wrote: For your punishment, write 100 times, “I will not waste my time on meaningless tasks.”

Unfortunately, the meme wasn’t funny. And the teacher isn’t helping the student’s progress with that sort of punishment. It might make the student feel more unmotivated in the classroom.

Sustaining our students’ motivation is one of our challenging tasks as educators. Part of our role in the classroom is to encourage our students to share their ideas or engage them in class discussions. Part of their engagement also includes interaction with other students. Interaction with other students includes moving their seats and discussing the class assignments amongst themselves. Remaining to ask questions freely either before, during, or after class has ended.

Imagine keeping that interaction and consistency in an online classroom. Our students are also enrolled in multiple courses, dealing with stress and time management, work and study hours, and also their mental and physical health due to the pandemic. As an instructor, it’s a challenge to keep their spirits going through the screen and via email. A way to keep our spirits going is through positive reinforcement. 

How does positive reinforcement help the online classroom environment? Heather Craig shared in her article from Positive Psychology, “One functional analysis of a classroom found that destructive behavior was maintained by negative reinforcement, whilst positive behavior was continued through the use of positive reinforcement,” (Rumfola, 2017). 

What types of positive reinforcement would work in an online classroom?

 

Direct Reinforcement

See how some students respond to selected learning activities in the Zoom lectures. If they are positively received, and the class remains concentrated on the classwork, keep them going. 

For example, create a discussion board in place of an assignment for students to relax and engage with each other. If students respond appropriately to the activities and each other, then arrange more discussion boards in place of assignments.

 

Social Reinforcement

Let students know where they’ve done a great job on an assignment. For example, frame a message like, “You did great in Part X, and I see you tried your best in Part Y. Here’s what needs revising…” 

That is one way to let students know they need to revise their work without discouraging them. 

Including positive comments on your student’s work encourages them to improve their studies. Even if you provide a perfect score to the assignment, students continue to feel motivated when they see where they excelled in their work. 

 

Activity Reinforcement

Keeping the class engaged via Zoom is tough. However, depending on how the students behave or complete a goal, students could decide on the best methods of completing the activities. 

For example, if everyone completes the peer review discussion board on time, then they could be placed in break-out rooms to go over the feedback. Or they could vote on how they’d like to review the upcoming lesson.