How Better, Specific Praise Will Change your Classroom for the Better
Using praise statements can be an effective classroom management strategy by encouraging expected behavior in students in an intentional and meaningful way, Research shows that when teachers provide frequent, behavior-specific praise:
- Student engagement increases
- Problematic behaviors decrease
- Student learning outcomes improve
- Teachers form more positive relationships with students
- Classroom climate improves
These benefits can have a major impact on student and teacher wellbeing. When teachers—and administrators—have to spend less time addressing challenging behaviors, they have more bandwidth to focus on student and educator success. And when teachers are able to move beyond behavior challenges in the classroom, they can devote more instructional time to learning and academic success.
Students Learn in the Positive Moment
Young children have a different learning strategy than older children or adults. They primarily learn in the positive moment whereas negative feedback is rarely a source for learning from their mistakes. The shift for processing negative feedback begins to occur around the age of 12.
