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Tutors have a lot of responsibilities on their shoulders. If you are a tutor or want to pursue a career in academic tutoring, you must learn classroom management techniques. One of them is creating an environment that is ideal for learning.

If you are a tutor in Montreal, no doubt you have experimented with different tutoring styles and approaches. To help the student learn, you may have gone the extra mile to adopt techniques that were successful for your students in the past.

It could be more frustrating when a student’s behavior messes up your entire lesson plan. You may be tempted to address the disruptive behavior by dishing out punishments and corrective measures. But that might lead to even more disruptions and breed distrust among your students.

What is the best way out? Positive reinforcement!

What is Positive Reinforcement in Education?

Many experts have described positive reinforcement as the desired stimulus to encourage certain behavior. It is usually employed in a learning environment to encourage students to learn by developing habits and traits that make them better learners and students.

 With positive reinforcement, you could help reinforce learning in the classroom, and anywhere else you offer tutoring services. According to many experts, it is the most effective way to transform actions into desired behaviors.

Positive reinforcement is based on the theory that a child will likely repeat rewarded behavior rather than stop a behavior for which they were punished. Many studies support this claim, and to date, it is still one of the best ways to reinforce learning in a student. The strategies behind this reinforcement style may work for you and help make your teaching more effective in any environment.

How Do You Reinforce Student Learning?

Positive reinforcement can enforce behavioral management strategies in your tutoring styles and approaches. Here are five positive reinforcement strategies that work.

• Timely positive reinforcement

If your student answers a question correctly or does an excellent job with their homework, complimenting or rewarding their efforts instantly may likely yield a better result than waiting several days later. But, according to expert psychologists, the excitement diminishes with time.

Even if it’s not possible to give a compliment immediately (assuming it’s in the middle of a class,) you may follow up on the student as quickly as possible to make the most of positive reinforcement.

1. Avoid vague statements

It’s not enough to say “good job.” You could be more intentional by being specific. No matter how young a child is, they can easily distinguish joyous praise from a one-word remark. The level of perception of your students may amaze you.

It would help if you could vary your methods of positive reinforcement. First, as much as you can, be sincere with your compliments. Then, you can engage your students and lure them into the learning process even if they don’t want to learn. These positive reinforcement styles could help.

• Verbal praise (“thank you for your answer”)
• Activity rewards (“if you get the answer correct, you will have more free time”)
• Nonverbal cues (“clapping, thumbs up”)

Some of your students will respond quickly to positive reinforcement strategies, while others will take some more time to show progress. But that shouldn’t discourage you. Remember, some students have a specific learning approach that suits them. So, you may have to keep testing until you find the one that works best for them.

2. Discover why your student doesn’t respond

Most times, your student may not respond well because of certain behavioral factors. For example, they may be shy or feel embarrassed when praised before others. In this case, the best you could do is to understand their unique personalities and find out what intrigues them to respond to positive reinforcement other than compliments and praises.

Eventually, you may discover that it’s easier to reinforce learning in students with simple things like a thank you note to their parents or a phone call to know about their well-being.

3. Avoid mockery

You may be tempted to call out an outstanding student and praise them before others to make them buckle up. However, this approach to positive reinforcement may backfire as it could arouse jealousy among students yielding unwanted behavioral issues.

You could bring out the best in your students if you understand that each student has a unique learning pace.

4. Use rewards

This approach has worked for many teachers. However, it’s best to channel your reward pattern to tasks rather than accomplishments. For example, “anyone who remains on the task will get 10 minutes of free time.”

After different trial and error phases in implementing positive reinforcement strategies for teaching, you could save a lot of time and get better results for your efforts if you adopt a strategy that works for most students.

Whether you are teaching in a class or tutoring a group of students online, you could help bring out the best in your students with positive reinforcement techniques. Fortunately, parents looking to hire a competent tutor for their child are guaranteed to find the best tutor on Superprof that could help reinforce learning professionally.