Author Question: Mr. Cooper wants to motivate his students to do well on their classwork, especially the work that ... (Read 1413 times)

s.tung · **on:** Jun 20, 2018

Mr. Cooper wants to motivate his students to do well on their classwork, especially the work that involves preparation for the end-of-grade tests his students will take. He hits upon what he thinks is the perfect motivator: each day, he'll give students a mini-test with twenty questions, and he'll give one piece of candy for each correct answer a student gives. His system is likely to be

a. ineffective, because (1) his rewards will be too easily attained to be meaningful to most students and (2) he will have to keep up with which students answered which items correctly, and count out the corresponding number of candies.
b. ineffective, because some students will never get any candy.
c. effective, because the system (1) encourages individual student effort and rewards it accordingly, and (2) involves the use of tangible reinforces, which have been shown to be more powerful than praise.
d. effective, because students need to have some reason to work hard in class and many won't even try if there is not a tangible reward forthcoming.

Question 2

A consistent teacher never makes exceptions.. This statement is

a. false, because life is full of exceptions and students need to learn how to handle ambiguity.
b. false, because there are occasions when the most reasonable course of action is to make an exception to a rule or procedure.
c. true, because once a teacher relaxes his or her guard, student behavior is likely to slip.
d. true, because when students notice the inconsistency, they will classify the teacher as unfair, and will be less likely to respect him or her.