Playing Card Reinforcement System – Delivering Specific Positive Feedback to Students

What it is This system is designed to make it easy for the classroom teacher or support personnel (SLPs, paras, etc.) to provide specific positive feedback/reinforcement for appropriate behaviors in whole classroom or small group contexts.

Materials 3 or 4 decks of playing cards initialed on back or with unique back designs (to prevent the infiltration of unofficial cards!)

Target Group Can be done with any age group – the language involved and back-up reinforcers will need to change in order to make it age-appropriate.

Process 1. As students are engaging in appropriate behavior (social, emotional, academic), drop a card on their workspace or hand a card to them (depending on context) accompanied by specific, brief, positive feedback. Examples are: You came right to group. You kept working until you got it. That was kind to help Jose with the door. You used your words to express your feelings – excellent! Thank you for that thoughtful contribution. You got out your materials, awesome! Excellent answer! You have your eyes on me, your body is quiet. Thank you for raising your hand. You followed my directions promptly.

2. Periodically, take the cards that you have left in “your” deck and split them, showing a card. Then ask one of the following (depending on your intention/situation/number of cards you have put out there): “Anyone have a ___ of _____ (number and suit)?” or “Anyone have a ______? (number OR suit) Show me.” Or “Anyone have a black card, ______. Show me.” or “Anyone have a face card? Show me.” (etc.)

3. Once you assess how many students have that card, you can determine the back-up reinforcer. If there are multiple students, you pick a reinforcer appropriate to multiples, if single, you can pick one good for an individual. The key is to NOT announce the back-up reinforce until you see how many matching cards are out there. Ideas for these two scenarios (multiple/single) will follow later.

4. You can then either leave those cards out in circulation or collect all cards and begin again. Cards and reinforcers can be collected and provided in the way the best fits the classroom and your student population. Some teachers collect after each segment of the class/after each class and others run a longer time frame. In terms of reinforcers - using a combination of scheduled “deck splits” (end of designated time period) and intermittent/surprise ones keeps interest and engagement higher. This is one of those “systems” that can be used intermittently or with greater and lesser intensity based upon your assessment of what your students need.

Dyane Carrere, IU13

Really Making It Work The key to this system is that you are handing out many cards but doing so intermittently. You do not have to pick one or two behaviors that you are looking for – rather you are reinforcing a wide array of behaviors that lead to student focus and learning. This allows you to individualize within the whole class system….you can look for different behaviors in different kids. You can catch a kid you need to pull in to the flow of class doing something right before he/she gets your attention by doing something challenging. It allows the student who behaves all the time and the student who behaves on a more erratic basis to both be noticed for their positive efforts. It sends the message that we are all in this together. It is key that you don’t just “make it rain” cards without the specific feedback and that you pause to access back up reinforcement frequently even if it is just for the people with the matching cards to “take a bow” or “get to do something at the smart board”. Make it fun, build a community, connect with your students through the system….that is what will bring it to life it can be and make it the most effective

Getting Started Several teachers have shared that it is easier to teach this system to student by using it first in small group contexts then expanding it to other instructional structures. Others have just jumped right into whole group with it – after teaching how it works and the procedures for handling the cards (e.g., “They stay on the right hand corner of your desk.”) of course!

System Limits Because it is designed to be very easy, it does not have any documentation component so there is no data generated by this system itself. To judge its effectiveness, other measures would need to be used. The focus of this system is to get a great deal of specific, positive feedback out into the classroom and, therefore, increase students’ appropriate behavior/engagement. Time-on-task measures, disruption counts, progress in instruction, etc., can be used to assess effectiveness of this system (if you have taken a baseline prior to implementation!)

Some Back-up Reinforcers Examples (Note: not all are age-appropriate for all groups)

Multiple students have designated card Matching group can:  stand up and say “Yee-haw!” and swing a pretend rope (or other vocalization/movement you designate that your students would love)…add a phrase like to the “Yee-haw”, something relevant to your goal (e.g., “We are learning amazing stuff today!”)  do a “chair dance” for 30 seconds  earn a minute to chill for whole class based on the number of matching cards in entire group (aka 2 matching, 2 minutes)  receive a small treat  leave classroom first when class changes  line up for recess first  play an academic game  go on computers  go to lunch first  get special writing materials  pick materials (e.g., ball, rope, etc.) for recess first  Take a “Doing Great!” slip to bring home (you will have to explain this system to your families of course!) Dyane Carrere, IU13

Individual student has a designated card Individual may:  pick next activity  line up first at next transition  pick odds or evens in math problems  pick how long group will read  get to pass or be first in next activity (their choice)  write with a special pencil/paper  pass out materials  get to stop a minute early and chill  be timekeeper  move to a “seat of honor” until next card is pulled  add a picture to a “happy bulletin board”  receive a little treat  pick background music for work time  get to do a special task (e.g., run an errand, feed class pet, be the sound effects guy, etc.)  wear a crown (or other fun accessory) until next card is pulled  get to pull from the mystery reinforcer bin (or get to scan a QRcode to receive a mystery reinforce)…you could have gathered an assortment of ideas from students in advance for these mystery reinforcers.

Dyane Carrere, IU13