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A few weeks ago, a bus driver handed me a small, white envelope. It was right after the holiday, so I assumed she was wishing me a Happy New Year. I tore open the envelope to find this wasn’t a Happy New Year note but a thank you note.
An unsolicited thank you note.
My eyes glided over her cursive. I grinned, holding on to the corners of the card. This card probably took 2 minutes to write but it continues to influence my daily actions.
What if we all took two minutes to write a note of praise? To tell someone we love working with them because they make the days enjoyable with their humor. To tell someone that we notice when they comfort a kid in the hallway. Why wouldn’t we take the time to share these positive little treats that can satiate our hunger to be noticed, recognized, and appreciated?
In this post, you'll learn about five different strategies that can increase your feedback game. They all fall under the umbrella of positive reinforcement. These strategies include:
Don't be a naysayer
Reinforcing language
Sticky notes for feedback that packs a punch
Thank you cards for expressing gratitude
Indirect praise.
But before you learn about these strategies, I want to share a bit of the journey I took to get here along with a few reasons why positive reinforcement works.
Feedback within Education
Have you ever heard of the sandwich method? The horribly contrived sandwich method. Let’s surround our criticism with a bun of positivity but keep the stinky cheese and meat inside. Who thought this was a good idea? The stinky cheese and meat, or the criticism on the inside, is what we remember.
I say we do everyone a favor and toss that sandwich in the garbage. Let’s latch onto something else that is authentically positive and useful without being harmful. Something that creates a gotcha culture – I gotcha doing something amazing!
Feedback can be interpreted in various ways depending on the style, delivery, and content. If you are not careful with your words, you can shatter a relationship or someone’s hopes and dreams.
In a survey of more than 7,500 managers, Zenger and Folkman (2017) discovered that 16% do not give praise. I don’t know about you, but if I worked for that 16%, I would say definitely say sayōnara! What I’m curious about is how the other 84% give positive feedback. Are they using the dreaded sandwich of doom method?
After completing my first year as an assistant principal, I quickly dropped that sandwich like Taylor Swift drops her boyfriends (sorry, Kelce!).
During my first summer as an assistant principal, my admin team and I engaged in a book study on Whale Done by Ken Blanchard (2003). No, this isn’t a maritime read or a rehash of Moby Dick. In typical Blanchard fashion, he uses an extended metaphor, comparing humans to whales. Apparently, whales do much better with positive praise rather than negative criticism. However, this isn’t surprising given they weigh thousands of pounds and could crush or eat a human who is giving them sass.
Praise can cause students to be intrinsically motivated and want to adhere to the expected behavior (Rodriquez & Sprick, n.d.).
Blanchard proposes that instead of creating a culture where leaders call people to the carpet for the things they struggle with, leaders should be praising the positives with a “whale done!” My teammates and I quickly adopted this verbiage and would say, “Whale done,” when we caught one of us doing something right. While these exclamations were usually followed by a grin and giggle, it still felt good to be recognized. As a leader, I fully dove into the “whale done” concept and began tweaking my approach to feedback.
Why Should I Give Positive Reinforcement?
Do you remember the salivating dogs and Skinner? Well, some of what I’m discussing about positive reinforcement can be traced back to Skinner's Reinforcement Theory and operant conditioning (2014). According to Skinner, motivation can be achieved by providing positive or negative reinforcements based on a reward and punishment model. Notes of appreciation fall within the “reward” category.
When educators praise responsible and expected behavior, they are more effective in the classroom than those who expend a ton of energy on corrective comments. Praise can cause students to be intrinsically motivated and want to adhere to expected behavior (Rodriquez & Sprick, n.d.).
A general rule of thumb is that educators should provide praise three times more than corrective statements; the 5:1 ratio is ideal (Rodriquez & Sprick, n.d.). Can you imagine what this type of approach could do for some of our struggling students?
If we all just spread a little more positivity and gave someone a “whale done” wouldn’t that just fix it all? Not really. It turns out, your praise needs to be a bit more than a blanket “whale done” or “nice work!” (Sorry, if you thought it was going to be that easy. 😁)
5 Poppin' Positive Reinforcement Strategies
When diving into the "whale done" or positive reinforcement philosophies, there are a few easy, effective strategies you can apply that will help shape the climate and culture of your school. These four strategies include:
1. Don't be a Naysayer!
"Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate..." Sorry..... this is my second Taylor Swift reference. I promise I'll stop! She's just so pervasive! Anyway...... There is some truth to this lyric. The first thing you have to do is make sure you have the mindset to provide positive feedback and not be a naysayer.
I do want to acknowledge though, that focusing on the positives is all fine and dandy, but there will be times when leaders must address practices because they are not good for kids. Doing this should be done with care, concern, and empathy. I will address how to give this type of feedback in a later post. For now, let’s focus on positive reinforcement as a means to build up staff and students.
2. Reinforcing Language
If you haven’t heard of Responsive Classroom, I highly recommend you look into this approach. Game changer. One Responsive Classroom strategy is having educators incorporate reinforcing language into their comments to others. Basically, the giver of the feedback should:
Focus on noticings and wonderings.
Be descriptive and specific.
Use an encouraging tone.
Be authentic. (Anyone can see through inauthenticity, especially a first grader.)
Make your feedback about them. (Sorry to tell you, but it’s not about you.)
A simple example is rather than saying, “What an awesome piece of writing!” You could say, “I noticed you added some topic sentences to your paragraphs. That will help readers follow your argument!”
If you’re an administrator, rather than saying, “Great job with the lesson today!” You could say, “I noticed how you gave your students time to process their thinking before asking them to share.”
You also want to avoid “I love/like” statements. There can be moments when you share that you loved seeing something, but you want to be mindful of this because it can create a power dynamic. The receiver could constantly seek the approval of the person giving the feedback rather than focus on being the best version of themselves.
Giving feedback that follows these guidelines is a bit more work for the giver because it requires them to actively think through what is so great about what they are seeing. But approaching feedback this way will be more helpful for the one receiving it because it is descriptive, specific, encouraging, authentic, and about them!
3. Sticking with Stickies
Sometimes, we have to follow specific forms to provide feedback. But for the informal walkthroughs within a class, administrators could leave a simple sticky note or a positive notecard like the ones here. Because these are so small, it forces you to be focused and concise. You can always send an email, but I find a physical note just feels nicer. Plus, when you write it while you’re in the classroom, your feedback will be timely which is an essential component of effective feedback.
Stickies can even extend to our kids! I recently bought stacks of stickies with some fun messages for kids. My challenge to staff will be to use reinforcing language on these stickies. Once they diminish their supply, I’ll buy more stickies!
4. Gratitude Notes
There are a ton of ways you can incorporate gratitude or thank you notes within your practice as a teacher or administrator. Who doesn’t love a random note of appreciation? I even know some teachers keep their notes in a drawer or display them for a rainy day when they need an extra boost.
Some people struggle with thank you notes, not because they don’t want to thank people, but because of the hustle and bustle of the school day. It is important to stop and celebrate short-term wins or open your eyes to what’s happening around you. You could easily incorporate a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly reminder for gratitude within your calendar.
This past November, I had staff write thank you notes to another staff member during a faculty meeting. As a follow-up, I assigned them a random person to write a thank you note to in order to keep the gratitude going.
Sprinkle in a little gratitude or let it rain like confetti. Either way, it will go a long way in energizing staff.
5. Indirect Praise
So, you can thank a person directly or you can do so indirectly. I learned about this technique in Admired Leadership, a program designed for leaders to improve their capacity. What this would look like is you telling someone about the wonderful thing someone else did.
You might tell a fellow teacher, “Oh, I love working with Sarah because she is always willing to listen.” The hope is that the positive comment you give that person about Sarah will spread and eventually get back to her or at least, contribute to creating a positive culture.
One Last Thought
Giving useful feedback is hard and could even be considered an art form. Feedback can be interpreted in various ways depending on the style, delivery, and content. If you are not careful with your words, you can shatter a relationship or someone’s hopes and dreams.
If you want to increase the positive vibes within your building or workspace, then focusing on what people are doing right is the way to go. It doesn’t mean you don’t have the tough conversations when you need to, but the positive needs to far outweigh the negative.
Curious about what was in that note I received? Well, the bus driver detailed how in the morning, she loves peering through the doors as she drives by and seeing me warmly greeting the kids with smiles and hugs.
This note of appreciation was satisfying in the moment and continues to impact me three weeks later. Every time I go out to greet the kids, I think about this note. And every time I can not go out to greet the kids because I am in a meeting, I think of this note. One thing is for certain, I am thankful for this bus driver taking the time to share her noticings with me.
Special Note:
Feedback is a HUGE topic, so this will be the first post in a series focused specifically on how to give feedback. Be on the lookout for more! wink
References
Blanchard, K., Lacinak, T., Tompkins, C., & Ballard, J. (2003). Whale done!: The power of positive relationships. Simon and Schuster.
Gigante, J., Dell, M., & Sharkey, A. (2011). Getting beyond “good job”: How to give effective feedback. Pediatrics (Evanston), 127(2), 205–207. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2010-3351
Responsive Classroom. (2016, July 14). How’s your reinforcing language? https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/hows-your-reinforcing-language/
Rodriquez, B. J. & Sprick, R. (n.d.). Why a positive approach to behavior? Safe and Civil Schools. https://www.safeandcivilschools.com/
Skinner, B. F. (2014). Contingencies of reinforcement: A theoretical analysis (Vol. 3). BF Skinner Foundation.
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