Token Economy In The Classroom

Token economy

The token economy was first established in the early 1800’s. The token economy is a classroom management strategy that has been commonly used by teachers as a behavioral intervention plan to manage their classroom (Doll, McLaughlin & Barretto, 2013). In recent years teachers have been encouraged to use strategies that are evidence-based and grounded in research (Maggin, Chafouleas, Goddard & Johnson, 2011). The need to educate large numbers of children and the demand to meaningful education helped to evolve the application of the token economy system and has developed remarkably to systems used in today’s classrooms. A token economy is a management system that has been accepted as an evidenced based strategy, in which students

In addition, classroom management comes first in the list of issues that causes anxiety and stress for both preservice teachers, experienced and novice teachers (Gage, Scott, Hirn & MacSuga Gage, 2018). Moreover, managing a classroom effectively is a crucial skill teachers need to maximize academic achievement, enhance students’ social competence, promote positive classroom climate, and enable supports for students with exceptional needs. Classroom management begins by establishing and teaching routines to ensue all students are aware of and able to identify what is expected in the classroom (Myers, Freeman, Simonsen & Sugai, 2017). Myers, Freeman, Simonsen & Sugai (2017), have identified five empirically-supported critical actions required of effective classroom management: a) maximize structure, b) post, teach, review, monitor and reinforce expectations, c) actively engage students in observable ways, d) use a continuum of strategies for responding to appropriate behaviors and e) use a continuum strategies to respond to inappropriate

Since the education reform movement identified “good discipline” as a correlate of good schools and teachers a greater attention has been focused on discipline (Shumate & Wills, 2010). The key to behavior modification and without doubt its greatest contribution to an overall plan for dealing with maladaptive behavior, is its advocacy of the use of rewards. The behavior is strengthened by immediate reinforcement, positive or negative. A positive reinforcement can be various forms of praises and rewards given to the student when a satisfied behavior shown, while negative reinforcements is when a student displays a maladaptive behavior their reward is taken away (Gage, Scott, Hirn & MacSuga Gage, 2018). Also, reinforcements and punishments are used immediately after an inappropriate behavior is emitted. When implementing behavioral modification it is important to remember the steps needed to modify the behavior which are 1) the reinforcement must be systemic and consistent, 2) teachers must encourage generalization of the appropriate behavior they want to see display in different settings, hence the student/s should be able to exhibition the conditioned behavior not only in one setting, but in should be able to carry it out in other setting and 3) the reinforcement must be carried out immediately following the behavior (Akin, Yildirim & Goodwin, 2016). There are many systems of