Rewards in Learning

• Goals
  • Describe rewards in the context of learning
  • Maximize the rewards that you get when you are learning while concurrently minimizing punishers.
  • When you teach, guide your student such that they maximize rewards and minimize punishers.

Rewards in Learning (What)

This is a method for learning that involves continually increasing the rewards while minimizing the punishers.

Reward

A reward is anything that tends to cause an organism to repeat an action or to want to repeat an action.

Punisher

A punisher is anything that tends to cause an organism to not repeat an action.

Rationale

1. Skill with this learning makes learning enjoyable or even addictive.

2. Who doesn’t like rewards.

Rewards (How To)

Principles

1. Most learning by people and animals is rewards-based learning.

2. Rewards can be intrinsic, coming from within (e.g., personal satisfaction, curiosity, enjoyment of the task), or extrinsic, coming from outside sources (e.g., praise, money, grades, or external recognition).

3. The most effective rewards for learning come from the topic you are learning and its application. For example, if you are learning statistics, the rewards to pursue are the ones that arise from learning the subject matter.

4. A punisher is anything that tends to reduce the likelihood of repeating an action.

How To

1. As you are learning and applying what you are learning, pay attention to those things that are rewarding to you. Similarly, pay attention to punishers.

2. Continually modify actions in ways that drive up your rewards and drive down your punishers.