What Happens When Positive Praise and Affirmations Are Provided With Fidelity?

Effective teaching requires teachers to use specific positive praise and affirmations during lessons. In effective teaching classrooms, students are given feedback that is focused on what they are doing correctly so that it can be replicated over and over and instil in students the connection between doing the right thing and being acknowledged for doing so.

When teachers use specific positive praise and affirmations, they are communicating to their students the specific desired behaviour or skill they are doing well and affirming the correct answers students have given. 

When students are regularly praised for behaving and achieving, their self-confidence builds and they see themselves as successful learners. 

This leads to an uninterrupted lesson flow and the teacher being able to deliver all of the content for that lesson.  

This increases the group’s ability to reach or even exceed the expected lesson progress, which lifts standard growth.

Students  

When students receive specific positive praise during lessons: 

• they are more engaged and focused, and are participating in their learning. This enhances students’ wellbeing and helps build strong character development around being able to follow rules, respect their teacher, and get along with others. 
• they are driven to want to continue to do more and challenge themselves in their learning. 
• they attend school more. Student attendance is boosted when a positive learning environment is created in classrooms. This makes students want to attend, learn and participate in learning that celebrates them and their achievements.  

Teachers  

When teachers create a positive learning environment in their classroom: 

• they know the lesson content and are confidently teaching it, and can provide more specific and skill-affirming praise. 
• they have increased affirmations for correct answers, which enhances students’ mastery as they hear the correct answer again. 
• they increase appropriate student behaviour.