Encourage

Once expectations are established, the next question is:

How do we help students meet them? One answer is through careful classroom organization. 

RAD is based on behavioural science that uses the antecedent behaviour consequence framework, as Encourage focuses on promoting and strengthening expected behaviour at two different times: Before behaviours occur and after.

Encouraging before: This is what teachers do before behaviour occurs to set students up for success. In research, these are often called antecedent strategies.

They describe proactive supports such as reminders, class organization, and instructional design.

Encouraging After is what happens after behaviour occurs to make it more likely to happen again. In research, this is called reinforcement. Reinforcement does not mean candy, prizes, or bribes. From a behavioural science lens, it actually describes a simple relationship between two things. When an action or behaviour occurs and something happens after and that events makes the behaviour more likely to happen again— that is reinforcement.

Perhaps a more teacher-friendly explanation is that it means responding to expected behaviour in ways that make it meaningful—through feedback, attention, autonomy, and connection.

Encourage shifts classroom management from reacting to problems to actively building the behaviours that support learning.