I'm trying to finish getting ready for the new school year, and I would like some input regarding incentive systems that have worked for other teachers. Last year, my first as a teacher, I had a lot of trouble with behavior management, although I found some things that worked towards the end.
One of them was giving team points each day, and the team with the most at the end of the week (sometimes two weeks) would get small bags of hot cheetos (something the students at my school will kill for). I also had a drawing system where individual students would get raffle tickets for a chance to pick from a bin of dollar store items.
Both of these worked, but I don't want to back myself into a corner regarding tangibles and food; that is, I don't want rewards like that to lose their special appeal nor to have to always be spending money.
I have a punch card system going that relates to the behavior matrixes school-wide and classroom.
It works pretty simply, similar to punch cards at coffee places, etc. My card has 20 punches. Once the card is completely punched, there are ways students may choose to "spend" it. Skip a spocabulary quiz, free homework assignment, whatever you and/or the students come up with.
It's amazing how some kids saved their cards for when they really needed them - like skipping an assignment because they were sick or away because of sports. Others - well, it burned a hole in their pockets!
I found hole punches of different shapes that prevented dishonesty.
Read: Discipline Without Stress by Dr. Marvin Marshall. No punishments or rewards for behavior, just expectations that students identify by name, call one another out on, and are addressed as needed. It's worked well in my room for 3 years.
I do team-based points with rewards every 6-8 weeks. Every Friday we take 3 minutes to play a game where they can spend their points to buy attacks that hit the other classes. I love it as I rarely have to do anything with it (points change maybe twice a week per class) and the kids absolutely love it.
I am really done with rewards. The best reward for my students is being in a class they love. However, I will sometimes offer prizes for a review game or being great for a sub.
*Homework passes
*Extra credit points
*Extended deadline cards
*Gum-from Sam's Club-the cheap kind
*Dum-dums-From Sam's Club- cheap
*Very rarely I will let them pick from my prize box left over from weekly bribes-I have everything in there from fake tattoos to pencils and erasers (this can be distracting in other classes esp. if you give away little toys)
I used to have a reward system for my five classes. Basically, I gave each class five points. If someone talked out or was out of his or her seat, I took away a point. I gave points for silence in the hallways and excellent participate. On Thursday, I calculated the points and the highest class won. I usually gave out cool pencils, candy, bookmarks, erasers, or toys. This bribery works well but as time goes out kids get more demanding and want better prizes and really expect them. Plus, this obviously gets expensive!
Now, I follow a simple plan of "3 Strikes"...I keep a class list for each class on my clipboard. I put a check for infraction, three strikes and they get sent to the hallway to fill out a paper. Three papers=parent contact or office referral. The best rewards in middle school are free...sit with a friend, five minutes of free time, watch a movie trailer, or discuss something with a partner instead of writing it down. Review "games" are big. The game in itself is a reward. If things get out of hand, I might say, "If you cannot calm down, then you can fill in the review sheet." We might do a Power Point Jeopardy or boys against girls...It doesn't matter but make it a contest or add a ball and voila, it's fun!
I do a whole-class reward system called "Mrs. C's Top 5." It's called the rundown which I do at the end of each class. My Top 5 are "everyone was on time, everyone was prepared, everyone completed HW, everyone was on task, and everyone was respectful." If the class received points for all 5, they got a "warm fuzzy" (craft pom-poms) in their designated jar. After 25 fuzzies, the class receives a "reward" -- HW pass, 5 EC points on a quiz, sit by a friend, ice pops, chew gum in class, free reading period. I also have the students make suggestions for rewards. The students really buy into the program and are very honest when I ask for feedback and police each other. Also, there is a competitive aspect between each of my classes -- whichever of my 3 classes has the most "warm fuzzies" at Winter Break and the end of the year get a "bagel breakfast" or "pizza party."
BTW -- I taught 6th grade ELA/SS last year and am teaching 7th and 8th grade ELA this year. Hope my eighth graders will buy in
I try to stick with something easy. I have done complicated point systems - etc and am done with that. I have a marble jar. If the whole class is on task, I drop in a marble, it makes a lovely, satisfying sound when it goes in. When the jar is full, we vote on an activity. Usually, but not always a movie. I have had kids request an hour of free gym time, extra outside recess, a read-in.
As a rule, I try not to take marbles out, but will do so if necessary. Also, this is very easy to manipulate so that they earn one per quarter
With a tough class one year I would write the word RECESS on the board. Each letter represented five minutes of a Friday recess. When the class was behaving poorly I would erase one letter. On Friday we redeemed what was left of our extra recess. They could earn minutes back.
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07-21-2014, 09:51 AM
