Classroom Management Before Break? No Problem! Use Incentives!

The time between Halloween and Winter Break can be so difficult!  Build in positive reinforcement incentives to keep lessons moving forward and classroom management under control.

What's the problem?

You don't really need me to answer that do you?!  There might not be a more frustrating period of time to teach content than November and December.  Students are distracted by school programs, secret Santas, decorations, countdown to break, social events, more school programs, time off for Thanksgiving.... Okay, we know what the problem is!

What's a teacher to do?

Build incentives into your teaching that will motivate students to stay on track and work for you.  Incentives also provide students with a positive reward that will help improve your classroom management.

1.  Find what they like

By this time of year, you know your students.  You know what activities they've delighted in and have begged for more of.  Maybe you had a cool art project that went with a novel study.  Maybe your students loved the "pass back" story activity or had a blast with your bingo vocab game.

Choose an activity you think your class will work for.  It can be a bit of a trial and error process, but that's the great thing -- you can do something different every time.

2.  How can you incentivize it?

Take you idea to your students.  I wanted to have a "game day" every other Friday.  I proposed the idea to my students.  What if we had a "game day" if we finished all of our scheduled work?  My students loved that idea.

3.  Get organized

My students formed groups and chose what game they wanted to play.  I discovered that many of my students had board games at home that they have never played!    I made sure I had information from each group:  who was in the group (making sure it was a reasonable number for the game and that everyone was in a group), what game they were playing, who was bringing in the game, and if they knew how to play the game or not.

4.  Working toward a goal

I let my students know what we needed to complete before we were eligible for the game day.  For ELA, it included writing goals that I posted on my board each week and broke down for each day.  

The daily goals for the class helped reduce student talking and off-task behavior that wasted class time -- students used peer pressure to work for their goal.

While I originally wanted to stretch out the goal for two weeks, the first time we tried this, I had the game day at the end of the week.  This gave students a taste of what game day looked like and why they wanted to earn it.

5.  Keeping it fresh

Having a game day every Friday would quickly lose its novelty for middle schoolers -- no matter how much they try to convince you it wouldn't!  

After the first week, I stretched the reward out two weeks.  I also asked students to change games and groups.  

I also kept a few games in my closet.  Students would forget to bring in a game, or they became bored with the one they brought.  You could also have a whole-class game day to play that Bingo game you have stashed in your cabinet.

6.  Kicking it up a notch

My original game day evolved into an annual Scrabble Tournament.  Even my principal was impressed!  Words!  What could possibly go wrong?!!

If you're interested in hosting a Scrabble Tournament, here's how I did it Scrabble Tournament.

Give it a try!  Lots of fun!

What do you think?

What incentives would work for your students?  Share your ideas in the comments below!  

Happiness always!

Day One: Engagement Station

Tori here, from Tori Gorosave: An English Teacher's Journey. Back to School is literally right around the corner for me and to be honest, I am super excited! I miss my classroom and it the last year my youngest one will be on campus with me before he heads off to high school. Sigh. Anyway, I want to spend a few minutes and share my favorite tips and tricks for the first day of school. 

Nothing is more deadly to student and teacher morale than bored and disengaged students on the first day of school. The first day of school sets the tone for the rest of the year, so start your year off showing students your class will be a year full of engagement, activity, and involvement by creating stations to introduce your classroom rules, procedures, expectations, and summer reflections. 

Now, I can stand in front of my 8th graders and captivate them for an entire period, but frankly I don't always like being the center of attention and holding students' attention for that long is hard! I want my students working just as hard, if not harder, than me, and if all they are doing the first day is listening to me talk or watching my presentation, then we have a problem.

Here's a preview of how I conduct my first day of class. I assign five mini assignments via stations to my students.  The stations can be completed in small groups, individually, or even presented by the teacher in eight minute segments. I have classes that range from 32-40 students, so I set up two table groups per station so I don't have groups larger than four students. I create a placard title for each station, place a task card or direction sheet next to the placard, plenty of paper or assignment sheets (depending on the task), and a completed sample which is all about me. I let my kids choose their groups of four and sit at a station (it doesn't matter what order they complete the stations in). I set my timer for eight minutes and display it under my ELMO so the class can see how much time they have. Once my timer goes off, students have thirty seconds to get up and rotate to the next station. I usually set my stations up clockwise since I give them such a limited amount of time to rotate. I then repeat the process until all groups have hit all five stations (about 45 minutes). Time flies! It is amazing to have students suffering from shock and awe on the first day once the timer goes off for the last station and students have to start collecting their work and prepare to head on to their next class!

Here is a breakdown of the five stations I use on the first day of school:

Station 1 is a syllabus scavenger hunt. I designed my syllabus to only including content I thought was imperative. I formatted my syllabus like an infographic to make it more visually appealing and capture student and parent attention right off the bat. 

For the syllabus scavenger hunt, I create questions focusing on specific areas of my syllabus. Students need to use the syllabus to answer the questions on a task sheet. 

To get students thinking ahead, Station 2 is a "Twitter Goals" activity. Students are asked to create one goal for my class for the present year, one overall education goal for the year, and one personal / family goal for the year. They explain these goals in 140 characters or less and complete them on a assignment sheet by filling out Twitter message bubbles.  

Reflecting upon and sharing highlights of their summer is one of my students favorite activities. Station 3, "My Summer in Pictures" requires students to choose three pictures to showcase their summer. The pictures can be snapshots from their phone or computer, or generic symbols that represent a person, place, thing, or idea. Underneath each picture, I have students write a caption explaining the significance of the picture.  My students love to complete Station 3 digitally, but many students also create beautiful scrapbook pages. I have students brainstorm their ideas during class station time, but they create the final product at home.

Again because I wanted to have students introduce themselves to me right away, at Station 4 students describe themselves as an emoji. I have a few lists of emojis laid out on the table, but most students are so familiar with emojis that they rarely reference the lists. To complete this station, students choose their emoji and draw it (or if you are digital they can just copy and paste the emoji onto a slide), underneath the emoji they have to demonstrate rockin' vocabulary and choose an adjective that best describes them (it should coincide with the emoji), lastly I have my students write a paragraph explaining how the emoji and adjective describe them. This is such a neat way to get to know a student from their personal perspective.

The final station, Station 5, consists of a "Student Resume." I have a stack of resume task sheets laid out on the table, and students grab one and complete the sections. This resume provides me with parent contact information (it is amazing how often the info on here provides me with working contact numbers where as the office emergency cards don't), student expectations of me, the grades students earned the previous year, a list of my students favorite things, etc. 

That sums up how I use stations to run my first day of school. If you want to use these stations ideas in your class, head on over to my TpT store and grab a set of Back to School Task Cards for yourself.

Have an amazing school year!