Hey everyone. I'm currently doing my 2nd practicum with Ms. Z, one of the most amazing teachers I've had the pleasure of working with. She runs a pretty tight ship and I thought I would write a post on her classroom management system. In order to keep students focussed, on task, respectful, participating, etc, she uses three different incentive systems.
The Three Strikes
The Three Strikes is a weekly system, whereby students get 20 minutes of free time every Friday, so long as they don't accumulate three 'X's throughout the week. Students get an X if they:
Ms. Z. also gives the children a chance to redeem themselves if they forgot to get their agenda signed, but get it signed by the next day. However, they only get this luxury once per week.
- Don't bring their agendas to class signed by their parents from the night before;
- Forget things at home or in another class;
Ms. Z. also gives the children a chance to redeem themselves if they forgot to get their agenda signed, but get it signed by the next day. However, they only get this luxury once per week.
The Marble Dish
This is her system of enforcing good class behaviour. Ms. Z. either gets the students to add or take away marbles based on class behaviour. If the students are really focussed on their classwork, are actively involved during class discussions, are respectful to each other, etc, she will, out of nowhere, say, "marble person, please go and add 5 (10, 20, etc) marbles to the dish". However, inversely, if the students are making a lot of noise, are not doing their work, behave inappropriately, take do long during change-over between tasks, etc, she tells the marble person to go remove marbles. This marble dish is communal between both the Grade-6 classes she teaches. Once the dish is full, the students get to have a movie day. This only happens every few months.
Team Points
In Ms. Z's class, the students sit in groups. The groups change every 4-5 weeks, when the team points reset to 0. These points allow the winning group to have double free-time the last week of the 4-5 week session, giving the winning group 40 minutes of free time that day. Teams get points when working on group activities, when being particularly respectful, etc. She also takes away points if students within the group are chit-chatting when they are not supposed to. This seems to be amazingly effective, and students are continuously aware of the points they have and how far they are ahead or behind other groups. Nothing seems to motivate students as much as free time and movies.