Second Year Kick Off

I emerged from my first year of teaching surprisingly unscathed. A few chaotic moments struck, such as the first time the power went out in class (I soon adapted to this because it happened quite frequently for a while), the time a student accidentally sent my entire desktop computer crashing to the floor (it remained intact, say what you will about slightly older technology), and the time a student choked on a piece of candy in class. Though hard to forget, the chaos was few and far between. In fact, most of my first year was characterized by positive interactions with hardworking students. And a healthy dose of middle school humor and sass.

After gallivanting off to Wisconsin to spend a great, albeit brief, summer with family and friends, I am back in Puerto Rico for my second year. While my mentality for my first year was mostly focused on survival, my goals for this second year are all centered on improvement.

First bulletin board of the year.

First on the docket: classroom management. Last year I used a tally system in which each class acted together to try and earn more tallies than the other classes. Detentions followed the school-wide policies and rules and were given to individual students as needed. As far as rudimentary classroom management goes, it mostly worked most of the time. That system was pretty bare bones, but gave some semblance of positive and negative behavior. The flaws, however, were that it did not reinforce positive behavior in individual students and the rewards were not immediate when the class did succeed as a whole.

This year, I looked around for new ideas and eventually took bits and pieces from several methods before concocting one to test in my classroom (essentially, this method is PBIS). On a clipboard I have a spreadsheet with each student's name, the date, and spaces for recording tally marks. I selected five positive behaviors that I wanted my students to do daily in my classroom:

• Raise their hand (RH)
• Respect others (RO)
• Be on-task (OT)
• Be prepared (P)
• Listen attentively (LA)

At the beginning of each week, I select one of the behaviors for students to focus on and write it on the board to remind them. If students are "caught" doing the behavior, they receive a tally next to their name. I also tell students that they can earn tally marks that day for two more of the behaviors that I have secretly picked, however I will not tell them which ones I am looking for. (One student already asked me if not telling them which additional behaviors was just a ploy to get them to do all of the behaviors. Yes, yes it is.)

The number of tally marks that a student has at the end of each period is the number of times their name will go into a Rewards Drawing. Because my school is "paperless", I do the drawing online using this website  which puts the names into a color wheel and selects one at random (the students have been enjoying seeing how many times their name is on the wheel and waiting in anticipation while it slowly spins). Because I want to get them hooked on this system, I have started by drawing three names each class period, but I will eventually lower this number. When a student's name is drawn they have their choice of the following rewards:

• Late Work Pass: Student may hand in homework 1 day late without losing points
• Sit by a Friend for a Day
• Listen to Music During Work Time

The rewards are printed coupons that I made, but the student gets the instant gratification of seeing their positive behavior pay off, which they have thus far seemed stoked about. I also explained to students that part of being responsible is not losing their coupons because they will not be replaced. 

Though it is only our second week of school, parents and students seem to like this system. While I'm sure there will be a moment or two of chaos, I hope that this year brings an abundance of positivity and lets students know that their good behaviors are appreciated.