Blog #2

All right, I am playing "catch up" today!

I am reflecting on what has and has not worked so far this school year.

The "Prize Wheel" is definitely a hit with my students, and I can use it as positive reinforcement to encourage them with schoolwork or to remind them it is a privilege and not a right when they start misbehaving. I let them spin the prize wheel if they score 100% on tests or if they have not missed turning in an assignment all week, and every day I randomly select a student who may or may not get to spin the prize wheel. I call this "I've got my eye on you" and if I do not have to "get after" the selected student all day to stop messing around or to get to work, the student will get a spin on Friday.  I don't tell students who is "it", because it COULD be any of them, and I'm hoping that leads to all of them behaving appropriately! It's been pretty effective so far. I had a student who earned a spin on the prize wheel for getting a good grade on his vocabulary test, then while he was in line for his turn, he poked another student with a very sharp pencil. He has been warned about consequences for doing this, and the consequence yesterday was his prize wheel  turn was forfeited.  He was VERY upset about it and begged to have "one more chance", but I thought if I wasn't firm this time, his behavior would reach epidemic proportions. The students know that if they misbehave, they might get their prize wheel turn taken away, and they do not want that!  So I am really pleased with the prize wheel, and I plan on continuing its use!

What hasn't seemed to work how it's supposed to is "bell work" to get students in the classroom and going. They seem to think that when they come in in the morning (though we have done bell work since the 1st day of school), it's "chat and play around time".  Maybe this is because I don't always greet them at the door, or maybe I haven't been explicit enough in what is expected of them upon entering the room. Another complication with this in the morning, anyway, is that we have "outs" first thing in the morning, and different students go to different outs depending on whether they are in band or orchestra. Those teachers seem to let students out at different times every day, so I'll have some students wander in at 8:40, while others don't get back until 10 minutes later, so the ones that came back earlier are done with bell work and are ready to have conversations with those who come back later! Maybe I should make them all stay outside in the hall until the whole class gets there. I'm going to try that this week, in fact!