Rewards and Consequences

Rewards and consequences have their pros and cons. When I was in the classroom with my first and second graders I tried establishing a rewards system. I hated the inconvenience of having to pay attention to one more detail! One more thing to assess, document, or put money into. My brain just felt overwhelmed and I honestly wasn't very good at being consistent with a system. It just felt a bit artificial and I didn't really sell it well. I wondered if I was accomplishing the right thing with my students - of course I wanted immediate compliance, but were they learning to gain self-control and self-confidence or was I training them to always expect a reward? I guess I believed that external rewards hinder internal motivation and fostering internal motivation is what really creates enthusiasm for learning. Real learning that lasts, not just finishing homework or following directions during group work.

Now  I have my own kids, and I am reconsidering this issue with potty training. My husband and I have been a little frustrated that we've been working on potty-training our son for 2 years - yes, he is almost 4. I have gone through the whole gammit of thoughts and feelings like "Oh my gosh, I am such a bad parent -we haven't gotten a handle on this - something is wrong with him - we are spoiling him to let this go on so long…etc. etc." We have tried rewards like suckers and toys, but then he just asks for treats all day. God forbid he fail to get a treat, and the tantrums go on and on. He didn't seem to be making much progress. After a few weeks he just stopped caring about stickers and treats and was more interested in playing than stopping for potty breaks. Our pediatrician recommended we take a break from training and try again in a few weeks.

Next, we tried consequences - things like enforced potty breaks every half-hour, restricting favorite TV shows or activities that seemed to be distracting him from paying attention to the potty. This didn't work quite so well either because he would just get mad, resist our efforts to control him, and he actually started having more accidents! I couldn’t believe it. I gave up pressing the issue for a few weeks. He has to learn on his own, right? He has to be the one to decide that he is going to learn to monitor himself and DO IT!  Hence - internal motivation. We have always tried to give him a lot of verbal praise and affirmation for his efforts but in the end it comes down to the child. Some kids are much more independently willed than others. 

I did find some really great ideas for rewards at Child Development Institute. They are segmented by age level and focus on activities instead of material goods. Some of these make more sense to me as far as encouraging internal motivation, or at least your personal relationship with the child.

We are still intermittently using rewards, in combination with some consequences, but I have resigned myself to accept that he's on his own timeline with this. He wants to please us initially, and will hopefully feel good about his successes as he masters this new skill little by little!  I would love to hear any stories, wisdom, or redirection you have to offer! Feel free to leave a comment below! Are systems of rewards and consequences an effective way to get kids cooperating, or just an annoying inconvenience? 

How do they work in your classroom?

Conferences and Communication

Linking up with Love Always Diana Lynn for Math Madness Monday to share my favorite products.

On  March 16, 2015,  Tonya Hackett (TpT Seller) said:

"This resource has saved me! I love using the scales as a pre and a post check. They are kid friendly and a super tool to use during parent-teacher conferences. Thanks!!"

    

This bit of feedback from Tonya who is using the 4th Grade Common Core Math Assessment with Learning Goals and Scales, just reminded of those days when I sat through 30 plus conferences trying to explain in 10-15 minutes what we'd been working on for the last 5 months, and how their child was doing. Until I started using my Student Portfolios I didn't have a simple tool to help you communicate student progress with students, parents, administrators, and other teachers. 

Six years ago I was working at a Title I elementary school as a gifted resource teacher 75% of the time, and a reading interventionist 25% of the time. Talk about different spectrums! Luckily for me I worked with small groups, but since my students came from five different grade levels, and there were at least 3 teachers for every grade level, communication meant a lot of data and meetings! Ugh. I'm one of those weird teachers that found staff meetings to be fun because I got to talk to other teachers! But, data meetings - definitely not fun. Lots of numbers next to each name, but no examples of student work to help understand the fine details that could shed light on why each child was performing at their own level. It seems that with all of the inclusion, clustering, interventions, and enrichment programs being implemented, most classroom teachers have a whole team of co-workers to share students with. This means that communicating about student progress doesn't just happen a few times a year, but possibly every week! 

How nice would it be to have one organized place to display student performance data that explains itself! The Math Assessments with Learning Goals and Scales plus the free Student Portfolio Pages that go with each grade level, were created to be a visual tracking aid for documenting student progress in a really simple and consistent way. Click on the video link below to flip through the 4th Grade Portfolio Sample that Tonya used for parent-teacher conferences. Visit my FREEBIES page to try them out for yourself first. Grades 3-8 are available now. Check out the work samples below!

If you'd like to see a quick tutorial about how to put together the math assessment binder with the Student Portfolio pages, visit my YouTube playlist. 

Need Help Using Learning Goals and Scales? - FREE Resources To Get You Started!

Everyone, kids and adults, need time to try new things out for themselves to see how it "fits." I know for me reading directions from other people, or seeing sample pages can give me good ideas, but I may or may not interpret them the same, or be able to apply them in the same classroom contexts. We all have different student demographics, cultural norms, and personal tendencies that add variety to every teaching experience! This can be rich and exciting because we get great ideas from each other, but also disappointing if we don't see the same results. SO, I have re-organized my FREE Assessment & Poster previews with Learning Goals and Scales to be separate documents with more content for you to try before you commit to using them yourself. 

If you are new to using Learning Goals and Scales, or you are being forced to use them by your district/administration, you may feel reluctant or overwhelmed. Getting organized always helps me feel more comfortable. Click on my FREEBIES tab to find free samples of the resources mentioned below.


Watch a Quick Video Tutorial on YouTube

Step 1: Know Your Learning Goals!

Learning Goals are simply statements of what the students should learn. It helps them and you focus on what's most important to spend time on. They can be versed a number of different ways, and range from small discreet skills, to large sweeping generalizations. This was hard for me to wrap my head around at first, so I started simple, I wrote sentences on the white board everyday at the beginning of class.  The kids would copy them down on a weekly "Reflection Sheet" or learning log.

Step 2: How will you present your Scales?

These learning goals and scales are based on the research and suggestions of Robert J. Marzano, in The Art and Science of Teaching: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction. Learning Goals and scales follow this basic structure;

I found it easiest to start with a general scale for every learning goal since I hadn't had the time to create unique ones for different subjects. I posted this in my classroom for the kids to refer to.

Once the kids know the scale, they can talk about where they think they're at. Some of my fifth grade colleagues had the great idea of having kids write on the reflection sheet, where they started and where they ended for each unit or lesson so they could document their growth. This is an informal approach because the students are assessing themselves according to their own interpretation. Below you can see what this might look like.

If your students don't have reflection sheets, you can also ask them informally; you say something like "Show me on your fingers where you think you're at right now." (You might want kids to do this on their chest or under their chin for more privacy.)

I wasn't as comfortable with the informal method. I felt like it is important for kids to learn to assess themselves, and it's great for making snap decisions about what to do with my next few minutes of instruction; but kids this age are still learning to be self-aware, and they don't often have the background knowledge to be objective; some are overly confident, and some will feel insecure about their learning no matter how smart they are! So, I continued to use the informal scales on the board, and fingers in the air, but I also developed a concrete scale for the grade levels I taught so I could feel organized and give the kids real examples of what it means to make progress! Below are the posters I made for a few math standards. 

Follow the link to Mrs. L's Leveled Learning Store get FREE sets of Assessments, Posters, and Student Portfolio pages. Just click not he grade level you need under the "Custom Categories."

Grades 3 -8 Available.

Step 3: How will you Assess kids with Scales?

These learning goals and scales are based on the research and suggestions of Robert J. Marzano, in The Art and Science of Teaching: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction. Learning Goals and scales follow this basic structure;

These posters align with grade-level assessments I created so that I could present a consistent and concrete way of presenting each standard to students. The grade-level tabs for this blog will give you some more examples of the assessment pages and student work.

3rd Grade

4th Grade

5th Grade

6th Grade

7th Grade

8th Grade

              

 

Step 4: How will you track kids progress with Scales?

My first attempt to create a tracking sheet for the scales was very old-school. I made a simple chart in a word doc. This summer I upgraded the word docs to color-coded excel spreadsheets with links to the common core standard descriptions for quick reference. Now they look like this...you can use the sorting function to group your students for differentiation.

Follow this link for your FREE Excel Spreadsheets! Search for Grades 1-8 in my store.

Step 5: How can kids track and record their own progress with Scales?

Portfolios were something I always wanted to incorporate in my classroom because they are so awesome when parents and administrators come in with questions like "What are your kids doing all day?" But getting organized was another story. I only got as far as math before I had my second baby, but below are some examples of the portfolio dividers I made for kids. Each kids received a binder at the beginning of the year with their own copy of the Assessments (This binder NEVER left my classroom!), and these portfolio pages to divide each cluster. I would copy the binder pages onto colored paper, and the kids would cut out the portions that needed removing. We would skim through it a the beginning of the year, so they could see what was coming. After I gave the assessment as a pre-test, we would record the kids' initial scale scores and make 1 personal goal for growth. Initially I made a space on the back to make goals for every standard, but this was way too time consuming and too huge to give the kids a realistic focus for improvement. This summer I revised them to include 3 goal spaces for each cluster. After the post-test (I used the same exact test because it is scaled!), we recorded their final scale scores and reviewed their goals. Some kids will still need time to master every standard. That's okay. At least they have a concrete way to flip through the standards and see where they left off o each one. The Assessment were sorted and filed according to cluster with the binder tabs. Parents LOVE this for conferences!! It also saved me some explaining.

Follow this link for your FREE Student Portfolio with learning Goals and Scales! 

Search for Grades 3-8 in my store. 

Step 6: Enjoy feeling organized!