Korean Job Discussion Forums

[antoniothegreat]

i am trying something new in my class (private middle school). In my class, there are 6 tables of 6 students. when they do group work they do it together. i have a poster for each class broken down further into groups (poster one has grade one, 7 classes, 42 groups)
at the end of each class, one group will get two stars i put on the board, they are the group that did the best that day. the second best will get one star. at the end of the semester i will buy the group from each class ice cream.

that is my new idea, try it out if you want.

what i need help with, is the posters have a bit of room on the bottom, i am wondering if anyone has a short motivational phrase that i can put on it.

thanks

[poet13]

Learn or I will hurt you bad.

Ahh, I bet you meant a positive motivational phrase.

[xtchr]

I'm trying to work out something like this for my school. I don't think I quite understand; how many posters do you have?
One for each grade, or one for each class?

[antoniothegreat]

[xtchr]

Thanks for your reply.

Another question; do you teach in just one classroom, and so the poster stays on the wall, or do you take it with you around various homerooms? (Just trying to work out the logistics of something like this).

[antoniothegreat]

i have my classroom, i teach only there, and only i teach in it.

if you travel to classrooms, i would maybe do a notebook with each class on a page

[Woland]

The problem with rewards is that they don't work in the long run, especially if they are conditional, as these are. To keep people motivated, you have to keep jacking up the reward. Eventually, you can't reward people enough to do something they don't enjoy. (The psych literature is pretty extensive on this.)

A problem with the system you are thinking of is what will happen to the motivation of those groups of students who don't get stars and who fall behind in the competition? Eventually, if they fall behind far enough, there won't be any point in trying hard. If you rig the game to keep it competitive, the stronger groups (and possibly all the students) will see the stars as random and meaningless, which is also demotivating.

A better way to do this might be to make the rewards cooperative, rather than competitive - something that the efforts of the whole class can contribute to, like meeting some basic standards that you set, whether for behavior or achievement. You would need to make the standards challenging, but manageable and provide evaluative feedback on how they are all doing and how they can continue to improve. It is this feedback and the link to standards that will make the rewards meaningful, and thus motivating.

Another possibility (an even better one, I think) is to set up categories like Most Improved, Hardest Working, Highest Achievement, Most Helpful, Most Cooperative, Best Readers, etc. (every category should relate to some kind of academic achievement or valued classroom behavior) and at the end, every group wins some category and gets some reward linked to some meaningful positive achievement. You don't even have to announce the categories so as to avoid competition over them; just let the students know that the last day will be special and that you are paying attention to different things. If you want, you can make one, like achievement, public and use your star system for it. You can differ the sizes of the rewards, with maybe bigger ones for achievement or wahtever. More important is that you are able to give reasons for why each group is getting their reward. This will give it meaning, which is more important than the ice cream or pencil they get anyway. The key point here is that everyone is recognized in some positive way at the end. I think this is especially important with young children.

You may see this last idea as costing more than you have planned. My sense is, though, that you came up with this idea at least in part because you like your students, want to reward them, and are generous. What can it hurt to be a little more generous and make sure that everyone feels appreciated and that the effort to learn English is worthwhile in some way? You might set an amount for each class to yourself, and divide up the rewards among that in some way so that the budget is met. At the end, when this is done, you'll find that you feel pretty good about it, too, even if it is a little more out of pocket. And I suspect all your students will walk away feeling good about having achieved something that was valued by their teacher.

One thing I like about your idea is that you are giving rewards to groups, rather than individuals. I think if you do this right, it can be a way to foster teamwork and cooperation in the groups.

I realize this is long, and probably not what you expected. But I spend time working on motivation and think it is important and worth getting right in the classroom, for both short term and long term consequences.

[antoniothegreat]

Woland, good points. i appreciate it.

i had already been thining about the problem of groups falling behind, and was thinking of halfway through announcing a "most improved" category, like comparing stars from the first half and second half, so the group with the most at the end, and the best improvement at the end got something.

i do think you have a good point on getting something for everyone. i will have to think about that, as i have already announced the system.

i was also thinking about doing things like pencil checks, if everyone in the group has a pencil they get a star, and i can manage those at times to help out certain groups, to help them catch up.

anyways, thanks again for the input.

[ddeubel]

Yes, good points and it is a very worthy thing to do well in class. The kids appreciate it and it creates a great social dynamic.

I'd add one thing. Be careful to make it teacher easy/friendly. Meaning, just say "reward" or "sticker" or something such and have the students themselves then go and get the sticker, put it on the board and whatever else. You can't be doing all that and teaching.

Good luck.

DD