Motivational+Ideas


 * Marbles in a jar - Each child gets to put one marble in the jar on their way to lunch if the class did good morning work. Each child also gets to put a marble in the jar on their way to specials at the end of the day if they did good afternoon work. If a child is being disruptive and not following PAWS rules during their work time, they can be asked to take a marble out of the jar. There are four sections taped on the jar with a picture of the reward they will get if they reach that level. Examples: bring a toy day, RAD day (Read All Day), pajama day, movie day.


 * A behavior board: The teacher had 5 ladybugs of different colors on a bulletin board. Each student had a clip with their name on it. All the clips started on the blue ladybug that said "Great Day!" If they had to move their clip once, it would go to the green ladybug that said, "Warning." The second offense got their clip moved to yellow, which said, "Lose 1 dollar and 5 mins of recess." The third offense got their clip moved to the orange ladybug, which said, "Lose 2 dollars, 10 mins of recess, and a note home." The last ladybug was red, and said, "Lose 3 dollars, lose all recess, and a note home." (The teacher gave each student 3 ladybug dollars at the beginning of each day to buy things from the prize box with at the end of the week. Hence, "losing dollars.")


 * "WOW" Office Visits - Positive office referrals where students get to go to the principal's office and call their parents to tell them the good thing they did, instead of the bad things they did.


 * PAWS guest reader chart - For every day that the no one in the class pulls a behavior card, they get to put a paw on the PAWS guest reader chart. When they get to 25 paws, they get to pick a school staff person to come and read their writer's workshop story to them.


 * I Was Caught Being Good Jar - When a teacher sees a student practicing good behavior or going something well, s/he tells them to go write his/her name on a strip of paper. S/he then gets to put the strip into the jar and the teacher draws a name out at the end of the week. The winner gets to go to the treasure box. Students can put their names in multiple times each week, not just once per person.


 * If a students pulls less than six cards each month, they get to have a fun Friday. The students who get to participate vote on what they want for fun Friday,. Prizes can be a movie day, extra recess, free ice-cream, etc. The students who pulled more than six cards have to sit out while the rest of the class enjoys fun Friday.


 * Leveled Treasure Box - Each student gets two classroom dollars every morning. If they misbehave during the day, the teacher can tell them to give him/her a dollar. Whatever money the student has left at the end of the day goes into their money box. On Fridays, the students can choose to spend their money or save it up for a bigger prize. Prizes usually range from 10 dollars to 50 dollars in increments of 10.

1. Praise Students in Ways Big and Small
=== Recognize work in class, display good work in the classroom and send positive notes home to parents, hold weekly awards in your classroom, organize academic pep rallies to honor the honor roll, and even sponsor a Teacher Shoutout section in the student newspaper to acknowledge student’s hard work. ===

2. Expect Excellence
=== Set high, yet realistic expectations. Make sure to voice those expectations. Set short terms goals and celebrate when they are achieved. ===

3. Spread Excitement Like a Virus
=== Show your enthusiasm in the subject & use appropriate, concrete and understandable examples to help students grasp it. For example, I love alliteration. Before I explain the concept to students, we “improv” subjects they’re interested in. After learning about alliteration, they brainstorm alliterative titles for their chosen subjects. ===

4. Mix It Up
=== It’s a classic concept and the basis for differentiated instruction, but it needs to be said: using a variety of teaching methods caters to all types of learners. By doing this in an orderly way, you can also maintain order in your classroom. In a generic example for daily instruction, journal for 10 minutes to open class; introduce the concept for 15 minutes; discuss/group work for 15 minutes; Q&A or guided work time to finish the class. This way, students know what to expect everyday and have less opportunity to act up. ===

5. Assign Classroom Jobs
=== With students, create a list of jobs for the week. Using the criteria of your choosing, let students earn the opportunity to pick their classroom jobs for the next week. These jobs can cater to their interests and skills. Some possibilities include: ===

6. Hand Over Some Control
=== If students take ownership of what you do in class, then they have less room to complain (though we all know, it’ll never stop completely). Take an audit of your class, asking what they enjoy doing, what helps them learn, what they’re excited about after class. Multiple choice might be the best way to start if you predict a lot of “nothing” or “watch movies” answers. === === After reviewing the answers, integrate their ideas into your lessons or guide a brainstorm session on how these ideas could translate into class. === === On a systematic level, let students choose from elective classes in a collegiate format. Again, they can tap into their passion and relate to their subject matter if they have a choice. ===

7. Open-format Fridays
=== You can also translate this student empowerment into an incentive program. Students who attended class all week, completed all assignments and obeyed all classroom rules can vote on Friday’s activities (lecture, discussion, watching a video, class jeopardy, acting out a scene from a play or history). ===

8. Relating Lessons to Students’ Lives
=== Whether it is budgeting for family Christmas gifts, choosing short stories about your town, tying in the war of 1812 with Iraq, rapping about ions, or using Pop Culture Printables, students will care more if they identify themselves or their everyday lives in what they’re learning. ===

9. Track Improvement
=== In those difficult classes, it can feel like a never-ending uphill battle, so try to remind students that they’ve come a long way. Set achievable, short-term goals, emphasis improvement, keep self-evaluation forms to fill out and compare throughout the year, or revisit mastered concepts that they once struggled with to refresh their confidence. ===

10. Reward Positive Behavior Outside the Classroom
=== Tie service opportunities, cultural experiences, extracurricular activities into the curriculum for extra credit or as alternative options on assignments. Have students doing Habitat for Humanity calculate the angle of the freshly cut board, count the nails in each stair and multiply the number of stairs to find the total number of nails; write an essay about their experience volunteering or their how they felt during basketball tryouts; or any other creative option they can come up with. ===

Beyond the Classroom
=== The idea of cash incentives is a timely yet controversial topic, so I’d like to look at this attempt to “buy achievement” through a different lens. It seems people are willing to dump some money into schools, so let’s come up with better ways to spend it. ===

11. Plan Dream Field Trips
=== With your students, brainstorm potential field trips tiered by budget. Cash incentive money can then be earned toward the field trips for good behavior, performance, etc. The can see their success in the classroom as they move up from the decent zoo field trip to the good state capitol day trip to the unbelievable week-long trip to New York City. Even though the reward is delayed, tracking progress will give students that immediate reward. ===

12. College Fund Accounts
=== College dreams motivate athletes; why not adapt the academic track to be just as tangible for hard-working student. One way is to keep a tally of both the cash value and the potential school choice each student has earned. As freshman, they see they’ve earned one semester at the local junior college. By second semester of junior year, they’re going to four-years at State for half the price. By graduation, watch out free ride to their dream school. ===