A Motivational Idea

Hello world,

Today I'm subbing in one of my favorite classrooms. I get to be a 5th grade teacher (ahh I know sometimes scary) and I get to play with iPads all day! This teacher is a part of a grant that allows every one of his students to have their own iPad. I've subbed here before last year and it's part of what motivated me to start getting my Masters in Information Technology or how I like to call it "Classroom Technology" since a lot of people don't get the whole info tech meaning. This teacher has so many amazing ideas for behavior ideas and motivation. Today I'm going to log one of his motivational ideas. I could go on and on about how he uses iPads but I think ill save that for another time.

As I walked into the classroom I immediately saw this colorful wall with some really cool top dawg (sorry had to throw in a UW thing!) kind of names on it. When I asked the students what it meant they told me its what their teacher uses to encourage the kids to work on improving anything possible.

How it works is the kids all start out at the bottom. Every time they improve something they get a star on their name card. When the reach 10 stars they move up to the next level. I have yet to find out what happens when they get to the top but depending on the kids and the teacher you could do whatever you want. (I'm currently writing this while the kids are in music/P.E., so maybe ill find out by the end of the day)

I really like the idea of the kids being motivated to improve. Not just behavior wise but academic wise. So many motivational systems are for behavior these days that I feel like the importance of wanting to be better in school and take responsibility for your learning gets lost. I definitely think this is an idea that I could/will utilize in my future classroom!!

~K

P.S.- I just downloaded the blogger app for my phone and just wrote this whole post via iPhone (kinda cool!) so I apologize if things look weird, ill adjust things later.