I've been Whole Brain Teaching for a month now... Love it, but looking forward to starting with it day 1 of next year. I have a couple questions regrading incentives & Scoreboard.

1. I am curious if I should elimiate my individual incentives that I have done in the past or do teachers do a combo. of both with Scoreboard?

2.Also, should students earn an incentive daily? Sometimes I like to do larger incentives like PJ Day, Game Day, etc. and think that they should have to work towards earning this over a period of time, like a week... should I stick to smaller incentives or is it ok to vary them with larger rewards?

3. Why kinds of incentives do you give? Extra recess, music, any other quick and easy ones the children enjoy??

Thank you for all your help...

IMAU2U wrote:

I'm curious about this too. I'm about as far in as you, and I still have a few individual incentives (bucks for classroom economy, and "Caught Being Goods," which are school-wide), but I use the MUCH less now. If you keep your pacing tight, Scoreboard should be enough.


Probably smaller incentives are better (daily incentives at the most), as this gives more immediate feedback, and each day is a new opportunity that way.


My favorite incentives are academic games. These tend to be the most fun, and of course are just further academics so there is never any feeling that you are "wasting time," for you or your administrator.

My students work very hard to get to eat snack sitting next to a friend of their own choosing.
They also work for one minute of drawing at the end of the class.
It was hard to think of incentives since I have to write out the homework for the whole week and pass it out on Monday (it is policy that they have homework every night) and we can not give extra recess. I was trying to think of incentives that would not cost anything, yet students would want to work hard to get them.
I like the idea of using Super Speed Math and Super Speed Reading as rewards, but I have not used them as incentives yet.

IMAU2U -

In the past I have always given tickets, for a variety of reasons, because I try to make kids responsible for supplies, but I also understand the inability to buy new supplies every week. So I still give tickets sometimes, like when someone beats their Super Speed Record. Sometimes we will play a game in class that is not Whole Brain Teaching related, and for reward I give tickets to the winning team. They can use the tickets to buy pencils, paper, ect... I don't know if I really need to continue the practice but my students love it.

As for inexpensive incentives, I also use music, they love to listen to music in class. I use game time, and we bank time over a week to play a game on Friday. I also use a verison of free time that they can bank time for. Usually it amounts to 6-8 minutes on Friday where my students do puzzles and games (all math related).

After years of searching and experimenting, I think the best incentive is Mind Soccer ... it adapts to any grade level, any course material and kids beg to play. See the Mind Soccer download on this site. In general, kids should accumulate enough points every 2-3 days to earn 5 minutes of the game ... let the points "roll over" from one day to the next on the Scoreboard ... when they have 5 total extra points, then they get to play in the last five minutes before the last bell rings ... make it easier or harder to win points as necessary.

My students also love the other new game, "Beach Ball Baffler" there is always an arguement over which game they want to use.

SReevesTX wrote:


Speaking of which, when do us non-Board-of-Directors types get to get in on that?

I tried Mind Soccer this week, and it didn't go great. A lot of my review questions were too hard (or my kids just don't know as much as I thought they did). I'm going to throw a lot more vocabulary in there, as that is their strongest area. That way they can have a little more success and enjoy the game more (we played for about 15 minutes and no one scored; it was as boring as watching real soccer!).

I'll post the rules for Beach Ball Baffler before too long. Mind Soccer should only be played for short periods after students have worked hard to earn reward time. You can build up the excitement by posting Mind Soccer signs (from the download), a few at a time, in class for several days before you start. In addition, you're right ... the questions should be short answer and be a review of material that the kids have at their fingertips ... please see the download "Mind Soccer" for complete rules and teaching suggestions. Jason ... you're one of our best posters on the forum ... but I think you may have jumped into Mind Soccer too fast!

ChrisBiffle wrote:


Thanks for the tips. This first time around, it was not as a reward as I wanted to use it partially to review for a test, but the excitement was high as I had been hyping it up to them. I think the main issue is that they need to have a little more success with the questions.

In one of my classes - the room is completely female dominated. 11 girls, and 5 guys - but they always want to play boys vs. girls. The boys always lose!! I told them that it wasn't fair to the guys, so I did not think we would be able to play that way anymore.. the guys came to me privately and vowed to study harder. The girls don't know, but the guys came in during homeroom and made flash cards of the course material and have been practicing... they are in training to beat the girls at MIND SOCCER... I love 7th graders!!