How do you hand them out in a middle school setting? I have 5 science periods, so multiple pouch holders with student names? Last year in traditional teaching I spent WAY too much time being interrupted by writing names on the board. Quietly slipping them in a pouch sounds good, and I can picture it with 30 kids, but not with multiple periods. I'm anxious to begin WBT!

I teach 9th grade, and have 5 periods as well.
When I was at the conference in LA, I didn’t notice the middle and high school presenters say that they used the pouches for practice cards. They did keep students after class or at lunch to practice though. They seemed to have the ability to give detentions and that was where most of the practicing took place.

If I were going to use the pouches, I would put them on a bulletin board. Each period has a certain color. The names would go down or across. I would also work in ways to make each period compete with the others based on who gets the least amount of practice.
As far as assigning the white cards goes, I would not let it interrupt my teaching. And I know you are well aware that is what these students want! Maybe you can mark it on a sheet that you have with your teaching materials and then add the cards at the end of class.

Personally, I post my consequences on the board. The students have 3 chances (and consequences) before a referral is issued. I do write the name on the board as a warning. This would equal practice time. It has worked that way for me. Maybe you need to focus on what you can do differently this year so that you do not have as many interruptions.

I would focus more on what I can do this year to prevent interruptions. That is your key to a calm year. It is great to figure out how to implement the practice cards, but it may be more helpful to really outline your procedures and expectations. This way, you can be proactive rather than reactive.
I hope this helps in some way. And I really hope you have a wonderful year.

Roxi
WBT Intern, 2011-2012

It was my understanding that with older kids, you use detentions in place of practice cards. I was at the National Conference in LA and discussed this issue briefly with Angela Macias between sessions, as classroom management is still my biggest challenge.

The trickiest issue for me, I think, is deciding when a behavior crosses over from a classroom management (e.g. ScoreBoard) issue to one of personal defiance (e.g. now a discipline problem). Sometimes the difference is subtle and/or kids deliberately try to blur the lines.

Anyway, I've decided that if it's just a matter of keeping the entire class on track (or of rewarding individual behavior), then it's a ScoreBoard issue. But if I have a consistently disruptive kid, he/she's going to get the detention. In my school, ALL detentions are Administrative, and the kids are not in my room, so I can't really what Angela does. But if you can.....

Here's what she does: Angela decided detentions weren't unpleasant enough to be a real deterrant for her kids. So, she instituted "music appreciation." During their detentions, she makes them silently, and repeatedly, rehearse whatever Rules they need to work on AND she'll play Chines Opera or Polka music while they are doing it! (Or whatever music makes their skin crawl!) She said it usually only takes one or two detentions before the word spreads.....

Food for thought, anyway. Like I said, I wish I could find a way to do something similar. But I am required to be available in my room for tutoring after school, and German Oompa music wouldn't be very conducive to tutoring....

- Jen

Hmm. Okay, I get the part about not practicing and using detention instead. I'll keep using my detention method because it works VERY well. They must be silent, listen to my music (either classical or opera)and copy a long and tedious paragraph about their disruptive behavior. They must copy it neatly and perfectly or they have to re-do it. I got it from another teacher and it was very effective.

I was just hoping to get away from the board writing or writing detention slip in class. I want something that will work quickly like flipping red, yellow and green cards in Kindergarden - quietly have them flip it which breaks their behavior, doesn't disturb teaching, but gets noticed.

I'm not sure if jotting a silent tally would work. I'll have to think about that.

Hopefully it won't be as much of an issue this year anyway. I came into the class in May as a long term sub after the students had already had 9 months practice eating the former teacher alive. All in all, I did okay, but boy did I have lots of names on the board those first two weeks!

Thanks for all the suggestions.

djhirschfelt wrote:


I didn't mean to say NOT to make them practice Or NOT to use the Practice Cards. Both of those things are really up to you, combined with your school discipline procedures. (At my school, they expect us teachers to give detentions so they can track individual student behavior - yes, they really monitor at that level).

The only reason I DON'T make my detention students practice the Rules is simply because they are not WITH me for their detentions (they go to a central room where detention is run by our security staff - complete SILENCE.)

I know what you mean, though, about wanting to be able to QUICKLY hand them out. My solution, especially at the beginning of the year, when I get the most "testing" of my rules, is to make my slips out AHEAD of time, (except for the date and student name) and keep them in my pocket (Sometimes I just write "class disruption" and then fill Admin in on the details later) Or, you could write several each for "Rule 1," "Rule 2" etc. and then just grab whichever one you need at the desired moment. Then I can literally whip them out of my pocket, jot the student's name and hand it to them.

Oh, and I don't bother with writing their names on the board. I have found that doesn't work - at least in 9th grade. If anything, it just reinforcees their notoriety, which in their eyes is "cool".

Finally...wow, you came in as a sub during MAY!? And SURVIVED!? I have NO DOUBT that using WBT, coupled with a fresh start will be a CAKEWALK compared to last Spring for you.

By the way - I usually start out my ScoreBoard with More/Less HW - that REALLY motivates my 9th graders...

- Jen

The way I pulled it off with multiple periods was to have pouches, and number each pouch. Then I had each number correspond with a student in each period, so each class had student 1, student 2...student 29, student 30. I could quickly drop a white card in, each student knew what his or her number was so they could see, and I would quickly write for myself at the end of each period whose pouch I put cards in. It took a bit of work memorizing the numbers, but I started out by ordering them by seating arrangement so it was easy enough to quickly count it up. I had them come in and do their practice time either before school, during lunch, or after school, whenever I could.

I really try to avoid detention as much as possible. Detention is real punishment, it says, "I'm making you do this boring, horrible stuff, because you gave me a hard time, so here is my revenge," rather than rules practice, which communicates, "you need help with this, let's take a bit of time and practice."

This might work since I was thinking of assigning a number for other purposes anyway. And I would assume you really don't need to memorize every number, because there will probably be just a few that you quickly learn.

I hear what you are saying about detention, but honestly isn't practice time similarly punitive? They aren't really practicing the skill at all, but repeating the rule, right? Isn't it just another boring way of "doing time"? Is there really that much learned from repeating the gesture? Do teens really buy into the theory that you are trying to help them learn and practice the rule??

The rules practices are a punitive consequence, but there is a huge difference in rules practice and a standard detention. The detention often involves sitting quietly without doing anything. It is disconnected from the reasons they actually got the consequence.

On the other hand a rules practice is short, and directly connected to the rule broken. When I give a kid a rules practice I am right there with them as they do it, smiling, and doing the gesture with them. When they are done we talk briefly about what it was that caused the rule infraction and what kind of choices they should make to insure that it does not happen again. Then they go on their way. The whole time I have been smiling. They know that it is not personal, I do not lose my temper, and I make it clear all I really expect is for them to do a better job of staying focused in class.

Which would you rather have? How are you going to feel about yourself at the end of rules practice as opposed to a disconnected detention.

Thanks Jeff,
That helped a lot. My version of detention was closer to to the WBT practice than what you described as detention. Instead of sitting there, they copied a paragraph about behavior being disruptive to the class and yes, we did typically talk about the issue. It was connected to their actions. I may or may not smile. <g>

And honestly, I'll have to think about your last comment. We talked and usually left detention on an okay note. I'll have to see how they respond to doing practice with me.

Sure. I was portraying what I often see in detention situations. There are better ways to do detention, and it sounds as thought what you were doing worked okay. Ultimately it is always up to you and how you will proceed, and what you feel is most effective for your kids.

At the very least the idea of rules practice gives you one more tool in the tool belt.