Dear Wibbeteers:
Here is our latest thinking on the Super Improvers Wall (the new material starts about halfway down and is underlined) ... this info isn't even in the Model Classrooms 2.0 doc ... if it seems useful, give it a try!
Coach B
E. Super Improvers Wall: Our students, even the quietest, crave recognition … but what form should it take … and what should they be rewarded for? In WBT, we believe students should be rewarded for academic and behavioral improvement. We don’t want to reward students for where they are now, but for how far they’ve come since last month.
A system that rewards for intellectual and social growth is perfectly democratic, superbly differentiated. From Special Ed to gifted, students’ goals should be the same … to surpass their previous best effort. In every classroom across the land, we should be giving our students the same, invigorating message, “Go out there and break your personal records!”
Imagine a system that graded students solely on foot speed. Okay, the teacher calls you and I out to the track and we’re going to race. We both run hard and I beat you. I get an “A,” you get an “F.” Tomorrow we have the same race. Same result. After about a week, I don’t run so hard, just enough to win. And you, because you know you can’t beat me, slack off. Before long, I loaf and you quit. Isn’t that what happens in traditional education? Our best students do just enough to get by and our weakest students, because they know the can’t win, bail out.
But what would happen if we changed the race? The teacher calls you and I out to the track. New rules. The racer who beats their previous fastest time, by the greatest amount, gets the top grade! Oh no! I have to run like crazy. And so do you. Every day! Every race! Beating you is not the point. I’ve got to keep beating myself. And you know what … if I keep running hard, I will beat my previous best time. And so will you. The race is more rewarding when we stop racing each other and race against ourselves.
If we focus on student improvement, academic and social growth, then scores on state tests will take care of themselves. Nothing will produce higher test results than a class of students who are continuously racing to break their own personal records.
In WBT, we want to set up a system in which every child has an equal chance for success. Putting this another way, we want to create a classroom atmosphere that is brain friendly. Every brain is unique, but all brains grow dendrites, nerve fibers that expand knowledge. In 10 years of experimenting in classrooms across the country, we have found nothing that motivates students more intensely than setting and breaking their own records. Brains seem to be nourished by their own growth. Exhilarated by its sprouting dendrites, the brain sprouts more dendrites. Kids’ brains love to feel like they are getting bigger. Brain growth fuels the appetite for brain growth. WBT learning is like a magic meal. The more you eat, the hungrier you become!
So, let’s focus on student improvement as our educational target not only on academic excellence. Every child, in every way, can grow.
A WBT classroom with its many rules, routines, procedures, and games is a garden of student growth. You can observe individual growth in following the five rules, teaching neighbors, responding to the Scoreboard, sitting down and lining up, handing papers out and in, neat writing, improved scores in SuperSpeed games, outstanding homework (see below), growth in Oral Writing (see below), using good manners, etc.
To reward student improvement, create a Super Improvers Wall with every student’s name written on a individual piece of white paper (half a sheet of typing paper will work. … if you have 30 students, then you will have 30 half sheets of typing paper on your wall.) In addition, create a color scale with smaller pieces of paper about the size of 3 x 5 cards. From bottom to top, the colors should be, white, blue, green, red, orange, yellow, purple, metallic bronze, metallic silver, metalic gold. Now, you’re ready to chart and reward improvements.
When you observe students improving in any classroom activity especially in dramatically improving their records in a SuperSpeed game assigned as homework (see WBT Homework Model below), give them verbal praise, “you’re really doing better lining up … wow, what a great improvement in your SuperSpeed 100 score … what a remarable increase you’ve demonstrated in SuperSpeed Math … you are using gestures to teach your neighbor much better now than this morning.” After you’ve made several verbal comments, add a star to the child’s name on the Super Improvers Wall. When a child has earned 10 stars, change the color of the paper their name is on. Every child starts at the white level, then advances to the blue level, then to the red, etc. Every ten stars and they climb higher in color code. With 10 colors, this means your Super Improvers Wall has room to note 100 improvements for every child in your class!
Children love to be recognized, love to feel like they are making progress. “Last week I was just a blue, but now a few more stars and I’ll be a red! … Gosh, someday maybe I’ll be a metallic gold!!!!”
If you wish, the 10 color levels can have names. For example, using a fish theme, the 10 color levels could be
White: tadpole
Blue: minnow
Green: trout
Red: electric eel
Orange: sword fish
Yellow: dolphin
Purple: shark
Metallic Bronze: great white shark
Metallic Silver: killer whale
Metallic Gold: blue whale
After several months, you can add even more motivation to the Super Improvers Wall.
Bring in your camera and when a student at any level over redm earns a new color, take the student’s picture with any friends he or she chooses. Encourage the kids to make funny faces. Children love to see pictures of themselves making funny faces.
Develop the picture and bring it to class. Do not show the child the photo but replace their name on the Super Improvers Wall with the picture, image side to the wall (but maintain the color coding.) For example, Maria advances from green to orange. Take her picture as she poses with her friends. Bring the picture in, put it on an orange sheet of paper, with the image side to the wall. At this point, Maria wants, almost more than anything in the world, to have the photo turned around and see her funny face picture with her friends.
As you note continued improvement, especially on the child’s scores on the SuperSpeed games assigned as homework (WBT Homework Model) put a star on the back of the photo. When the photo has ten stars, make a big production of turning it around. Viola! Announce that your Super Improver has become a Student Leader! We almost guarantee that at least once a day, the student and her friends will go up and look at the picture.
What should student leaders do?
Assign leaders for one day to perform, at your request, any of the following call outs: class!, hands and eyes, mirror, papers, seats, lines, switch, teach, Mighty Groan, Mighty Oh Yeah. Change leader tasks daily … not everyone who has a photo turned face outward, will be a leader every day. By making your most improved kids part of your daily routine, you are creating mini-Whole Brain Teachers. If you attend a WBT conference, you can purchase leadership buttons for these students.
Student leadership, in this system, is hard earned, based on self improvement. We especially stress the importance of recognizing students who make dramatic gains in the SuperSpeed games as part of their homework (WBT Homework Model). When your students ache for the recognition that comes from setting and breaking personal records … ache so much that they work hard at home on reading and math … you’re in Teacher Heaven. All your racers are racing against themselves.
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