Teacher vs. Students: The Game Where Everyone WINS!

Image from Miss L's Whole Brain Teaching

Recently I read a blog post that claimed that the Scoreboard game was not good teaching practice and expects students to fail.  While citing TeachHub as a source to explain the game, the author and TeachHub were misinformed about the appropriate way to conduct the Scoreboard game.

Today, I'm going to take some time to refute the negative claims against the Scoreboard game and explain why it encourages student growth and engagement.

Let me start off by explaining the rules of the Scoreboard game.  Draw on the board a smiley face and a frown face or I use T vs. S.  Every time the students do great they get a point.  Every time they don't meet expectations I get a point.  Here is where some teachers may play the game incorrectly:

• The goal is not to beat the students.  Instead it is to push students to try to beat you, by meeting the expectations established.  Set appropriate expectations that are obtainable and then keep raising the expectations bar to encourage them to keep getting better!
• When either side gets a point it should be fun.  When the students earn a point they get a one second celebration.  When the teacher gets a point the students give a one second "Mighty Groan".  When I introduce this, we see how fast we can groan and how big we can make our shoulders shrug. We do not dwell on not meeting the expectation, but rather acknowledge the need for improvement. 
• There are several ways to give both sides points in order to improve student effort. When students are trying hard, I might still give myself a point to encourage them to try even harder!  It's fun to see how much effort students will put forth in order to earn that point on their side.
• Teacher points give the teacher an opportunity to reteach expectations. It might go something like this:  "Oh students we were not giving enough energy. Point for the teacher. (Mighty Groan) Let's try again. Great Improvement! Point for the students. (Oh Yeah!). It's almost like a ping pong effect. 
• The teacher should never outright win.  The game should always be kept close (within 3 points) this encourages students to keep trying to better themselves to meet your expectation and also keeps you aware that you need to award students for their effort.
• Lastly, you should NEVER single out students by name and then give the teacher a point.  A better way to address not meeting an expectation would be as follows: "Some of my friends were not fast enough. Point for the teacher! (Mighty Groan).  Awesome groan!  Point for the students! (Oh Yeah!)"

This classroom management strategy is about teamwork.  Everyone in the classroom works together for a common goal. The teacher is the facilitator to help students reach beyond what they know they are capable! 

Here's a link with the different varieties of the Scoreboard game, and here's a video from Chris Biffle about using the Scoreboard correctly! 

Data Collection Pt. 5 - Charting YOUR Progress

Collecting data on students is a very important aspect of establishing a system to improve student learning, but just as important is creating a system to assess yourself as a teacher! This concept was somewhat mind blowing to me because I just assumed based upon how I felt my class was going, I could determine their success.  I have come in contact with a better idea!

Charting Your Progress:
Chris Biffle states in his book Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids,

"You cannot manage student behavior if you cannot manage your own behavior."

The two features to evaluate yourself on are:
1. Controlling emotions and tone of voice.
2. Consistently following through with the classroom management plan.

On top of personal reflection, you are going to chart student behavior progress!

This information will provide you with undeniable evidence about growth in your classroom!  First, what you need to do is give yourself a score each week between 1-10 on your ability to control your emotions, then give yourself a score between 1-10 on how consistently you followed through with your expectations and procedures. Add these two scores together, be honest, this is your baseline score.  Write this down somewhere and each week you can write your new score.  Don't expect yourself to immediately score perfect.  The school year is not a sprint, but a marathon.  Reflect upon what areas you need to work on and then hit the ground running on Monday being the awesome teacher that you are!

Now for the second portion of charting progress: student behavior.  I love this idea and am eager to implement it into my room.  I have uploaded the form I am going to use for this on TeachersPayTeachers.  You can get it for FREE on my page: Click Here!

Evaluate your students on a scale of 1-5.  Be brutally honest, no one is going to see this, but you!

5 points = Leader: This score is very difficult and likely you will have NO leaders at the beginning of the year.  They can 100% self-manage themselves.

4 points = Alpha: These students follow directions and stay on task.  They do everything you would want them to do.

3 points = Go-Alongs: These students go-along with what is asked, but sometime make mistakes. They may occasionally be off task or not turn in their work.

2 points = Fence Sitter: These students could go either way and may begin talking if others are talking or get off task.

1 point = Challenging Students: These students cause disruptions in class, do not do their work, get off task, and about any other number of things that make you want to pull your hair out!

Total your entire class and find the average.  This is your baseline for student behavior.  Each week evaluate your students.  I know this may take some time, but it will be worth it to see the progress!  I think a great goal would be to move every student up one level by the end of the year.  If that is the case, you'd hope to see a .1 change each month.  Remember: a marathon NOT a sprint.  Obviously, if students jumped a full level, then you as a teacher have succeeded in helping mold those students' behavior.  You can then give yourself a pat on the back! :)

Good luck!  Remember to document, document, document. For the rest of the school year, I won't be posting as much.  I will try to post at least once a week, so be on the lookout!