My Classroom Management » praise

Mystery Student – Idea of the Week

jenniferw — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 17:08:19 +0000

For the month of April, I am going experiment with an idea of the week. For those of you who subscribe to this blog, I am asking for one favor – if you like the idea of the week and want to continue receiving them through the end of the school year (and perhaps beyond) please send me an email with one idea.

So for your first idea – Mystery Student

During times of the day where behavior needs to be improved upon (walking in the halls, lunch, reading groups, etc.) watch the students for one who is following the rules and expectations and doing a great job. The students should know that you are watching for a mystery student. Then, after the class period is over or whatever time frame you chose to watch for the mystery student during, there should be a reward ceremony to publicly announce who the mystery student was.

A twist on the mystery student is to choose a mystery piece of trash at the end of the day and which ever student manages to pick up that particular piece of trash again receives public praise and perhaps a small reward (a new pencil?) for finding the mystery piece of trash.

Pre-K/Kindergarten Behavior Tool

jenniferw — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:40:52 +0000

While some children will respond to losing privileges and to warnings, many receive far too little praise for good behavior. Instead of drawing more attention to unwanted behavior in the early years of preschool and Kindergarten, consider a punch card behavior tool to focus on good behavior.

What is the Punch Card Behavior Tool?

Basically you take an index card, write the student’s name on it along with either the class rules or some expectation you wish to reward for good behavior and place it in a protective pocket pouch like this:

Then the child can “earn” hole punches in the bottom of the card. Choose either 5 or 10 punches for one card and then provide a larger reward for getting all the punches in one day.

Tips for Using the Hole Punch Behavior Tool
You may find this tool more useful for improving individual behaviors than for general class obedience.
To use for general class obedience, set a specific amount of time, like one activity/subject, and provide punches for those students who followed the rules during that time period.
Consider keeping track of earned punches for a larger class on a clipboard and punch all cards once during lunchtime and once while students are cleaning up at the end of the day to save time.
Yankee Trader or the Dollar Store are good resources for “prizes” earned when punch card is filled at the end of the day.

When Saying “Good Job” is Bad

jenniferw — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:43:03 +0000

Many education programs are training new teachers to not say the words “good job” to students as this is ineffective praise. Let us take a closer look at why this is, and whether it would be appropriate to use this praise in the classroom.

When praising a student, it is important to be as specific as possible.

“Excellent handwriting!” is praise that will encourage more neatly written work.
“Good question” thanks the student for participating and provides great opportunity to further learning.
“I like the way you….” tells the student exactly what he or she did well.

The more specific the praise, the more sincere it is to the student and the student in turn knows exactly what he or she is doing well.

Does this mean that saying “good job” is bad? Not necessarily. Let’s take a look at when it would be appropriate to say good job to a student.

When praise is appropriate but time is short, good job might be an acceptable statement. For example, after a student gives a presentation to the class, a teacher might say “nice presentation, Sam” and turn to the next student in line. Specifying one thing that the student did well during the presentation might put undue stress on the next student, so a generic well done is appropriate.

Anytime when specific praise might complicate the situation, general praise is useful. For example, if a student has done something that helps prevent embarrassment for another student, a simple thank you is less intrusive than a more specific praise.

Finally, when praising a student for accomplishing a task, such as finding an answer in the text, the general praise “good job” is appropriate. This tells the student that the teacher is pleased when it is not necessary to tell the student exactly what he or she has done.