The Scoreboard, Webcast #517

"The artist's studio, the researcher's laboratory, the scholar's library are each kept deliberately simple so as to support the complexities of the work in progress."  – Lucy Calkins 

I’ve been using the "deliberately simple" WBT Scoreboard in my classroom since the first day of school – about seven weeks now.  No more marbles in the jar for me. That’s right – no more fake money or treasure boxes.  I now use the Scoreboard, and it’s been a great success in helping me with classroom behavior.  My students love to “hug their ears” as they give a ½ second groan and, even more, they love the 1 second party, the mighty “Oh Yeah!” We even do whisper “Oh Yeahs!” in the hallway in response to the portable scoreboard I wear on my lanyard. Yup, a sticky note on the back of my I.D. badge elicits great hallway behavior from my wiggly, jiggly, talkative fourth graders.  The rewards that they work so hard for are one minute of talk time at the end of the period or a quick game of four corners.

 This picture shows my scoreboard, which is at the front and center of my classroom.  All I need is a dry erase marker, a smile, and a bit of ping ponging to motivate my students. (The "I can" statements are required by my district. I simply turn them into the question I ask in the first step of the five-step WBT lesson plan.)

However, I noticed last week that the Scoreboard was becoming lackluster.  My knowledge of the scoreboard was gleaned here and there as I’ve poked around on the WBT website, but I hadn’t watched the video yet. After all, I told myself, I can teach myself a simple procedure like the scoreboard. Oh ho ho! Little did I know that that was the reason my students have become lackluster about the scoreboard. Today I watched the video, and I learned that my students are dangerously close to becoming habituated to the routine!  

On Monday, the first thing I will do is offer a tiny bit of variety: Pirate Captain v. the Crew.  This will be the just the thing to rekindle student interest.  Perhaps in another week, I’ll introduce a new and different reward, changing things up a bit, but not too quickly.  Next time, I won’t wait too long to introduce a little variety.  There are many suggestions on the video that I will employ.

If you haven’t already viewed the Scoreboard Video, Program #517, it comes highly recommended from this reformed marble-in-the-jar teacher who is now a devoted Scoreboard user.

Prove It! Webcast #506

Benjamin Franklin said “By failing to prepare, we are preparing to fail.” 

I think this is the perfect quote for teachers who need to prepare students for standardized state tests.  We teachers had to prepare to take our state certification tests. Most of us not only obtained college degrees, but also took practice tests and studied the types of questions we would likely be asked on those state certification tests.  We owe the same type of test prep to our students.   It’s not enough that they have quality guided, shared and independent reading experiences.  They must also thoroughly know what types of questions they will encounter during standardized academic testing.

With that in mind, I studied the “Prove It” webcast #506.  Prove It is a game in which students practice How To Solve a problem, rather than merely coming up with the answer to the problem.  The class earns points for excellent answers as well as for effort. The points are cashed in at the end of the week to play Mind Soccer. Ya gotta love it – kids are practicing an academic skill in order to earn the privilege of playing an academic review game.  Awesome! 

I began by creating a visual to post to teach my fourth graders the three types of questions.  This is what I came up with.

I used the 5-step lesson plan format to teach the three types of questions.  My students love the 5-step lesson plan format. When we begin each lesson, they are fully engaged, and I know each student is learning. 

I also prepared a bank of questions for when we played the game.  I simply typed several questions from a reading passaged in one of my resource books.  The questions follow the format of typical questions on our Texas STAAR test.  I decided to use only the question stem unless the question requires the answer choices to make a decision about how to solve. 

Following is an example of a Find and Compare question. Students can identify it as a Find and Compare question without the answer choices.

       Which is the best summary of paragraphs 8-10?

The next question is an Answer Now question.  You have to give the answer choices so kids will know that enough information is given for it to be an Answer Now question. 
       Which statement supports the idea that Josie was curious about the elephant?

       A  Josie snoozed peacefully under the magnolia tree.

       B  All the way to the market place, Josie looked for straw to feed the lost elephant.
       C  Josie peeked around the corner of the magnolia tree at the magnificent animal.
       D  The strong elephant used its trunk to lift Josie high into the air.

 A Read Again question might be worded as follows.

         Which is the best summary of this selection?

The main problem I found as we played the game was that my students were having trouble knowing the difference between the Find and Compare questions and the Read Again questions. Coincidentally, a special ed inclusion teacher had joined us during this time, and she was having the same trouble!  I thought, “Oh, no!  If a teacher can’t tell the difference, how can my students?”

 

Then I realized that you also have to “read again” for a Find and Compare question.  So I quickly re-taught.  My students now know that for a Find and Compare question, you simply scan to find the little bit of text you’re looking for.  Then you just have to reread a little bit.  We gestured by holding our thumb and index finger apart one inch and looking at it closely.  For a Read Again question, you have to reread a lot of text to figure out the answer.  We gestured by spreading our hands apart as far as we could to indicate reading a lot of text. 

The next day when we played Prove It, I simply used my Elmo to project questions directly from my resource book. I just covered up the answer choices with a blank piece of paper. It was so easy and required no prep work at all. 

This was a four-day week in my district, and we’ve just begun our Prove It game. I plan to carefully watch test scores to see how much they improve, and I’ll blog about the results here as I accumulate data.

By playing Prove It, the kids have earned 38 seconds of Mind Soccer time.  By this Friday, we’ll be ready for our first game of Mind Soccer.  My students beg for Prove It, and they’re begging even more for Mind Soccer.  I’m completely grateful to Coach B for teaching me how to weave the golden thread of fun into test prep.