Recognizing Positive Behaviors-Catch Them Being Good

Catch Them Being Good

Johnson Crossing is a 5-6 building that has approximately 345 students per grade.  At Johnson Crossing, we teach students positive behaviors and our goal is to reward these behaviors.  We call these behaviors TIGER skills as our mascot is a Tiger.  The guidance counselors and dean of students go to each team teaches the behaviors from our TIGER Matrix.  When we see positive behaviors, we want to recognize kids.  We want to catch the students being good.  When we see behaviors that do not fall into our TIGER skills, we then address them with a replacement behavior.  We are able to talk about what a student should do, not simply tell them to stop doing the bad behavior.  In order to reward positive behaviors, we have developed a TIGER store and Tiger bucks.

TIGER Store and Tiger Bucks

Purpose: Reinforce TIGER skills by recognizing positive behaviors.

Teachers
Each teacher starts with 30 Tiger Bucks.  These Tiger Bucks are to be given to students when students display positive behavior according to the TIGER matrix.  Students will not get a Tiger Buck if they ask for one.  We want to randomly catch students doing the right thing.  It may become common for students to ask for a tiger buck when they see somebody else get one.  A good response to these students is to say “Keep doing the right thing and I’m sure I’ll catch you sometime.”  

Students
Students can trade in Tiger Bucks during their allotted time in the TIGER store. The TIGER Store will be open for 20 minutes for each of the 9 teams.  Each team (of teachers) will sign up for a time during the school day that works for them.  

School Store
The TIGER Store sells a variety of items.  Some examples of items that can be purchased at the TIGER store include items like t-shirts, pencils, notebooks, Johnson Crossing bracelet, wear a hat pass, front of the line pass, eat with the principal certificate, etc.  


School Partnerships
Johnson Crossing must partner with the community to make this store happen. The PTA and staff members have donated money and items. Several items are free such as wear a hat during school. Finally, businesses will partner and either donate money or items for the TIGER store.

Supporting No Zeroes

A "no zeroes" policy makes perfect sense.  A zero will skew your gradebook significantly.  Zeroes are punishment of behavior, not assessment of learning.  Grades are not intended to be the motivator, again they are to describe learning.  So I will not make a case of why to do a no zeroes policy.  Instead, how do we implement a policy like this in the real world.

Practical matter of no zeroes
1. Think of homework as practice.  Our goal is learning, not completion for the sake of completion.  Assessments should be given regularly, be meaningful, be connected to homework, and should give feedback to students.  Practice should not be graded.  Homework is not the assessment.
2. Put programs in place for those students who need extra help.



Changing Homeworks Purpose


Change the way you think about grading, homework, practice, motivation, etc. and everything changes.  Yes, this can be scary.  You may have to look at what classroom activities are really just time fillers and get rid of those activities and practices.

No zeroes policies-common and practical questions:
1. Why will students do the homework if I'm not grading it? (motivation)
2. All students have to do homework.  How could I manage a class if some students did homework and others didn't do the homework? (management)

When homework is used as practice, it helps students learn concepts already taught in class.  Keep the answer book open in the back of the room.  The practice isn't graded anyways.  This sends a message that the homework is for learning, not grading.  Then you can have conversations with students and give better, more natural feedback to students.  Have them turn in work and comment on it.  Walk around the room as they are working on it.  Answer questions, interact with students, check for understanding, and get a feel for who needs to do the homework

But why would a student do the work if it isn't graded?  Because your homework is directly aligned to what will be on your assessments.  You can have many small assessments, authentic assessments, quizzes, and tests in class.  You will be grading that student's work.  You will know that the work was not done by sitting in the hallway looking off the smart kids homework.  When homework is a grading game, count on the fact that many students (even your best) are cheating to get the work done.  This isn't a negative view of "these darn kids today," it's just reality.  If they see the homework as checking something off of a list, then that is the quality of work you will get.

What if one of my students gets it, but the rest of the students needs practice?  If the student completely "gets it" before others do the practice, will doing the same level problem that they already understand over and over going to help that student?  No, but it will kill their motivation to learn.  If you differentiate and give them problems that challenge them, then fine but differentiation is a whole topic on it's own so no point in going there in this post.  So yes, all students have to practice and prepare, but that may not look exactly the same for each kid.


Programs
We went to a no zeroes policy at the Middle School 6 years ago.  At the Middle School, we created the Eagle Success Program known as ESP.  The basics of ESP: if students don't complete homework, they are assigned an ESP.  At the high school level, we use the Grade Recovery Intervention Program.  We do not have a no zeroes policy in the high school but have put GRIP into place so that if teachers have a no zero policy, they have support from the school and school administration.  Students are required to stay after school to complete homework.  GRIP lasts from 3:35-4:15 and take priority over after school sports.  We use common sense and we do not make unreasonable punishments for students.  Our goal with both programs is to get completed work, not punish kids.  For instance, if  a kid has a meeting with their TeamMates (School based mentoring program) mentor, they will meet with their mentor and get the homework done later.  We want to be flexible enough that the purpose is clear, turning in essential homework (homework that for this student must be done so they will be prepared for the assessment) is required.  We have found that time is a bigger motivator than grades could ever be for many students. By the way, the students that are actually motivated by grades are not the students we are talking about with these homework programs anyways.


Results
High School-One student failed one class in the first semester and two students failed three classes in the second semester.

Middle School-One student failed one class in the first semester and no students failed any class in the second semester.

Our failing rates went down by 90% or more.  Of course it is possible that because we are focusing on failing grades, our teachers may feel pressure to pass kids.  However,  our 8th grade students scored highest of all our conference schools on our state's writing assessment.  We also scored very high (well above the state average) on all of our state testing. It appears that the programs we have put into place do in fact support learning and do not lower our high standards.

Living Above the Line

Living Above the Line is an approach to discipline at Arlington Middle School.  It's not just a system, but it's a way of thinking about student behavior.  It's taking a negative, poor decisions by students, and making it into a positive.  How?  By looking at student behavior as an opportunity to teach and therefore student discipline can be seen as an extension of character education.

The key components to "Living Above the Line" approach to student discipline are:
1. 10/90-Ten percent of life is outside of your control and 90% is inside your control (Stephen Covey).  Spend your time and energy where you can actually make an impact.
2.  Consequences-All actions have a consequence, good or bad. The best consequences are natural consequences but logical consequences have their place too.  Certainty over immediacy-something will happen is more important than that it will happen right now.
3.  Respondability-How you respond is more important than the initial action.
4.  See it, own it, solve it, do it-this is the way the student takes accountability for their actions and creates a plan to fix the problem.
5. Give it time-Frustration and anger will go away with time.
6. Educators should be role models of behavior.  Respectful responses are extremely important to any and all situations.

Influencing Change: Vital Behaviors

It's overwhelming to think of how Arlington has gotten to where we are.  I have written several posts on the things we have done that have led to many successes.   It's even more overwhelming to think of where we are going and how to get there. Where do we begin?

My question of where to begin is not a rhetorical question.  I, along with about 30 teachers, a principal, 2 counselors, and several other support staff members will be doing just that this fall.  The Johnson Crossing Academic Center will open for the first time in August and greet over 700 students whether we are ready or not.


In the book, "Influencer: The Power to Change Anything," the authors identify what they call "vital behaviors" (with this in mind, I am not an expert in the change process.  This post is more an exploration of the ideas of this book than a statement). The idea of vital behaviors is that a few behaviors make significant changes.  People who lead change have very specific behaviors in mind that need to be changed.  Instead of spouting generalities of educational jargon such as "best practices" or a "safe environment" specifics are needed. Behaviors are not to be confused with outcomes.

Successful Teachers-Vital Behaviors
The authors found 2 behaviors in teachers that have successful students.

1. Top performing teachers reward positive performance and bottom performing teachers become easily discouraged.

2. Top performing teachers quickly transition from teaching to questioning.  This leads to reteaching when a topic is not understood.

Influencing Change Through Vital Behaviors
To create the biggest change, you must find the behaviors that lead to the greatest change.  It's interesting that these are not unbelievable, overwhelming tasks that would be impossible for the average person to do.  Yet breaking it down to it's smallest component is not always easy when you are looking a big problems from close up.

Where to begin?
What we must do (the generalities): Create a caring environment, have high expectations, develop a collaborative learning environment, value 5th and 6th grade students, and on and on and on.

My starting point: I'm avoiding using "vital behaviors" because vital behaviors are research based.  I'm going a little bit on gut, a little on experience, and a little on research.  So I am just calling this my "starting point" behaviors.

1. Open dialogue - begin by meeting, interviewing, and getting to know each teacher and staff member.   Learn from them and share my beliefs.
2. Model caring behaviors - speak positively of students and parents every chance I get.
3. Speak of high expectations.

These are not unbelievable, overwhelming tasks to complete.  These are my 3 simple behaviors that I can do when facing a daunting challenge.

Where would you begin?
If you could start your own school, what vital behaviors do you find most important to the development of the kind of school you would want to send your child?  So literally, where to begin?  Where would you begin?

Building a Culture without Cracks

Developing a school culture that puts student academic success at the center of all decisions is crucial to a school’s success.  In the middle grades, it is important to develop the whole student.  Great schools don’t allow any student to fall through the cracks. 

1. A strong team or teams-Teams drive much of what we do in the middle school.  The purpose of the team must have student driven decisions. 

2. Kid Centered-When students are at the center of decisions rather than curriculum, everything else falls into place.

3. Never give up attitude-I believe that schools often tell parents and student why we can’t do something.  Instead of telling people what our limitations are as a school, why not explore all options that could help an individual student.

4. Putting Programs in Place-With a never give up attitude, it would be easy to get frustrated if programs aren’t in place to support teachers that never give up.  As an example, if zeroes are not an option, then set up programs to support this belief.

5. Developing a unified approach to student behavior-It is also important that the approach to student behavior fits the kid centered, never give up attitude.

Active and Purposeful Learning

The Association of Middle Level Educators identifies "active learning" as one of the 16 characteristics of a successful school for young adolescents.  To be successful, teachers and students must be actively engaged in learning.  Standardized testing is how we are held accountable but for learning to happen, students must be engaged individually, not a one size fits all/standard education for all.  So, it is our job as middle level educators to walk the balancing act of doing what is required of us through standardized testing and doing what is right for our students.  I believe that doing what is right for our students will in fact lead to better learners and therefore better test results as well.

• Create authentic learning opportunities-Meet students where they are.  Discussions have long been a way to engage students in authentic/active learning.  Recently, I have watched teachers use Edmodo or Moodle as a tool to get students to engage deeper in discussions.  Students can be assigned to participate in a discussion outside of class and then these discussions spill over into class where the teacher is able to actively participate and help students engage with the material.
• Involve students with extracurriculars-Recently our students completed the science fair.  This is a traditional but powerful way to engage students in science.  The learning that happens in these projects far exceeds the day to day learning that may happen through notes and lectures.  Students can also participate in National History Day, Math Counts, Quiz Bowl, and other such academic activities.  Another such activity that I was not familiar with until the last couple of years was Future Cities. Our students actively engage in creating a future city and have to use all kinds of academic skills to create these cities.
• Develop interdisciplinary projects-Our Middle School teachers regularly engage in interdisciplinary units.  These projects help our students see the application of each curriculum area outside of that classroom.  It is always nice to see students apply knowledge from one class in another curriculum area.
• Individualize for all students-It is normal to have IEP's for special education students.  What about your other students.  I am yet to meet "the normal student."  All students have strengths and we should be sure to focus on those strengths.  Often as we look at how to make all students proficient, it is easy to focus on weaknesses.  To become proficient is how a school is graded.  However, the student will not work as an adult in the area they are weakest.  In the adult world, we can hide our weaknesses and work within our areas of strength.  Let's prepare students for the real "real world" where strengths matter.
• Exploratory classes matter-Along the same line, don't forget about the non core classes.  Students learn a great deal from Music, PE, Humanities, Exploring Technology, Multimedia classes, etc.  These areas must be given attention.  If we believe that creating an education for the whole student makes for better learning, then don't narrow the focus just for the sake of doing well on a reading or math test.  Math and Reading are no doubt fundamental to students education.  To go from good to great, students must go beyond the fundamentals.  

These are just a few broad ideas of what is important to create active learning.  What do your schools/classrooms do to create an environment of "active learning" and "purposeful learning?"  I'd love to find out from you what you do to create a purposeful environment for your students that take your kids beyond the test. 

Valuing the Middle Level Student

The first characteristic of a successful school for young adolescents as described by "This We Believe" is: Educators value young adolescents and are prepared to teach them.  The Association of Middle Level Educators places this in the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment part of the characteristics of successful schools.

What can be done to create a school where educators value young adolescents?  How can we know that teachers are prepared to teach young adolescents?

1.  School Culture-Create a school culture in which talking about students is done in a positive way. This starts at the top but doesn't end there.  Every person in the school should be an advocate for students.  When a teacher makes a joke about a kid-do you laugh?  If negative people don't have an audience, it becomes very uncomfortable for the comedian/teacher.  Take a stand for what you believe and when you do you will realize that most of the people who got into education got into it because they love kids.  You will find yourself in the majority once you take the stand that negativity about young adolescents has no place in a school.  Come with a solution to help a student, not a one liner to demean the student.

Rock, Paper, Scissors Contest

2.  Have fun with students.  Create times in the week to do something just to show that you value students.  We have an activity day during homeroom on Friday.  It probably doesn't have much academic value, but it can have a great deal of value of showing kids that you like them and want to be around them.  Last Friday our middle school completed a rock, paper, scissors contest.  I am pretty sure that this rock, paper, scissors knowledge they gained will not be on the Nebraska State Accountability tests.  However, I am also sure that the 15-20 minutes spent laughing and cheering with their classmates and teachers was not wasted time.

3.  Practices and Programs-Create programs and practices that show you appreciate students' effort.  Every student gets recognized at some point during the year with a "Soaring Eagle."  A Soaring Eagle is a note written by the principal to a student that shows appreciation for their attitude, behavior, and/or character.  The teacher submits a student's name and accomplishment using a google doc form.  The principal then gets this submission in a google spreadsheet and writes the letter to the student.  At lunch time, the student is given the Soaring Eagle along with a sucker.  Teachers also have postcards that they send home when students do something above and beyond in their classroom.

In addition to recognition, your student discipline system should show value in the individual student.  We created our own system called "Living Above the Line" that values students rather that creating a one size fits all discipline system.  Rather than having a discipline system that is punitive, natural consequences  (and logical consequences when natural consequences aren't possible) should shape student behavior.

4.  Hire Teachers with passion for the middle level-Teaching candidates with a 4-9 grade endorsement should be given some priority.  The reason I say some priority rather than "only hire teachers with MS endorsements" is that I don't want to lose great teachers because they have a 7-12 endorsement or a K-6 endorsement (or any other type of endorsement).  What is great about a 4-9 endorsement is that it shows the passion for education is with middle level students.  Passion is the key, not endorsement area.

5.  Teacher Training-If a teacher comes with little practical knowledge of what it is to teach at this level, then it is crucial to get that teacher the training necessary to work with middle level students.  Encourage teachers to join the state association for middle level educators.  Encourage teacher to participate in professional development focusing on young adolescents.

Those are my 5 ideas, what else should be added to create a school that values middle level students?