Tickets please

After blogging about it, talking it over with our M&R teacher and doing a lot of thinking I have gone back to using positive participation tickets in my class. We had a big discussion about it on Friday and, after being out sick on Monday, I started using them for the first time today. While the system isn't totally fleshed out yet, basically this is how it works:

A student speaks French, gets settled quickly, helps someone out, goes above and beyond what is asked of them, I give them a ticket. These tickets can be redeemed for privileges, things like; indoor recess with a group of friends, time in the gym, Smart board games, Lego and so forth. The idea with the "rewards" is that they were mostly group rewards, not just for an individual.

What I haven't worked out yet is the "value" of each of these rewards. I suppose I need to come up with some sort of price list or something so that the students know how many tickets they need to save up. Now I know from video game theory that the most effective reward systems start of with small, easy to achieve goals and then over time make the goals harder and more time consuming. But rather than increase the value of the rewards (with some sort of strange inflation?) I think as time goes on I will make tickets harder to get, so for example whereas now, if a student attempts to speak French, even by repeating what I'm saying back to me, I give them a ticket. In time I will only give out tickets for full sentences or spontaneous French.

The other advantage of this system over last year's is that, rather than constantly having to get new tickets, I'll be able to re-use the same tickets over and over again until they fall apart.

Today's introduction to the tickets went pretty well. As I expected, almost all bought into the system instantly. I saw hands go up from students I hadn't heard from without specifically calling on them before. And yes, this is extrinsic instead of intrinsic motivation, but you know what? It was a happier, more peaceful classroom this morning when we were doing our French work. And hopefully I can gradually pull the program back as they become more confident in their abilities and eventually they will buy into the real reason that we're doing all this learning - to better themselves.

Any hints or tips on how to make this program even better?

Moving from carrot and stick motivation

Even before I became a full-time teacher, I struggled with the idea of how to motivate students. While in university we looked at various methods and discussed how students who are intrinsically motivated (motivated to do something because they know it will benefit them) work better and have a more meaningful education than those who are extrinsically motivated (those motivated by either fear of consequences or because they will get something else if they do well).

Extrinsic motivation is often called  using "Carrot and Stick" motivators. So you tell a student that if they do this thing you want them to do, they will get a candy (carrot) but if they don't do it, they will get a detention (stick). In some way it is nearly impossible to get away from using carrots and sticks. After all, if a student does well they get a high mark, if they don't do well, they fail. I suppose the amount of importance you give to those marks can change whether or not they become motivators. I myself as a student was highly motivated by marks and by praise.

In a previous post over the summer, I thought about Video game style motivation where I talked about using goals to help motivate my students. This is something I have started doing a little this past week, having the students express their learning goals in writing.

But I also spoke about my positive participation tickets. So far I have not resumed this practice and I would like to refrain from using it this year for several reasons. One is it's a carrot. It motivates students to something I want because they will get something from it. I found it difficult last year to see the students become greedy about the prizes last year and it also took up a lot of time and money to get the prizes. The positive participation tickets came from a system developed for the intensive french program. Most intensive french teachers use them or a variation to motivate their students to speak French. I'm concerned that if I don't use the system that when my teaching is observed, my choice to not use this system will be questioned and I'll be told to start using it again.

My other concern is what to use instead. Last year I tried to go without my tickets with one of my grade 5 classes. After a few days of not getting any hands I started in with the tickets and suddenly the hands went up. I also randomly call on students using a random name selector. But so far this year I haven't seen participation from a lot of my students. What motivators have you used in your classroom that work for you?

Video Game Style Motivation

On Monday I bought a new exercise game for my Wii. I've been using the Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus but I felt unmotivated by it lately. I've been playing it for a few years now and was frustrated by the fact the goals I had to set were based solely on weight and nothing else. Early on there were little rewards for reaching a certain amount of hours of activities, and I always made sure that I got in my 30 minutes so it would play the little happy music, rewarding me for my hard work, but beyond that there wasn't much. I don't need to lose weight, I want to be more fit. Sure, I could set my own goals apart from the game's and celebrate them for myself, but that's what I got the game for in the first place, to be my motivator.

I'm easily motivated by small success celebrations. Three seconds of happy music or collecting a trophy or sticker or check-mark both in games and in the real world are huge motivators for me. So I wanted a new exercise game that would let me set goals that were meaningful to me. A few friends suggested Zumba and I considered it (I love Zumba and dance in general) but there didn't seem to be any goal setting or rewards for reaching goals. Instead I bought Wii Sports Active. So far it has lived up to my needs.

But how is this all related to teaching? After all, this is a teaching blog, not a exercise game blog. When looking in to buying a new game, I thought a lot about what motivates me to do things. As much as I would like to be, I'm not often intrinsically motivated, or not as much as I think I should be. I clean my house because I like guests to feel comfortable and enjoy my house as much as I do. I mow the lawn because I don't want neighbours to think I don't take care of my yard. I write because I want people to read my writing and give me positive feedback (or critique it constructively). I do get some pleasure out of doing all these things as well, but when I feel stuck or unwilling to do something, it's often external motivators that get me going. I believe that the same is often true of my students.

We did a book study at our school this past year of a book called The Highly Engaged Classroom by Robert J. Marzano and Debra J. Pickering. A few teachers got together and we read and discussed chapter by chapter. It was a good read with lots of great ideas. The one I've been contemplating lately is having the students set goals and make choices about their learning. I believe that setting goals is highly motivating, but I haven't come up with a way to integrate this idea into my Intensive French classroom.

In video games, players don't often set their own goals in the same way. The game sets up the goals for them and they can sometimes choose which ones to go for or how to attain them. For example, one of my favourite video games is Little Big Planet. I get to run around and collect stickers and I get rewarded for finding more stickers and items. In other games, players are rewarded with experience points and get to go up a level. Or they collect gold and buy new items for their character.

Now, I already have a reward system in my classroom. My students get tickets for speaking French during our daily routine and these tickets go in for a draw at the end of the week. The students often cite this as one of their favourite parts of Intensive French. Not intrinsic motivation but often effective at getting reluctant students to participate. I would like to alter this system or add a different system that somehow uses what I know of video game motivation to help motivate my students to speak French in class. I would like to figure out a way to have the students either choose their own goals or have set goals for them to attain.

Have you used goal setting in your classroom? What worked for you? Do you have any suggestions for how I could use goal setting in my classroom?