VSC Math Rewards - New Title!

Every few months or so it appears that the students who earn gold tokens get focused on one particular game. Super Mario 3D world in the beginning of the year, Mario Kart 8 a bit later on, and Smash has been going strong for a while now.

Introducing, Mario Party 10. I think the kids will love this game. Finally a multiplayer game that everyone can have fun with and play. Not everyone is into Smash and some students have missed playing Mario Kart. Speaking of that, I am having another tournament for Spring Break for Mario Kart 8. I need to make a new Powerpoint this weekend along with qualifying criteria..

Going Once...Going Twice....Not Sold...

For some weird reason, VSC Math Gold and Silver pencils are NOT a popular choice for rewards! It's almost as if students don't care about the fact that they will be the only ones with these pencils (because nobody else has chosen them), nor the fact that they say something cool, nor the fact that there's only ONE way to get each pencil!

Shouldn't they feel empowered? Shouldn't they feel excited? In students' minds, getting a chance to play the Wii U is the ultimate prize. I don't have a degree in marketing, so I have to find a way to sell these other prizes. Literally NO group has chosen these pencils! I have been using them myself...I'm sure they feel under-appreciated.

In fact, the most popular prizes in VSC Math are:
Gold Tier - Wii U/SM3DW
Silver Tier - Lunch with Mr. E (Just naming the prize, I promise I'm not that vain...)
Bronze Tier - Fruit snacks (well, there's only one other prize in this tier to be fair)

Student of the........What?....

Well, the first month of school is practically down! Going back to the end-of-the-year award ceremony last year, I remember that students were awarded for different things than they are normally awarded for throughout the year. I decided to make these types of awards monthly. At least going along with my class, I've decided to create the following monthly recognitions for students:

Staples is my new best friend. I think these recognition pieces will reinforce the types of thinking and behaviors that currently take place in my class, as well as those that we need more of. It's not that math isn't important, but we can get through more math and create a better learning environment by reinforcing this positive social structure in my class.

Master Participators - These individual students are always attentive, tracking the speaker, and always have their hand ready to share their knowledge and understanding with the rest of the class.

Best Teamwork - To the groups that excel at always being on task, working together to complete a problem, incorporate all group members and follow all group norms

Best Effort - To those that show an eagerness to try their best and learn

Helps Others - Helps others in any sort of way. This could be with a problem, with passing in papers, or even with picking up something that dropped. These students are those that always help someone in need.

Groups of the Month - The groups that exhibit all of the qualities above.

The Golden Mystery Prize

When I look back, I am happy that I made the prizes set up more like an MMORPG/RPG. It's very interesting that students (even those who were mostly in silver tier) chose the mystery prizes more than the known prizes. I know that a few of the students have checked out the blog and have gotten a sneak peek at what the mystery prizes are, but they seem to have kept the secret to themselves.

These prizes gave an element of excitement to the rewards because students have to spend an entire week just to figure out what the prize is. The golden mystery prize was the Wii U. I spent about 500USD yesterday purchasing a Wii U, the game, 3 wireless pro controllers, and tax. My efforts have not gone to waste (and neither have theirs).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

What I like the most about games like SM3DW is that the experience is different every time. The reason why a game like SSBM is so fun is that despite having the same characters and the same stages and the same moves, there are so many items that provide for a different experience almost every time. Have you ever eaten the same thing over and over and over and over and over again? (I have, which is why I added an extra two "over"s to emphasize my point). You literally cannot eat it anymore.

But there are so many worlds to explore in SM3DW and students have to work together to complete levels and progress in the game. Just look at the first video. What I liked the most about this was not only the collaboration aspect, but students took turns and were able to share the controller and the gamepad without any quarreling. We are off to a great start for the new year! I have created a system that inspires students to feel good about themselves and the EFFORT and hard work they have put into my class. It's not about being smart or being the best at math. It's about working as a team, being responsible for your actions, and trying your best.                                            

The Success of VSC Math Recognition

Success!

The first day of VSC Math recognition was a success. The plan I laid out from an earlier post worked:

1) Spend the first 5 minutes of class by having students cash in their tokens and recording the prizes.
2) Hand out any tangible prizes at the end of class, and keep record of intangible prizes for later.
3) Prizes that require students to come upstairs are either scheduled (and upheld) or take place during lunch on Thursday.

The key thing is that this reward system is manageable. There was only 1 issue:
I have 3/4 classes before lunch, so 1 class was left out today because I do not have them before lunch. The only fix I can think of is going to the class they're in during my prep and completing this survey, but this is obviously not going to work.

This class will have to get their rewards (the ones require students to come upstairs for lunch) on Friday. This is fine. When mail starts, that class will have double the rewards on the same day, so I think it balances out nicely. The fact that this system is manageable means that I can move onto mail (something far easier to manage) without revising, but most importantly I will give this system a little bit more time to settle in first before moving to mail.

VSC Math Recognition

Here's how it works: Each day, groups can earn 1 token (gold, silver or bronze) depending on factors such as coming prepared, classroom behavior, participation, and working together with their group. The week starts on Friday and ends on Wednesday. Students can earn tokens on Friday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursday is the day where students redeem 4 of their tokens for a prize. I give them out at the end of class and the students coordinate which member of their group will take them home and hold onto them.

The following are the prizes:

Each tier of prizes contains a mystery prize. The students will have to figure out what these prizes are. I modeled it after RPG/MMOs. I think leaving it up to the students to figure out what the mystery prizes are contains some kind of value that I can't quite put my finger on yet. Students have a choice to pick whatever prize they want. Each member of the group will get a prize, and each member gets the same prize.

Gold mystery prizes: Playing Nintendo Wii U during lunch period on Thursday (once a week). Nintendo has tons of kid-friendly games that even adults enjoy and they are all multiplayer. I won't purchase all of the games upfront. Students can earn more games over time (I'll buy them and add to our collection). These include fun competitive multiplayer games like Mario Kart 8 and Super Mario 3d World.

I told students about this blog earlier this week. Thankfully, they are very excited about it! The other gold mystery prize is a feature on the blog! Silver mystery prize is 10 minutes of free time (thinking of 15 but I want to start small first). The bronze mystery prize is a plush toy. If students earn 4 gold tokens for 4 weeks in a row, they'll be added to a Hall of Fame section of this blog that I'll create. These are all subject to change depending on the kinks that need to be ironed out (as with any system).

So far, students have been holding up their end of things, so I hope things will run smoothly on Thursday. One of my challenges will be the actual process of students redeeming these as I can't have so many students in front of my room! I'm thinking of distributing bronze prizes in the lunch room, and take the students who will play or spend lunch with me upstairs.

VSC Math Token

I wasted no time to get these done at staples. They cost about 40 dollars for 20 of each. While they may not look as perfect as the original image does, they do look great and they're quite durable. I introduced the system to the students on Thursday and we began on Friday.

Introducing: The Official VSC Math Tokens

I came up short spending a lot of time trying to find a site that will sell me personalized/engraved coins for my reward system. I needed Gold/Silver/Bronze coins that I'd keep in a treasure box that students would redeem later in the week. Unfortunately it's simply too expensive in addition to being a process that takes plenty of time (meaning I would have to push back the start date for my rewards by perhaps a month).

Courtesy of the Social Studies teacher for giving me the brilliant idea of creating custom dollars instead (really, I thought of this but I can be far too stubborn sometimes). I have created: