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This one is for you teachers. Someone asked me to share more about how I used class points in my classroom, so here’s a post covering all the details on the various rewards systems I had going on in my class! It’s going to sound a little complicated, but I actually had three different reward systems in place to shape student behavior: raffle tickets, team points, and class points. They each served different functions and helped keep me (and the kids) happy. They also added an element of excitement and fun to our daily life!

One important thing is that I found ways to minimize the effort and cost for me while maximizing behavioral outcomes for my students. If rewarding my students became expensive and/or troublesome, it would not be sustainable. So even if you already have systems in place, hopefully this gives you some ideas on how to make it easier for yourself throughout the year!

Raffle tickets to shape individual behavior
When to use it: building new and lasting routines, procedures, and habits in individual children.

Here’s how it worked. I would state a behavioral goal for my students, then use raffle tickets to reinforce the desired behavior. They were usually habits and routines I was trying to establish, such as writing names on papers, turning in homework before the morning bell rang, being seated at desks and working immediately after entering the classroom without me having to remind them, etc. I would tell the students what I wanted, and then be consistent in giving out raffle tickets as soon as I saw the desired behavior.

Here’s an example. At the beginning of the year, when my students were lined up to enter the classroom first thing in the morning, I would remind them that I’d pull out about 10-15 raffle tickets and give them out to whoever started their morning work first. As soon as they got inside, students quickly took out their work and got started. As I walked around the classroom, I would quickly drop a raffle ticket on their desk. We had an understanding that they were not to grab the ticket and write their name on it right away– that would only be counterproductive in distracting them from doing their work. They would just say, “Thank you,” and continue working. After finishing their work, they could write their names and tuck it away. By the second week of school, almost all of my students would enter, sit, and start their work. I weaned them off the raffle tickets as the year progressed, but the habit remained.

They grew familiar with the process and understood that it was a little extra something from me to help them do something they were already supposed to do in the first place. At the end of each week, they eagerly anticipated the dramatic raffle drawing (even when the prizes weren’t that awesome.)

This system is great because each raffle ticket is easy and inexpensive for me, yet is a meaningful and prized token to my students. They don’t love it just for increasing their odds of winning the weekly raffle, but they appreciate the quick and easy positive reinforcement as they are building new habits.

Read more on using rewards strategically HERE.

Team points for short-term incentives
When to use it: when you have a short-term goal, like kids keeping their desks tidy during a craft, or when you need an easy motivator/prize for a class game. 

Here’s how team points work. Each table group of 4-6 students is a team. At the end of each week, the team with the most points wins and gets to be dismissed first for every recess/lunch the following week. It’s free for me, but it means a lot to them… especially when first pick at the ball basket is at stake! If I ever feel the need to remind students of how cool this prize is, all I have to do is dismiss the winning team first for the next recess, and then take my sweet time dismissing the rest of the class. When one group has already started recess, everyone else is itching to join and sitting there waiting another 30 seconds can feel like an eternity. This builds up their motivation to be the winning team the following week!

Why team points instead of individual raffle tickets? Well, sometimes you need a little bit of peer pressure to get some kids going. I used it most often to get my students to transition quickly from a lesson at the carpet to getting started on work at their seat. All I had to do was say, “When I say go, I want you to walk to your desks and take out your books and start reading right away. First three teams get 3, 2, and 1 points! Okay, go.”

The kids swiftly stand, glide to their desks, and flip open their books in about 10 seconds. I silently take note of which teams were 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, but I wait until everyone is settled before I add the tallies on the board. If I did it in real time, then students who were lagging would have even less incentive to pick up the pace, knowing that points have already been given. The students sneak a glance at the point board, there is a smattering of “Yes’s!” or disappointed glances, but otherwise they all continue doing their work. It works like a charm, and it’s a win-win for everyone, because even the teams that “lost” are all absorbed in their work, and really, that’s a win in the real world :).

If I really really want them to do something quickly, I’ll up the ante and offer 5, 4, and 3 points to the first, second, and third place teams, respectively. Costs me nothing, but it is a big deal to them!

I offer team points in a situation like this because it’s more effective and much easier than raffle tickets. Walking around and being sure to award every individual that did things right can be a hassle, cumbersome, and you run the risk of accidentally missing someone. Sad. Also, there are some kids for whom peer pressure is more motivating than individual rewards. They might not work that hard for a raffle ticket, but they will work hard for the sake of the team. Note that I wouldn’t use team points for individual activities like starting morning work, because if someone is just unlucky and is at the end of the line entering the class, I wouldn’t want their team to be penalized for it.

Other situations when team points are handy:

• You’re playing a game as a class and need a prize or incentive for winning.
• You’re cutting stuff out for arts and crafts and there are tiny bits of paper everywhere. Offer points to teams that have clean desktops and floors: “Throughout art today, I will give points whenever I notice that a team has no scraps of paper on their desk or floor. There are trash cans in the classroom. You are welcome to use them. OOH I notice that team blue has ZERO PAPER SCRAPS on their desks! Point!”
  …and be AMAZED at how neat your kids can actually be! Seriously… mind-blowing. Like kids collect their scraps in neat little piles on their desks when they see me approach. The floor is spotless. It’s ridiculous. Even if the messy kids do not improve that much at cleaning up their space, the super clean kids around them will step it up on their behalf for the sake of the team. Win-win. They get points, you get a tidy classroom!
• You want students to tuck in their chairs. Deduct a team point for every chair that you notice sticking out. Remind students that since the team’s points are at stake, it’s in everyone’s best interest to tuck in their teammates chairs. Then be AMAZED at how considerate everyone in the class suddenly becomes! Even if Josh forgets to tuck in his chair, watch how quickly Clark rushes over to do it for him. Aw, that’s nice.
• You want the students to bring their sweaters and jackets home. Tell the students that you’re going to check the floors and desks for sweaters and jackets after they go home, and each jacket and sweater left behind is a deducted point for the team. Kids will happily remind each other at the end of the day to bring home their outerwear!

It will work for pretty much anything where you’re tired of reminding them again and again. Put team points at stake, and you will see kids reminding each other of things, which means less nagging from you!

Class points to shape whole-class behavior
When to use it: When you need the whole class to do something.

Here’s how class points worked in my classroom. If the class did something I wanted, I would reward them points. Once they reached a total of 30 points, then they earned 30 minutes of Choice Time, which would take place the following Friday. I usually did it the last 30 minutes of that Friday. For Choice Time, I would write activities on the board that students could choose from, such as playing board games, card games, math games, drawing, writing, origami, etc. Sometimes, I’d take them outside and let them essentially get 30 minutes of recess.

Students usually earned class points– walking in quietly, starting on their work immediately, everyone turning in their homework on time, students building endurance and reading quietly at their seats for 5… 10… 15… 20 minutes those first couple weeks of school. However, it was possible to lose points, which I only used in dire situations. I had a standing rule that once the 30-point goal was achieved, I would never take the choice time away. Even if they had a horrendous afternoon and got down to 0 points, I would not take away a Choice Time that they had earned. I would, however, allow their new running total to dip into the negative. (This was super helpful in teaching them positive and negative integers later on in the year!) There were times when we got all the way down to -8 points. I would always eventually make a way for them to jump back up– it’s discouraging to wade in the negatives for too long– but they got the idea.

I used class points when I wanted the whole class to do something and I wanted them all to feel the positive reinforcement immediately after. I used it when giving away individual raffle tickets was too much of a hassle, but when I still wanted to build long-term habits. These times included things like:

• “If you can all walk into the classroom and be seated at the carpet without talking, I’ll give the class a point.”
• “Our goal today is to write independently for the next 15 minutes. I want this to be a quiet, focused time. So I’m going to use my timer. If you guys can work quietly, I will award class points. One point for the first minute, another point for the next two minutes, another point for the next three minutes, and so on. But if we’re going for three minutes and someone starts talking at 2 minutes and 58 seconds, then you will not get the point for the three minutes, and the timer will reset at 0 and you will just lose the opportunity for three minutes and have to start working towards four minutes.”
  
  This one is admittedly a little complicated, but by far the most effective tool I’ve used for getting kids to bear down and focus on their writing for up to 30 minutes in a row. Boy, can they bust out pages and pages when they are quiet and focused! (Not every writing session needs to be a quiet one, but for the days when you need it, this is a good trick!) This also works for building endurance for reading. For fourth grade, I would start at about 15 minutes and then build my way up.
  Just in case you were wondering, I would start the timer, and then usually five seconds later someone would talk. So I would say, “Oh! Too bad, it’s not quiet. I’m resetting the timer and you didn’t get the easy first point! Too bad. Time to try for two minutes. And… start.” Once the kids saw that I was really expecting quiet in order for them to earn the point, they got pretty quiet. Sometimes it won’t be until you reset the timer for three or four minutes that they get the point, especially the first time you do it.
• “If you all come to the carpet and sit quietly and ready to learn, I will give the class three points!”

If you read carefully, you’ll see that there is some overlap here with how I use raffle tickets and team points. Yeah. Sometimes I just like to change it up and keep it fresh. There are slightly different dynamics and incentives and pressures when class points are at stake versus team points versus raffle tickets, so ultimately I use whichever my teacher intuition tells me will be most effective.

Here’s my little secret about class points: I oftentimes had already planned when I was going to give them their choice times. I made it work for and with my teaching schedule. For example, I wanted them to experience a successful Choice Time early on in the year so they could have a taste of what they’d be working towards the rest of the year, so I always had one planned on the first two Fridays of the year. When school first started, I made it easy for them to earn lots of points, which worked out well since I had a lot of new routines and procedures I wanted them to get down anyway. As the weeks wore on, I made it harder and harder for them to earn more points, telling them that previously rewarded behaviors were now expected. They knew this was coming, so it was no surprise to them.

A note about using class points: only challenge the class to do things you know everyone can do if they tried. Sitting at the carpet quietly. Lining up straight. Clearing their desktops. DO NOT use class points for situations where some students may not be able to meet the challenge, especially if it’s academic. Imagine how mortifying it would be if you challenged the class to all complete a multiplication handout in under five minutes, and two of the children couldn’t do it. Even if you kept their names private, they would know that they were responsible for the class not getting points, and this can be a huge burden for some children! I repeat: Only use class points for situations where you know everyone CAN meet the challenge. The last thing we want to do is embarrass or scar a kid because they tried but could not do it.

Aiite folks, that’s it. Rewards systems in my classroom. It’s a lot to keep track of, so if you’re new to it, it’s probably best to implement one at a time. If you’re just starting out, then start with something really easy, like class points. It just requires a little bit of space on your whiteboard, and let’s be honest, a 30-minute break is nice for everyone once in a while! The next easiest is team points– again, no cost to you, but provides a little competitive fun for everyone. The raffle is probably the most work– you actually have to go buy tickets, award them, store them in a container, and obtain prizes to give out. However, some very sweet stories have come from our weekly raffle tradition– perhaps I’ll have to share in a future post!

Til then, thanks for reading… hope you found it to be a rewarding read! Heh heh… :]

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