Today I'm thinking about effectively incentivizing positive choices.
Click the graphic below to read my guest post for Free Spirit.
In the post, I suggest giving students the option to earn Brag Tags, Badges, and Experiences. Shortly after that post went live, I saw this creative idea on Facebook.
It was put in the yard of an unsuspecting student of one of the teachers, Christina Hogue, at our sister school. Isn't that a fun way to incentivize good character? Would it work in your district? If not, how would you tweak it? What could you do for a child in an apartment or condo, who might not have a yard? How might you change it if your school's parents didn't want you to share quite as much info?
And just yesterday, I read this post about rethinking those Clip Chart systems. I've always thought that if we were going to use a clip system, maybe it could be more of a Character Clip, using a visual like this.
Here's how it could work.
Let's all start on caring in our community of caring. Then, throughout the day, as students are caught showing good character, we could say, "Bailey, thank you for making such good choices. What spot on the wheel do you think you could move your clip to?" Think about how empowering it would be for this child to go and move her clip to the pillar whose power she was positively sharing. Students could also be on the lookout for positivity they see one another giving: "I just saw Jimmy taking turns and sharing. Maybe he could move his clip to fairness?"
If there's a misstep, it could be handled privately
and the student could set a goal for how he or she will turn
that behavior around to get back on track and self-regulating
as they travel down the Character Road.
Energy flows where attention goes, that's for sure.
What are some of the creative ways in which you incentivize
to shape those desired positive behaviors?
Instead of a lawn sign, how about locker posters? We have lockers at my school and that would work great. I love it!
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