There was no class the week after I promised the reward. (Students had the day off; teachers had Institute day — I was at #SOTF13.) Two days ago I realized I needed to follow through with my promise of reward. Do I bake cookies the night before, buy lollipops at Paul's Place on my lunch break, or get stickers? I realized ten minutes before the gang was coming that I didn't have time for these options (I had even written it front and center on the board to remind myself). So I quickly found a Google image that would suffice as a mini-medalion, and printed seven of them on one piece of card stock. I had a plan.
As they entered, she said right away, "Don't you have something for us today? Don't you have something because we made the three circles?" I smiled. I called the names of the seven students one by one, gave them each a high five as they formed a line standing and facing the others. They were happy and proud. I asked the group why they thought they were up there. Most recalled the challenge. I made sure to compliment the ones not up there on the important things I saw them experimenting with as well in TurtleArt. We did a review of the Arc bloc and got back to work.
My favorite part of this story is told in the following images:
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| Her's — A wrinkled mess by end of class, sweaty and faded from hand holding |
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| One of the other six's — Something legible to share with others at home |
1 comment:
I love the opportunity you created for teaching about intrinsic rewards. Your only costs were 1) the amount of time you spent to describe to them what they did well, and 2) the cardstock to create the symbol of the reward. The rest is priceless!
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