Chapter 11: The Scoreboard

From the 15+ variations of the Scoreboard in Chapter 11, pick five you will use in the school year. Explain why you picked each one and estimate how long you will use your selection before going on to the next.

Based on my experience the more I use the scoreboard, the better my students behave! In order to keep the scoreboard working and my students excited I must use a variety of tactics to employ success. Here are my five variations of the scoreboard, which I will be utilizing, in the coming year.

I will begin the year (the first day) with the standard scoreboard. This will help to solidify the class rules, teaching chants and movements (such as lines, pencils, and papers) as well as beginning the year by teaching my expectation. This is important because the first days of school are the foundation to how the classroom will run. I will also utilize the ‘ping pong’ method to increase excitement. The ‘marker move’ will also be employed since this is a great way to build upon their desire to succeed. The ‘Fake’ will also be added in for the same reasons. Incentives will be implemented in order to keep their attention. These will vary.

While utilizing the standard scoreboard, I will monitor my classroom to make changes as needed (perhaps quarterly changes), for every classroom is different. The next step I will use is the ‘doubler’. This adds a little ‘extra’ to the sides of the scoreboard without actually adding more. Each time you add two points to the side they receive. Two points for the smiley side “Oh Yeah!” two points for the frowny side “Ugh”. Lots of points will be on the board but they still balance out!

My next administration will be the ‘vertical morphin scoreboard’. This extends your scoreboard downward so the students can earn ‘high powered’ points for being super amazing or super sad. This will allow you to say things like, “That was good for a fourth grader,” (normal smiley) or “That was amazing like a fifth grader,” (super smiley). This can be varied by using the ‘horizontal morphin scoreboard’ but instead of extending the scoreboard downwards you add extra columns. The additional columns add extra points, ‘super amazing ‘adds 2 points in the column and ‘super sad’ would add two points to the column, whereas the smiley and frowny are still one point each.

As I see that certain methods need tweaking, I will implement new strategies to keep my scoreboard fresh!