Perfect Score First Try Bulletin Board
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During my second year of teaching, I put up this Star Students bulletin board:
It was a HUGE hit! My students from the previous year came back by my room to complain about the fact that I hadn’t had that bulletin board the previous year. I laminated the stars so I could write on them with a dry erase marker. Students got their name on a star if they made an 85% or above on their chapter test.
This worked really well. UNTIL I started dipping my toes in the sea of SBG. My Algebra 2 students liked the concept quizzes for the most part. What they complained about was that there was no longer a way to get their name on a star!
I’ve seen various ideas around the MTBoS about rewarding students who demonstrate mastery of a concept on their first attempt. I grade on an A/B/NOT YET SBG scale, and I require students to retake all NOT YET quizzes. The student who masters every concept on the first quiz and the student who has to retake each quiz three times can end up with the exact same grade in my class. And, I’m happy about that! It means that grades in my classroom are reflecting what a student has mastered – not what a student has mastered by an arbitrary date set by me, their teacher.
Still, I do want to reward those students who put forth effort to master the concept the first time around. So, I want to designate bulletin board space this year to celebrate students who make a perfect score on their first try. Here’s the poster I made to go in the center of the bulletin board:
Here’s the resulting Perfect Score First Try Bulletin Board:
I had students attach their post-its with a single staple so they didn’t keep falling off my fabric bulletin board all year long.
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Perfect Score First Try Poster (PDF)
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A really good idea. I find that students love getting praised and names up on the wall no matter their age. It is also a good motivation for other students to achieve a perfect score on the next skill.
Thanks Julie!
I do this and I have exciting news: star shaped post-its exist! I stick the star to their quiz and then kids write their name and the topic the
Comment editor crash… Then tape it to the wall, although I'm thinking about moving to a bulletin board, I like your stapling plan.
So, I think you're the one I stole this idea from, Tina!
I used the star shaped post-its last year with my board. I only stapled them when they started falling down…most of them stayed. I also left all of them up for the entire year and just wrote their name and unit number. The students loved it!!! A lot of my students would keep their stars grouped together and I even had some that insisted on being at the top of the board…they would also mess with student's stars (not in a bad way) by moving them around on the board. It was cool to see that the students continued looking at their star(s) all year.
Love the star idea!
I need to bring this back. My seniors loved being part of the 100% club (names on the back whiteboard) I think I'll do the post it stars for my freshmen. Thanks for the post and the comments!
Oooh! I like the 100% club name!
Does your school require numeric grades? I'd love to hear more about how you've used SBG in your classes.
My school does require numeric grades. I've switched to an A/B/Not Yet system that you can find out more about by searching for posts (search bar is in the top left corner). An A goes in the gradebook as a 100. A B is put in as an 80. Not Yets become 0s if they are not fixed within two weeks of the end of the chapter.
Wow I am so impressed with all the ideas! I love your INB, and I have shared it with all the math teachers at my school (1700 students)
Thank you and NPR (since that's how I found you)
Awesome! Thanks for sharing! It means a lot to me.