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PBIS Journey to Genius
Are you in the process of developing your PBIS Framework? Are you wondering where to start? You are in the right place. Join Dianne Ferrell and Diane Ruff as they share the ups and downs of creating and implementing a top-notch PBIS framework that has empowered their school to achieve Ohio recognition as a PBIS Gold School for 4 years. They will also share current issues in behavior management and how PBIS can help with those ongoing struggles. We would love to hear from you! Email us
@ pbisjourneytogenius@gmail.com
PBIS Journey to Genius
Episode 9 Classroom Acknowledgement System: Insights from a Kindergarten Teacher
What if you had the power to transform classroom behavior and build powerful relationships with your students? Breathe life into theory as we sit down with kindergarten teacher Erin Roach, who shares her real-world experiences in implementing Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in her classroom. We'll kickstart the journey at the heart of PBIS, the boot camp, where Erin reveals the importance of teaching and practicing procedures with students to create a solid foundation. She also takes you through the intriguing concept of 10-day rewards and the secrets behind the tier one acknowledgment system.
In the second half, we delve into the importance of acknowledgment and relationship-building in fostering a conducive learning environment. Erin enlightens us on the impactful roles daily behavior conferences, class meetings, and character education programs play in molding student behavior. Wrapping up, we explore the process of establishing a tier 1 acknowledgement system, highlighting the value of starting small and building upon successes. Listen in for Erin Roach's invaluable insights into how these strategies have positively transformed her kindergarten classroom. This episode promises to be a treasure trove of tried and tested strategies and insights that can revolutionize your teaching approach and create an enriching learning environment.
Welcome to PBIS. Journey to Genius. Are you in the process of implementing PBIS? Are you wondering where to start? You are in the right place. We are here to support you. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2:All right, welcome back. This is Diane Farrell, and I'm here with Diane Ruff and we've worked together for many years. We're educators here in the Minerva Public School System and we have put a positive behavior intervention and support system together in our school and we have received a lot of awards for doing that. We want to share our trials and successes with you so that can help you in your positive behavior journey, and so we're doing a podcast every week. We're bringing other people in, we're interviewing people and we hope you listen. So, diane, what did we talk about last week?
Speaker 1:So last week we talked about boot camp and the importance of teaching all of those procedures to the students. It's very important that they actually act those procedures out. They physically do it and we do it many times over and over again, so really a powerful part of the whole tier one. Today we have a kindergarten teacher with us, Erin Roach. So welcome Erin. Hello Erin, how long have you been teaching?
Speaker 3:This will be my 13th year. Okay, and all in kindergarten.
Speaker 1:So let's give her a big round of applause on that right there. And I remember hiring Erin right. Yes, oh gosh.
Speaker 2:Kindergarten teachers have a special place in heaven I always said that, but Erin does a fabulous job.
Speaker 1:You do.
Speaker 2:So with all of our teachers, when we end people that we bring into interview, we are asking them the same question. And they're why. Why did they get into education? What drew them there? Why did?
Speaker 1:you want to be a teacher.
Speaker 2:Why did you get into education Erin?
Speaker 3:Well, I laugh and always say it's my dad's fault, because in church he always made me go and he was always volunteering me for things. And I worked with the little kids in church and really fell in love with it of helping them grow and doing activities with them, and so I've continued my education with that. That's great.
Speaker 1:Actually I did a lot of that too. I don't know. You remember Mr Norman yes, ralph Norman. He would say to me you really need to be a teacher. And I said really, oh, maybe I should be, because he was asking me to always teach all the things. Yeah, that's a great start.
Speaker 2:A lot of our guests have got into education because they worked with children to begin with. Yeah, that's awesome, do it again.
Speaker 1:So an aha moment. So you know, in teaching children, we all have those light bulb moments or those aha moments. So what's an aha moment for you?
Speaker 3:My aha moment is actually this time of year when we think back to when these little babies, five-year-olds, were coming into our kindergarten room not able to sit, not able to walk in a line, and right now we have them tapping out words to read and they're chopping out sounds and writing using their inventive spelling. And just the growth in a little bit of time. That is amazing.
Speaker 1:I do think kindergarten teachers have aha's a lot at the beginning of the school year For sure, and I always, you know, as being the principal in the building see these little guys come in the first few weeks of school and I'm like, oh my goodness, but they do. They shape up real quick and they learn how to walk in a line and take their tray up in the cafeteria and now they're just good little students. I mean, they know exactly the routines and procedures. So yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:Well, like Diane talked about last week, we did talk a lot about the boot camp and, by the way, that was Diane's terminology, boot camp. So it's not, you know, it's not PBIS, it's Diane, she thought it up. So if you're looking for boot camp on PBS, that will not come up unless you look on our website. That's true, all right so, but bootcamp is very, very important because you are practicing all those procedures. Please listen to our podcast from last week, episode number nine, bootcamp beginnings. But now we're going to move on to the tier one, acknowledgement system. So now you got all your procedures in place, aaron. You know what you want them to do, you know you start your practicing and all that, and that all has to be solid and consistent. But now we need an acknowledgement system. Everybody needs to do it. How did you start that and what are some acknowledgements and rewards?
Speaker 3:A lot of ours came from meeting in committees with all the teachers in our building. We sat down, we all decided look, we need something, we need something to help us out. So as a collective group we came up with the idea of doing some paw prints and earning our 10 day rewards with that, and coming up with what those would look like and the plan.
Speaker 2:So now just a minute. You said 10 day rewards.
Speaker 1:People don't know what 10 day rewards are yeah, so let's start and talk about that. Could you share a little bit about?
Speaker 3:that. So our 10 day rewards would be something that whenever the students are making great choices for 10 days, they, each day they get to conference and they get to come back. We do some conferencing with that and they, if they may, have great choices, they get to color in their little paw print and at 10, then they get to choose a privilege. These are not things that you need to spend a lot of money on. These are things simple in your classroom that you can come up with Pretty quick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so what's nice about that too, is they don't lose their paw prints. So for some students they might, in 10 days, get their 10 day reward, but for another student they might have a day where they got their paw print, a day where maybe not not so much, but they would eventually get that 10 days but might take them 20 days right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And what makes a paw print day? How many? What's what's allowed to happen and still have a paw print?
Speaker 3:day. So in kindergarten we allow a lot of chances. Kindergarten because we have to learn as we go. It's a learning time, absolutely, it's learning With that, and for kindergartners they get a lot of chances. So we also have our poor choice marks. Where you have, you can get up to two poor choice marks and still get a green day. If you have a green day, you're still getting your paw print colored in because you're still made pretty good choices.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's a red day where you have three, that's when you're not having that paw print colored in. Now, even with poor choice marks, these kindergartners are getting a lot of warnings and a lot of chances through that. You know it's not just a quick one, it's reminder, reminder raise your hand. Oh, please remember we're doing this before they're having those poor choice marks.
Speaker 1:So how did you decide what the um the rewards would be?
Speaker 3:A lot of that came from looking on Pinterest, talking with other teachers and coming up with ideas.
Speaker 2:Um, so give our listeners some good, uh rewards that you do in your room, not not building wide, but in your room.
Speaker 3:So in our room, of course, we always offer candy. They love that treasure chest they can choose. Um, another big one is no shoes for the day. For some reason can runners love to go without shoes? So in our room they can take their shoes off. Cute, um, we choose sitting in the teacher chair for the day bringing a stuffed animal. They can choose to, um, have extra iPad time. A special note home that I write to them bring in, show and tell things that aren't taking a lot of time of the day, but the kids love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Now, do they choose that reward at the end of the 10 days or do they know they're working for that Cause? Some teachers, I think, do it differently.
Speaker 3:So we do ours. At the end we have a sheet that they keep in their folder that they can see all of them, so they're not choosing the same reward every time. So they can change it up and they can then choose then what would they would like to choose?
Speaker 2:Okay, cause I know some teachers will. It's all up to the choice of the teachers and they will have the two children decide ahead of time. I'm gonna work for no shoes and then go towards that, but with kindergarteners and I can understand they might forget.
Speaker 1:Yeah, by 10 days. Right, and so what I really like about the 10 day reward it's individual to the student and it is something that's built into our tier one, so every single teacher and student in the building participates in this. But then there's flexibility in the classrooms, so the 10 day rewards will look a little bit different between each teacher, because some classrooms brainstorm what they want their 10 day rewards to be, others the teachers just kind of put it together and then as the office, this last two years we've actually helped out with the 10 day rewards by creating being able to sit with a friend out lunch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dianne, go ahead and talk about the office one.
Speaker 1:So Erin Roach has talked about her own classroom ones, but we have gone outside and also showed support from the office so the kids can choose you know, the children can choose either something in the classroom where they might want to be Facebook famous they might want the big thing now is the joke of the day and signing up for the joke of the day, and they get to do that over the PA with Mrs Miller. So and kindergarten enjoys that too coming down, they'll choose that as their 10 day reward. So we've got between what the office can offer and then what the classroom is doing, and I think one of your kindergarten, your teachers, one of your partners, was talking about the fact that in kindergarten. But they don't really understand choosing eating with a friend, because they choose the friend in their classroom. But the older students, you know, they look to say, oh, like I want to eat with someone else in another classroom.
Speaker 2:Because at the elementary level, because we have such a large building, we have 800 and some kids we do not let them sit with friends all the time they do have to sit with their classes. And if you understand the specs of doing that. If kids are always trying to choose someone to sit with them, it takes lunch a lot longer, so it's very difficult to let that happen so we don't.
Speaker 2:So they made it a reward. So now, if they earn that they get to go to a special area right of the cafeteria and then they get to eat with that friend and then that's more special and then that way they're acknowledged. You know the cafeteria Showing that they've made good choices, yeah, and Facebook Famous, so talk a little bit about that what's Facebook Famous?
Speaker 1:That just came around. Last year it did, and so Mrs Miller takes their picture. Of course we have parent permission, but you know, it takes their picture and puts them on our Facebook page, our elementary Facebook page, so all can see that they've made good choices for the last time, and we really just say that they're making great choices.
Speaker 2:We don't put the name of the child on there. Face is only one that's been approved. But then this is good, sharing things for grandmas and aunts and all kinds of things that are Facebook Famous. So, Mrs Roach, out of those now, what do you think is the most popular?
Speaker 3:In kindergarten the most popular is joke of the day.
Speaker 2:Is it really?
Speaker 3:They love the joke of the day, that's funny and we make it a big deal in our class because we all sit on the carpet and we listen quietly. You know, and you get to see is it a funny joke? Did we get it? Did we not get it? Which is even the best part?
Speaker 2:You have to re-explain the joke. Sometimes, a lot of times, we re-explain it and you know this really started with our assistant principal. Just started doing jokes when she did the announcements at the end of the day, and then she just started asking kids to join in and then it just started being a reward. So it's really crazy how those things can happen. But how inexpensive doesn't need to cost. And then you're saying that is one of the most rewarding, Do you see it?
Speaker 1:as a big motivator.
Speaker 3:It is a big motivator because joke of the day fills up pretty quick. I mean, we're only December 5th right now. We are already booked out to the end of January for joke of the day. So they want to get their 10 day rewards. They can get it in before the end of the year, yeah, so it is a good motivator.
Speaker 2:So awesome Out of your classroom. What's the most chosen one, Most chosen out of?
Speaker 3:my class would be joke of the day and eat with a friend at lunch.
Speaker 2:I mean your personal one, yeah, in your room, my personal ones would be sit in the teacher chair.
Speaker 1:Oh, sit in the teacher chair. Okay, like in that.
Speaker 2:You know, I see that in the older grades too. They like to sit up at the teacher desk. They like to sit in a quirky chair.
Speaker 1:So the acknowledgement system is really important because, you know, we teach the rules and procedures in the tier one. We want all of the children to follow, but then we need to acknowledge the fact that they are doing that. And acknowledging doesn't mean it has to be monetary lots of prizes and all of that kind of stuff. They really just want to be acknowledged in a lot of the different ways that we just said.
Speaker 2:So that's great, and we do like the idea that in our 10 day reward system they do never lose. So if they're, if they're always on that journey to those 10, they're going to get there. We can always encourage them, even if they get those two poor choices for the day. You know just, you can always go back and go. Hey, look at your broad chart. You are almost there. You are just tomorrow's a great day because you're on your way, so always giving kids hope and that it can happen. Also, we part of PBIS is building relationships. We believe that that that's why PBS works. If you don't have relationships, then you are not. It's just an integral part of PBIS. So when they're doing these um, paw print, uh things every day, we encourage something called behavioral conferences. So tell me what that looks like in kindergarten and and that's a big relationship piece with you and your student why and how do you do it?
Speaker 3:So in kindergarten we we conference every day with our kids. I pull them back. We have play time, so that gives us the perfect opportunity for that. And I pull them back and I say, how are your choices today? Did we make great choices, did we not make great choices? And I like to say, you know, I really liked it when you were sitting quietly on the carpet, or, you know, we had a problem whenever you weren't raising your hand.
Speaker 3:Remember we need to raise our hand with that. Each child comes up with their own behavior goal. What are they working towards? Beginning of kindergarten? We help them pick the goal.
Speaker 3:They don't quite understand it, but as the year goes, they're understanding it and they can come up with their own goal of oh, I need to sit quietly on the carpet, my hands need to be to myself. And so whenever we're conferring something with them, we're reminding them of their behavior goal. Are we? Are we working towards that? And number two, I can help them and say hey, I really liked it whenever you did Sitting quietly on the carpet, because you know you have those kids in your class that are always quiet, Always doing what they need to do, but they're not getting that acknowledgement all the time either. So that's a time that you can one-on-one sit and personally make that you know Connection with them, of thanking them or telling them great job See in the genius in this is the fact that we're not just saying good job.
Speaker 2:Yes, you are knowing, you say that behavior.
Speaker 1:And that is so important naming the behavior, the behavior you want to see, and acknowledging that behavior. And that's the perfect time to do it because, like you said, a lot of Kids do follow the rules all day long, and so you pull them back for a few seconds, they get to color in their paw print and then you name those behaviors that you notice that they were doing really well. That's the genius.
Speaker 2:So how often do you do that? Are you daily, weekly? What do you do in kindergarten? I do it daily, okay, and that will be up for discussion when we talk to other teachers. So that is not a mandate. If you're out there going, I can't, and I don't have time to do that every day. That is not. That's not a requirement from the office of the admin, but it is a requirement to be done. So then, how many times do you want it to be done in?
Speaker 1:a month. Well, what we say is is twice a month, you know, one month we have, or one week we have the class meetings, the next week we do behavior conferences and as, as the kids get older, it you know it works for the older grades. But in kindergarten, like Mrs Roach said, that's part of kindergarten is teaching Behavior, so it fits right in.
Speaker 2:Especially like during playtime, it's easy to grab those kids aside and and kindergarteners have little memories, so it's very important to go over what happened that day so that they have that memory of what happened that day. So what, what? This that's part, this relationship building, this behavior conferences we feel is so important because not only are you Acknowledging good behavior all day long, but you're teaching that behavior through these conferences. So important. Now, diane, through a word out there called class meetings, which is another relationship building piece.
Speaker 1:Talk about that, diane, so okay. So how do you handle class meetings in your and what are they? I guess what are they.
Speaker 3:And then how do you handle in your classroom in class meetings are time that we sit together and we almost make a family atmosphere. Okay, it's a time we sit down and we talk about how can we make our class up be better individually, as a group. You know, even as a school, what can we do to work on bettering ourselves? We have a really great program right now in kindergarten where we have Character Ed coming in of a dino Dana coming in and helping us out with that.
Speaker 3:And we have a lady who comes in and does that. But the best part about it is she comes in and she has a little meeting with them, but then we get to have our own class meeting to follow up. Okay, how does that really show for us?
Speaker 3:so we do it weekly in our room honestly, in kindergarten we do it daily yeah a lot of Problems come up and we have to sit down and talk about it as a class and just a way of we can make our class better. How can we work on ourselves? What can we do to become more responsible, more respectful, to become safe in our, in our Building?
Speaker 2:so why do you think class meetings are so important? Besides taking that time to talk about the behaviors that happen to the day and the Behaviors you're expecting, why else what are you getting out of a class meeting?
Speaker 3:our class meeting is a way that we conform that relationship as a group. That's a way that we all have, you know, way that we all have each other's backs. We don't want to, you know, let somebody down or have a behavior. You know we want to help each other. Then we can build that relationship right there of how we can help each other To become better students, become better friends, to become better at our academics. We can build that relationship there.
Speaker 2:So two relationship building pieces if you don't have those in your PBIS. The individual behavior conferences are so important because you are teaching and then the class meeting as the class all part of the Acknowledgement system?
Speaker 2:yes, because that's where you're valuing what the children are doing so, as a mrs Roach talk, aaron talk, she does her Class meetings at least once a week, sometimes every day. That's not a requirement from the office. Again, it's twice a month. You may have heard of people having morning meetings and things like that. This is not like a brand new thing that's out there, but we just really feel it's just so important, just so important worth your time.
Speaker 1:So you have. You were a teacher before PBIS or like right when we were starting it, so can you think of an aha moment when you saw tier one expectations and acknowledgement system began to change the Personal, your personal classroom management.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. There is one time that comes straight to my mind where I remember coming down and saying mrs Ferrell, I need me.
Speaker 2:That'd be me, that was me.
Speaker 3:Yep, mrs Ferrell, this is not okay. We need help. And I remember she came in, set in my room and we met and we came up with a plan of helping this little girl be able to understand what it was to even just be in a classroom, where she just didn't have that knowledge of what a classroom looked like, up walking around, interrupting and everybody's space. And we came up with a plan for her and this was back in August and by November she was off of her plan and was a typical student and that was that all-home element of you know, you put in the work now, and it wasn't a lot of work, just a little bit of work, and then she was able to understand and learn what needed to be done to be a student. Oh, wow, that's great.
Speaker 2:And you know over the years how many years ago was that? How old is she now?
Speaker 3:Because she's probably like she's a sixth grader now.
Speaker 2:Sixth grader now, so just think about how long ago that was. But Erin will bring that up periodically all the way through, because so I knew her all-how moment like I could remember it. Now, the reason that I was involved in that is that, being the guidance counselor in the building, I was also the behavioral coach. So as we go into our whole system and talk about it, we will be talking about a main behavioral coach, but we will also be talking about coaches at every grade level, which is so important. Erin is one of those coaches. She is our kindergarten coach. Now, you've been since the beginning, haven't you?
Speaker 2:Some have moved and changed, but Erin has been in it since the beginning, but she is our person at the kindergarten level and I guess that's another thing when we talk about the structure of our PBIS. It is so important to have those boots on the ground in every single grade level, so just really important. All right, now we're going to ask you your favorite thing about PBIS. We've talked about acknowledgement systems, we talked about rules, expectations, boot camp. You just you know, you've lived it, you've been the coach. What's your favorite thing?
Speaker 3:My favorite thing would be the relationships that you make with the kids. You know I can think back to two years ago. I had a little girl who was in my room again same thing giving me a run for my money. We had trouble, but the growth that she made in that connection and still to this day when she sees me in the hallway and she comes running up and gives me a big old bear hug, mrs Roach, and just seeing how excited she gets about things when when she came in and we had tears and we had stomping of feet and now you know she's grown it's that growth, seeing those kids grow and that enjoyment they have of seeing you, that relationship that you've made.
Speaker 1:That's the biggest part. It makes it worth it.
Speaker 2:We need to understand that children a dyna. I honestly believe that children don't choose to misbehave. No, it's usually lack of knowledge and you don't know what you don't know. So teaching them the behaviors, acknowledging the behaviors like Erin is fabulous at, makes a big difference.
Speaker 1:because then they can learn. So what piece of advice for our listeners do you have in establishing the acknowledgement system in their room?
Speaker 3:I think you need to start small. Don't think big right away. Start small with little pieces. And again, remember it doesn't have to be monetary, it doesn't have to be anything big, Just acknowledging hey, I like the way you set there nicely Start small with that. I think sometimes people get super overwhelmed with it. We've been doing it now for a lot, many years, but the first couple of years we didn't. We started small and you have to start small.
Speaker 2:And you don't like. I like how, even with kindergarten the smallest of the kiddos they don't get a reward for every good behavior day. Like they don't, they have to have 10. And you may say, oh, that's a long time, but you know what, the kids do it. And then those rewards, so it doesn't have to be. You know all these rewards all the time and they're constantly keeping track of this, and you don't know what to do with it all, because kids will rise to those expectations. And then the best part about it is kindergarten teachers do all the teaching, so then first graders come to. They know the system Right, because this goes grade level after grade level, yes, so now first graders have, that's the consistency of the tier one throughout the building.
Speaker 1:They have less problems doing it.
Speaker 2:second, third and on up Right.
Speaker 1:Right, well, right. I think that we are about at the end of our podcast. Do we have anything else to we appreciate?
Speaker 2:you coming, Mrs Roche. You have been fabulous and a great PBIS supporter you have all the way through it and she's had some. You know. She's had some little people she's had to work with, always been open to great ideas and if you listeners out there ever have any questions for kindergarten teacher Erin would be a fabulous person to email.
Speaker 1:So email us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, email us, and we can, you know, tap into her expertise, because, as a coach and as a teacher who uses PBIS like crazy in her room, she would be a great resource, great resource. Well, that's it for today's episode. I'm Diane Farrell.
Speaker 1:And I'm Diane Ruff, and this has been episode nine, beginning the tier one acknowledgement system. See you next time. Thank you for listening to PBIS. Journey to Genius.
