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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 19 Inspiring Intrinsic Motivation in Second Graders through PBIS and Leadership Tools
Ever wondered how the delicate art of positive reinforcement can ignite a child’s intrinsic motivation? Let us take you by the hand and walk you through the enchanting world of PBIS, where our second-grade heroes, Lynda Jones and Susan Zifer, weave tales of triumph, heartfelt reasons for choosing the teaching path and the sheer magic of personalized acknowledgment systems. Their approach isn’t just about doling out rewards; it’s about using peer interactions and the power of recognition to foster strong relationships and encourage students to take ownership of their behavior and learning.
Imagine a place where students not only learn but also lead, and where their growth is as visible to them as it is to their teachers. Our discussion unfurls the transformative potential of student binder organization, a project that evolved over time from a skeptic's trial to a robust self-managed system that propels young learners toward setting goals and celebrating their personal journey. These binders, brimming with achievements and reflections, illustrate how a simple organizational tool can develop into a source of pride and a stepping stone for self-motivated learning.
Finally, these tools not only empower students to articulate their progress but also serve as precious keepsakes of their academic and personal milestones. Whether you're in the classroom, at home, or simply passionate about education's potential, this episode promises insights and inspiration to help you start small and build impactful educational practices. Join us and tap into the wisdom that Lynda and Susan, share, as we celebrate the spirit of teaching and the incredible capacity of our students to learn, lead, and grow.
Welcome to PBIS. Journey to Genius. Are you in the process of implementing PBIS? Are you wondering where to start? You're in the right place. We are here to support you. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2:Welcome everyone. This is PBIS Journey to Genius. I am Diane Farrell and I'm here with Diane Ruff and we put a podcast together. We've worked together for many years and we put PBIS into our schools and received a lot of awards and recognition over the years, and we put this podcast together to share our trials and our successes so that you might use those to help you in your positive behavioral journey. We also share current issues and behavior management today and how those can help ongoing struggles. So, diane, who do?
Speaker 1:we have with us today. Well, today we have two of our second grade teachers joining us. We want to talk about again the acknowledgement system. We've talked a few times about the acknowledgement system but there's so much to it and that really, I think, is the genius of PBIS. So, talking about personalizing the acknowledgement system for students to drive that intrinsic motivation. So we have Linda Jones and Susan Zypher Welcome.
Speaker 2:Hello, Hello. They are second grade teachers of ours and they're going to spend a minute telling us because we ask all of our guests why they got into education, because we've all been together for several years here in Minerva and these teachers are veteran, fabulous teachers. But we're going to make them go back in time a minute and say why did you go into education? So, Mrs Jones, you want to start us out. Why did you get into education?
Speaker 3:Okay, my story is probably not how most would start off, but I went to Ohio State and I wanted to go into interior design and my mother said you may not do a two year degree, that you absolutely can't, so you need to pick something else. So, after thinking about things, I chose education. I have I have people that were in education in my family. My sister is Mrs Farrell which is me, I'm her sister how about that?
Speaker 3:And my aunt, and there were other things that interest me. And then, once I started, I realized it was because I am interested in the way things learn. How do we get from point A to point B? And that's obviously what you see every day in education. Oh, I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. All right, Mrs Zephyr, yeah that's great.
Speaker 2:All right, Mrs Zephyr.
Speaker 4:Susan, what did you get into education? I decided to be a teacher. Actually, when I was in third grade I had a learning disability and I couldn't read at all and I was mortified every day and I also was picked on a lot because lefties weren't allowed to be left-handed, so I couldn't write either. And in third grade my teacher took me aside and she stayed after school for free to tutor me and I learned how to read and right then I decided that's the teacher I wanted to be. And then my love has stayed, because I love that every day is different. So every day I learn something new from the kids and then they learn something from me. I love that.
Speaker 1:That is awesome.
Speaker 2:And you both have a sense of humor and we all need that in teaching. We all need that. That is awesome. And you both have a sense of humor and we all need that in teaching. We all need that, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So like an aha moment whether it was a long time ago or just this year when you're working with students. What keeps you coming back every single day?
Speaker 3:I think my first aha moment was when, I think, I've been around for a while, so when we used to teach, you instructed and then you allowed kids to have hands on. But now, after doing multi-age classroom and watching kids today, they will listen to me. But listening to each other helps them learn. So if we have a child who can't explain anything or can't understand anything, if someone other than me, another child, explains it, it moves it so much faster, which is not something I would have thought would happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great, that's an aha.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 4:Mine. I knew that you had to build relationships first, but I started the morning meetings and I was doing it once a week for a while and then actually I do it every single morning and my moment is I actually have the kids lead them now and they will bring up problems like at home or recess or with each other, and we all work together to find like a solution to their problem. So I do that every single morning and my kids actually love each other.
Speaker 1:So that both of those things are just so powerful and we have talked about.
Speaker 2:If you've looked at our previous podcast, we've talked about our classroom meetings and Susan has taken. That is not required, by the way, here for all of you. People go a meeting every morning. You're requiring that. No, we require them twice a month. But it's teachers, it's what they want to do and what they feel comfortable with. Some do once a week. Susan does it every morning, but it is that relationship building piece which we've talked about so big in PBIS. So again, these rock stars have taken it to a higher level and you know, learning from one another.
Speaker 1:That's huge too, that when we recognize that kids can learn from one another and they listen to each other. So again, building relationships in the classroom and then amongst their friends, that's both. That's genius in both areas.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So you know, right now our podcasts have all been about tier one so far. Tier two is our future, but tier one is what we've been working on and the reward system that we have going on in Minerva. Elementary we've had different levels talk about how they use it, but we've never had second grade. So we're having second grade. Talk about the 10-day rewards, the overall acknowledgement system, how they use it in their classrooms.
Speaker 3:So whoever wants to go first, Mrs Jones, okay for our 10-day rewards. I know that I don't know. No other grade level has been here before, I guess, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, we've had different ones, we've just not had second grade, just not second grade, okay.
Speaker 3:I didn't realize who had been here. So in my room and I think Susan's is different Is it the same Exactly? Well, what we do is our kids have a calendar that they mark for the day how their day went. So they put a certain color X, and it doesn't always turn out to be too negative. But they will put a red X if they happen to have a couple of poor choices during the day. They know it's not the end of the world, anything like that, but they will count their own Xs and when they get 10 of their own, they will bring them up to me at the end of the day. That's where we're the same. I think I do individual meetings about behavior charts and what their goals are by themselves, but their 10-day rewards come when they get their 10th day. Because I am impatient myself and didn't like to have to wait. If I got my 10-day on a Monday and it wasn't until Friday, we were doing 10 day rewards.
Speaker 2:And that is different. So we have had Mrs Hunt come and talk in first grade. They do it to get. Now, that's the difference between first and second, you know, being that self-management that you're letting your little guys do, which is fabulous, but she does it in the behavior conference and she does her conferences weekly. But now Mrs Jones is saying when that little 10 day rewards come up, they get to come to you. That's self-management. My time is here and here's my time Right.
Speaker 3:So that's the way I do it. And, like I said, the individual conferences I know some of them do them all on the same day and everyone and I divide it up in between different points throughout the week.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's a great idea.
Speaker 4:I also do every 10 days. They will come up at the end of the day If they've had a yellow day, which is one poor choice mark, or a red day, which is two or more. They actually don't color it on their own. They come up to my desk, we color it in. I asked why? I pretend like I don't know. They always tell me why and then I always say what could we do maybe to improve that? So I kind of do a behavior conference with yellow and red days, but I also do one every 10 days when we, when they get to the 10, I'll say hey, do we like this goal? You want to try something else? And then that's when I switched their goal.
Speaker 4:Okay, yeah, I actually do it every 10 days.
Speaker 2:So I like this and we can talk about this, even though building wide. The expectation is everyone does 10 day rewards, everyone does behavior conferences, but how often and to what is the autonomy of the?
Speaker 1:teacher, yes, and what works in the classroom, and you might even change it from year to year depending on your kids and what they want to do. So, again, allowing that flexibility and honoring classroom management with the teachers.
Speaker 2:Because sometimes I think when people start out PBIS, they think that you're going to manage my classroom, you're going to tell me exactly what to do all the time. But the flexibility is there, it's just the goals are consistent throughout the building.
Speaker 1:And then I love the fact that when we share, we've had lots of teachers share and then sharing with all of you out there. You know, and I would love to hear from teachers that are listening to us, send us an email, tell us how you do things, because we learn from each other, and I really just think that's powerful.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We'll talk about that at the end.
Speaker 1:But if you email us, we can even hook you up with teachers that'll email you back. They have done that.
Speaker 2:We have heard from some kindergarten teachers that have. Yeah, absolutely, so we're moving on to the leadership binders Diane.
Speaker 1:So leadership binders we added that this year, so children, kids start tracking their goals. I know I think second grade actually started at last year. You've done it A couple of years. This is your third year, so you are more of the pioneers of this. You've worked out the kinks and then the rest of the building has learned from second grade and I think a teacher in fifth grade had started it. So this year our whole building was required to have leadership binders. But again, teachers have flexibility in how they want to do that. So today we kind of want to talk about how second grade handles leadership binders and how the children view their binders and just what they glean from that, because it builds intrinsic motivation and I think it's really wonderful that children are very proud of their goals, where they're going, and I love to hear them share with me and they'll say I'm on this level right now, but this is the level I want to be at and they know this, so go ahead, you want to share.
Speaker 4:Okay, sure, yeah. Well, we started the Binders about three years ago and I will say when we first said yes to the Binders I was thinking that it was going to be way too much work. Stop, susan, slow down. I actually took some stuff out and then I made it manageable for the first year. Then the second year I added a few more things and this year my binders actually are really good and easy and my kids actually control the binders.
Speaker 4:I honestly don't have to do much of anything and they're seven and eight years old. They'll know what tab it goes to and when I give them a writing, they know that's the writing tab and they tell me and they repeat the color back to me. Then they go and put the stuff in. So if I have an Alexia certificate, they said, well, that's my achievement. And I said, yes, where's I go In the back? They'll go and get the binder, open it up and close it.
Speaker 4:I did have a lot falling apart in the beginning. It's not that big of a deal. You just put it back together again. But now I don't have any. They know how to do it. Sometimes they'll say, hey, can you help me find it and I'll do it.
Speaker 4:My binders have. They have in there their growth goals. So that'd be Lexia SRC SightWords. It has their behavior charts all throughout the year which they love going through because they like to see, if you look at their behavior charts, how it's improved. Most of them are all green now. They have writing samples in there. That's the one that makes them giggle. That's their favorite part of the binder. They like to look because I have a monthly writing plus another two writings. Every month we have about three writings we put in and they like to watch the growth and they all love to go to their first writing and giggle. They like I make them draw a picture in the beginning of the year. They like to see how their their drawings have gotten better. Um, I do a coloring page to show them how they used to color at seven and they love to share that. We share it with Mrs Pearson, which is in second grade, and we also share it with a kindergarten room. This is um.
Speaker 1:Hannon.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you know, I just I love, I love that. I think you know we hear all the time in education how can we make kids care? They don't care, they don't care about learning, they don't want to learn. And but when we do stuff like this, this builds the fact that they really want to learn, because they become very proud of what they're doing. And I think that's true for any age, even in the high school level. If they're keeping track of their growth and somebody is noticing it and they're able to share, they're very proud of it. We're proud ourselves when we share things about our classroom.
Speaker 2:So I don't think kids even know they grow. No and now they can see the bar, so they see it. I know, yes, they don't know it.
Speaker 3:Last year, coming up on that last year, I have one sheet that we put our Dibbles goal and then for each time of the year beginning of the year, middle of the year, end of the year and we do the same thing with mappers. And when it's in there last year at the end of the year, nobody was looking at, I said, okay, everybody, open up your binder to this page, let's look at your first number for mappers in reading. And then I said, all right, now look at your last one. And they were like wow, like they didn't think in their head, even though every time we take the map test we talk about this was your first number, this is your goal, let's work on this and we talk about it. But they could see that growth for the year and that's last year's class, that's what got them the most excited. The light bulb didn't come on till they saw that big thing, because sometimes it varies, you know, the day of the test sometimes they didn't feel I wish I could have gone higher, or the goal was I was two points off. And they think that's the end of the world. When we're going, no, that's okay, two points is okay, but I think that is they going? No, that's okay. Two points is okay, but I think that is. They really liked that part. They liked that page.
Speaker 3:I added this year for the first time because, like I said, we've moved a lot of things around. One thing that Susan has in hers is a monthly sheet. So at the top of the sheet it says September, october, november and they have a prompt that they write each month. I took that out because I felt like that was a lot for me to manage with the other writing. She's a better writing teacher than I am, so that moved smooth for her. I took it out this year. I regret that it's not in there. I feel like I should have left it in, so I will put it back in next year.
Speaker 3:But one thing that I did add was two years ago. Two or three years ago we came up with weekly binder or weekly goals, and I never put them in the binders. But they get a sheet every week that said this is how many units in Lexia I need to do, this is how many numbers and mappers I need to go up and this is how many SRC points I should try to get, and every week when they meet them they get a big star and they get to put them into their binder when they meet it. Well, at the first couple of weeks I didn't, because we were just starting out and then we started to put them in and then when they take out their binders they'll be like how many goal sheets do you have? Look at all my goal sheets. So it was a good they're promoting themselves because they can see how many they've done, because it's okay if you don't meet your goals for one week.
Speaker 3:If it's two weeks, we usually have a conference about it. But then they get to say look how many times I've done this, and it's more of a you know. That makes them want to do it more. So we don't meet with another class, but they will talk about what's in their binders they bring them to me any every time we do a conference have you guys shared your binders with parents?
Speaker 1:have you had the like? Have they had the opportunity?
Speaker 2:so kind of talk about that. Yeah, that's what I was next like do you use them at conferences? Like where? Where do you use them besides the kids looking at them?
Speaker 3:we've done them both we've done them at conferences and our family.
Speaker 4:I do it at my family lunch. Oh okay, oh I don't.
Speaker 3:I don't do it there, I didn't think about that. We do it at my family lunch. Oh, I don't do it there, I didn't think about that. We do it during our open house Second grade open house.
Speaker 1:They share, they share yes.
Speaker 4:And conferences yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so at conferences do the kids a lot of times come with their parents to conferences, or just sometimes, yeah, yes, and so they're able to share.
Speaker 4:I actually have. If the kids come, I actually invite the children. This used to be called a portfolio assessment in the 90s. It did. I know it all comes back around.
Speaker 4:So, I'm, I use it like that. So if they come, I have them actually do the most of the conference and go through their binder and they they usually know what they should have had and their goal that they set and didn't meet. And then I'll just sit there and the parents, of course, will say why isn't it set, why didn't you achieve it? And then they actually tell them well, I was messing around or I was talking. They actually tell them the binders are great because they don't lie, so it helps. But we also do that every three months, I think. We do a family lunch, so a grandparent will come in or an aunt or an uncle and they'll go to their cubby and pull it out and they'll go through it while they eat together.
Speaker 2:So I have them do that, so it's just like a personal scrapbook that they can share. So I mean, what a cool thing for conferences though, Because even if a parent calls up and goes, I want to have a conference, you go like, okay, because I already have this ready. And I remember back in the day we were talking about getting ready for conferences, trying to get all those pieces together, putting this piece where it's pretty much done. So for people who go, oh, I just don't have time to do that. If you think about what you had to do to get these types of pieces ready. Anyway, you just have them ready.
Speaker 1:And I think it's just so empowering to the student to be able to share their learning and then, like you, said they're pretty honest.
Speaker 4:No, they're honest. They're in charge of their learning. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 2:All right, where else are we? So we talked about them being excited about their growth. You said that, like every time, they see, and we talked about the fact that kids don't even know they grow all the time and then they see that. I mean, we see that all the time as teachers because we see all their pieces of work, but kids don't. Do you see them wanting to share with other kids? You said you share with other grade levels, but do they like to? You said look at all that I have. Do they like to?
Speaker 4:They love to share to the younger grades. But when I did the second grade some of mine were a little embarrassed, so I I don't know if I recommend that or not. Now I actually, after I did it, the other teacher and I both were like oh, Because it almost turned into comparing instead of sharing.
Speaker 1:I can understand that.
Speaker 4:So I think I'm going to continue doing either kindergarten or first grade or even the older grades, but I don't think I'm going to do second grade again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that idea, because the little ones are looking up at like, oh wow, look what you've learned, look what you've been able to do versus others in the same situation. Maybe they're not that far, maybe they haven't grown that much.
Speaker 1:And then the older ones. You know, if we prep them, they can like. When you go to kindergarten you can say all right, your kindergartners are going to be very excited to share. You need to, you know, compliment them and give them words, so that makes the little kindergartner feel like, wow, okay.
Speaker 2:But how this all fits into PBIS, though, is the relationship you actually build with the students over their binders, because no matter who they're sharing, or you know whatever they know, you know all that about them. Mm-hmm, Personally.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think again, it cuts down on misbehavior, you know, because they care about their learning and they want to do well and they know that people are looking teachers interested if I'm sharing with other kids and so they genuinely care. So you probably don't see as much misbehavior going on in the classroom.
Speaker 3:Right, I actually just had a conference with a student who's wonderful but had quite a bit of yellow as the beginning of the year was coming around on his chart, and there was a month that maybe we had two black exes which in the pirate room it counts as good but black is good, so you need to know she's a pirate.
Speaker 3:Yes, my classroom is decorated with pirates, but the black Xs were good and then there were yellow. He didn't have red, which it was good for him, and we talked about that during that time, but he brought up his binder and we were sitting there talking and he goes. You know what? Mrs Jones, I was looking back, october was a really bad month for me.
Speaker 4:Look at all these yellows, but look at this month.
Speaker 3:It was February, he goes. I don't have any yellows. And I was like, yes, that's what we were trying to do. Yeah, I hope I can do it for March.
Speaker 4:And I was like oh, me too.
Speaker 3:Me too. But he was putting it together because, honestly, you can ask a kid sometimes how they were yesterday and they can't remember, yeah, but then he can look back and say, oh, yeah. Or you can use it as look, this whole month has been pretty yellow, we need to really work to go back to another month, or you can do better, and it does work that way too. But that part made me laugh because he was honestly going you should have seen all the yellow I had. It was just cute.
Speaker 2:And that is cute because kids will go. Did you have a difficult? No, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was absolutely fine today. But whenever they look back at that, like we are looking at it as all academic, because we're looking at is their growth in their writing and all that kind of stuff. But putting the behavior charts in there makes a big difference when they can see that growth in behavior, especially for those little kids who struggle at the beginning of the year, you know, and they do have a lot of struggle with their behavior coming back off of summer break and stuff, and then they get it together, which we as teachers see, you know. But that's that's very cool that he was able to put that together. So it does influence their behavior because they can see the growth in that too it does influence their behavior because they can see the growth in that too.
Speaker 1:So you know we have teachers out there that are listening that maybe you know think oh my goodness, I don't know if I can put together a leadership binder or a portfolio, a learning portfolio, so what's some advice you have?
Speaker 4:Yeah, Well, the advice we should have taken when we started. That's the best advice. That's the best advice. That's the best Was. You don't have to make it perfect and it doesn't have to be full.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 4:I actually will say the writing samples are my favorite and the behavior charts, and then from that you can start adding yes, the writing's easy, I just put holes in it. I will either make a copy of it and send one home or put holes in it and put in the binder. But even as a parent, I wish I had this for my children. I would love this. Not the behavior charts I would look at those but the writing it's like a storybook of the entire year and it's adorable. Yeah, so that I would start. Just don't think you have to do it all because we messed up in the beginning it was hard.
Speaker 3:It was, yeah, I will say that. Um, I had a teacher in our buildings child from last year, and it happens to be one of those children that goes home and you say how was your day? And they go good and they have no information whatsoever. And she said that when she saw her binder, she cried because it showed there was writing and there was. You know the behavior charts and artwork.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there were art, there was artwork in there and she said I just had a whole overlay of what the year he had done when it comes home separately one piece at a time.
Speaker 2:You look at it, you put it on the fridge. Yeah, it's not the same. It's not the same.
Speaker 3:And we have put in pictures of the kids We've had. It's almost like an autograph book at the end of the year, yeah.
Speaker 1:So they'll autograph.
Speaker 3:We'll put pictures of everybody in the class so that they get that. So hopefully they can keep it and you have it, just like you said you'd had it for your kids. So it's for them to take home, which is a nice end of the year thing. Parents appreciate it then, and then all year, like we said, we use it all the time. Now again, it wasn't easy to begin with because in today's teaching world it's just something extra, but it doesn't turn out to be once you commit. I'm going to use this and I know teachers that use it and it does work and the kids can do it. Like she said, the dropping of the binder and 50,000 sheets going all over the floor is mildly frustrating.
Speaker 1:And it happens, yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the three ring thingy is click, click, click, click, click Boy. That's so much fun when you get it out, but it doesn't. It will go away.
Speaker 2:And it is amazing if you we did have fifth grade do. Miss Autumn Thomas did leadership binders in the fifth grade. So if you're listening out there, this is a second grade perspective you can get on our podcast leadership binders at the older level, but small, and then her and her cooperating teacher grew with every year. So, um. So just take that advice. Like you don't have to start with this masterpiece, you know, of a binder, to start with something small, grow each year. If you'd like more information about that, you can email us and we would love to hook you up with any of our teachers here that do them and can help you get started. So please, please, do that, please do that if you're interested in this.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, I think that we're about out of time, so again we want to thank Mrs Jones and Mrs Zephyr for being here with us today. Thank you for listening to our show. We would love to hear from you. Look for us on Facebook or Instagram or email us at PBISjourneytogenius at gmailcom. This is Diane Farrell and this is Diane Ruff. You have been listening to PBIS.
Speaker 2:Journey to.
Speaker 1:Genius, thank you.
