I’ve been meaning to share this idea for ages and it’s been sitting in iPhoto just patiently waiting on me. Do you have AR at your school? I’ve heard good and bad things about it, but I’ve always had it in my classroom. I mostly love it, but there are a few not so great side effects. It is a great motivator for some kids, while others are discouraged about a certain amount of points a book has. We’ve really concentrated on meeting our goals each nine weeks and we use this board (which is really the back of my door) to chart our progress. It might not be the “neatest” board in our classroom ( I should have created a cute title!), but it’s one of the most interactive! I used Teacher Created Resources new Chalkboard Brights Collection to design the board and I’m loving it! 🙂
The program calculates each students’ goal based on their STAR Reading score, so everyone’s goal is different, but by using this method everyone is “equal”. We track our goal percentage. You get on the board when you reach 50% (halfway) of your goal. We call this getting into the 50 Club! I announce goal percentages every other day and we move/add post its accordingly. Since I have 3 different classes, each class has a different color post it. We have a class competition to see which one has the most people in the 100% club, meaning they’ve met their goal.
This method has worked REALLY well in my class and I love that it allows the kids to see their progress and motivate others. It’s also a great way to keep them on track. It’s easy to see that when progress reports go out they SHOULD be at least to 50% of their goal.
Do you use AR at your school? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and other ways to track students’ progress! 🙂
