Distance learning has definitely thrown us teachers into a new and unfamiliar world. Many of us are struggling to throw together a curriculum that can be taught virtually, that is flexible enough to adapt to different family situations, and that somehow keeps the joy and fun in learning.
One part of distance learning that I find myself struggling with is behavior management. My co-teacher and I have a very solid management system in our classroom, but transferring it to our Zoom platform hasn’t exactly been straightforward. For the first couple weeks, I was afraid to make any comments about behavior. Our kids were so fresh to this new experience, and we were all still in shock from being placed in quarantine. But it didn’t take long for my first graders to get very comfortable with this new format! Soon, we had children changing their usernames every five minutes, switching their cameras off in the middle of circle time, and bringing all kinds of distracting objects with them to the computer.
We decided to set some ground rules about how to behave on Zoom. Cameras have to stay on, no one can switch their name once we’ve started class, and hands need to be empty. For a while, we reminded children of these rules at the beginning of every Zoom session. We pointed out and praised students we saw doing it correctly. And we rarely had to call out individuals to correct behavior.
Just to make sure we could keep this momentum of good behavior going, we decided to add a reward incentive. Now, I’ll admit I am usually pretty reluctant to use rewards as behavior motivation. I am much more in the camp of setting high expectations for behavior and reinforcing them through repetition and positive comments. But these are strange times, and there is no denying that students are having to work in different and unfamiliar ways! We decided it was alright to reward this new and challenging work they were doing with some small prizes.
So we started sending weekly letters to our students, with a note of encouragement and a fun little prize. One week we sent stickers and a fun pencil, another week we sent an animal eraser with a bookmark. And we talked up these letters during the week, saying how proud we were of student behavior and attention during Zoom, letting them know their special envelopes were in the mail, and checking in that they had all received their letters.
And they loved them! It’s amazing how appreciative children can be of small gestures, and how excited they get over a sticker! It also turned out to be a really lovely way to stay connected in a tangible way with students, instead of solely through a screen. It’s no joke to address, stuff, and send out all those letters each week. But if it helps the students see how proud we are of the work they’re accomplishing, then it’s worth it!
Tips if you decide to try this yourself:
- Choose your envelope size carefully. If you send a bulky item like an eraser, you may need a bigger envelope to avoid paying extra for postage. I had some envelopes returned to sender because my items were too bulky!
- Print out return address on a sticky label. My school has pre-printed return addresses, so I was able to use those. It saves a lot of time!
- Find out what post delivery times are. I guess the mail is taking longer these days – we had to send them on Wednesday for them to get there on the weekend.
Amazon links to the goodies we’ve used:
How are you keeping your kids motivated during
distance learning?
xoxo
Laura
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