SIW Lift Off....Huston Are You There?

Last week I introduced the Super Improvers Wall to my growing class.  (It's been interesting to watch my newly-arrived students as my 'veteran' students engage in WBT practices.  Clearly, this is something different than they've experienced before.)

The PowerPoint I shared on a previous posting of this blog was revamped slightly to include opening slides of some the well-known walls of the world - Great Wall of China, Berlin Wall, and our playground wall where students who have lost recess spend the period reflecting on the behavior choices that landed them there. None of these walls, I told them, could compare to the wonders of the wall they were about to learn about.

A sense of mild intrigue floated about the room; it appears my students like the idea of the SIW's similarity to video games, the focus on having to beat only themselves, the ability to move through stages and up levels.  They also seem to like the idea of learning the Greek alphabet - they began using the level names right away.

There were questions from the class....always a good sign that some buy-in is being built.  "How many stages are there?"  "What happens after you get to Level 10?" One student was soundly corrected by his classmates when he tried to liken the wall and its color changes to the typical "green/yellow/red" behavior chart.  "No, man!", one student countered, "We're in third grade now.  We don't need that kind of thing anymore."  At least to some of my students then, the SIW was a signal that they were able to handle something a little more sophisticated.

Use of the the Teach!OK! elements in the presentation as well as the Yes! No way! questions demonstrated that the majority of the class understood the basics of the concept and, at that point, could explain how to track their own progression.

Let me back up just a bit here to explain that going in I knew I wasn't going to be able to do a full launch of SIW as I was scheduled to be away at a conference the remainder of the week.  So I did some "bread-crumbing" the previous week and during the two days of the introduction.  During the previous week I announced a behavior focus for the day (students who followed Rule #4).  I randomly roamed the room or used practice and independent work times to stamp a tiger paw in the agenda book of a student or two who was meeting the goal. "Great job meeting our goal for the day."

The next day my class was away on a field trip so there could be no face to face follow up.  In a bid to keep their interest via a bit of mystery, I had a set of students create strips of 10 paws to be placed on each student's desk.  Per the PowerPoint, a check mark will be made on a paw of the student who was caught meeting the goal.  While I wouldn't be there the next day I knew my students would be intrigued by the paw strips.  When I return to class on Monday, I'll transfer the paws I stamped in their agenda books last week to the strip and continue to recognize students for meeting the daily goals.  By the end of the week I expect that several students will have made it to the first level, the Alpha level and will be headed for the next one.

Houston...we have lift off but please stand by.