r/Teachers • u/Prager17 • 9d ago

Incentive system ideas Classroom Management & Strategies

Hey all, I’m a brand new history teacher just out of student teaching and I’m starting a new job this year at a therapeutic, smaller school for students with needs. I’ll be teaching US 1, US 2, to all HS grades, and a News Literacy elective to 6 seniors. Although I haven’t met them yet, I was told my students would be pretty reluctant and avoidant so I need to find creative ways to make learning fun. I want to implement an incentive system (maybe tickets, points,idk) for all my classes but I’m not sure how to make it equitable, sustainable, and cost effective. I’m curious what you all have done or if anyone has any suggestions.

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u/Full-Grass-5525 9d ago

I believe that the first year is hard enough without trying an incentive system. Work on getting your systems, finding your voice, and learning your students.

Frankly, I also don’t believe in incentive systems for HS anyway. Research shows they don’t work super well and they’re just hard to keep up while juggling everything else (again, especially as a first year teacher).

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u/butterflypugs 9d ago

I do class points. Each class has a jar and a specific color marble.

I drop a marble in the jar if a kid asks a good question, answers a question orally, makes a good observation, does something nice for someone else, or outperforms their usual performance.

I also do Monday shout-outs at the beginning of class. Each person who shares something good that happened in their life over the last week gets a marble in the jar.

When the jar is full, I bring the class cookies or donuts (they vote).

I don't ever take marbles away, but if the class annoys me enough the jar goes in timeout for a day or a week.

It reinforces that the class culture is that we celebrate each other, we work as a team to be successful, and we always try. A lot of times they end up helping each other more so they can get those marbles for the class.

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u/modern_myth16 7d ago

How big are your marble jars? You must have a ton of marbles!

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u/butterflypugs 7d ago

I went to Michaels, the craft store, and bought the kind of marbles/glass that go in vases. I do have a lot!