One down, how many to go?

Yesterday was the end of our first week back at school. Even though it was only three days, it was crazy eventful! It was particularly productive for me because 1) I patched up a relationship with one of my colleagues and 2) I developed a new participation program that is rocking my student's worlds and taking our school by storm.

I tend not to have a lot of drama at school, but that's not to say that my co-workers don't go looking for drama. Last year, during what you might remember as The Great Copy Room Wars of 2008, I had an altercation with a co-worker (he'll be referred to as El Divo from here on out) that was just mended this week. During the time the copy machine in our office was down, he took it upon himself to tell everyone (including the woman in charge of THE copy room) that I was the one guilty of breaking it. Whaaaaat?! I heard this from another colleague who overheard El Divo's gossip. Later that day El Divo tried to make nice again and was cooing Hello at me, I simply ignored him. That's why he hadn't spoken to me since November 2008. This week however changed everything. We are sharing a classroom and are forced to converse, I told him I was teaching an AP class, the same class he advised me not to teach and dialogue commenced. Now he wants to collaborate and share resources and everything. Hmm. While it's nice not to have someone mad at me, It's a little weird.

Since I began teaching I have tried two different participation methods, neither of which worked very well for different reasons. The first method, which wasn't really a method at all, was to sort of just "eyeball" it based on how many times a particular student came to the board, raised their hand, and actually produced or attempted to produce correct answers. This process wasn't at all transparent to students thus quickly becoming a problem. The next method was the "Participation Rubric" which allowed students to basically grade themselves and I would give them feedback and sometimes change their grade (for better or worse) based on my own evaluation of their performance. Now, I will fully admit, both of these methods are bullshit. That's why I developed the stamp sheet.

The stamp sheet is a colorful paper with a grid of 25 boxes. Every time a student produces Spanish (either by writing on the board or speaking) they get a stamp. Participation is a quarter of their grade and their grade depends on how many stamps they earn on their stamp sheet. I am SO impressed by how well it is working. Students who traditionally do not participate and who would normally fall under the radar with my old "methods" are participating like mad.

I know that the novelty of stamps will eventually wear off, hopefully later than sooner. I'm still thinking of ways to keep it interesting and kick it up a notch. Whatever, all I can say is this is a truly excellent problem to have.

What a great way to start the new school year!