Whole Brain Teaching: Super Improvers Wall for Secondary Levels

Here is a great posting on using the Super Improvers Wall in Secondary Levels.  Written by Angela M.

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Hello my secondary friends! I wanted to share how I used the Super Improvers wall near the end of my school year. I posted several levels related to the sports theme: rookies, phenoms, starters, stars, living legends, etc. Because I was near the end of the year, I did not have too many levels, but next year there will be more. I chose a new goal each week. It was always focused on improvement. One week it could be  getting to class on time. The next completing homework on time. Some others I had were percentage of growth on quizzes and assessments (notice I said growth not overall score).  These academic ones were great because I contrasted a pre-test or diagnostic with  common assessments my department was doing after each unit. Students were able to see the overall scores and growth for their period. This collective score was great because it built healthy competition each week between periods. When one period had the most growth on that goal for the week they moved up a level on the super improvers  wall. The reward was to add a song to the bucket. This means that each period had a bucket full of their favorite school-appropriate songs and whenever they won on the scoreboard I would draw another song. These songs were added to their period's playlist which I created on my iPhone. This could be done with any iPhone or computer using,  pandora, grooveshark, rhapsody, spotify, or whatever you use for music. If you do this definitely stick with something that does not charge you per song! This reward was highly  motivating. Just for  kicks, I also added silly songs to their list on days they lost by two or three points on the scoreboard. (Some periods had a few banjo-heavy tunes) Finally, I also had a special MVP section of the wall where I chose to recognize students who were carrying the most weight that week in helping their class go up. Therefore I could put up the names of two or three kids in each period who scored really high on a  quiz or showed the greatest improvement on a quiz. I also put up names for behavioral improvement. For example, if a student is persistently late and we are focusing on being on time that week, I could list their name if they made it each day. Same could go for completing work, neatness, helping classmates, or whatever I choose. This is a fairly simple way to use the super improvers wall when you have over 150 kids  and it was really motivating. My plan by the end of next year is to implement the WBT  Hall of Fame where I will list names and may be a picture of students who have consistently helped their class on moving up levels. These names will stay on the  wall forever for following classes to see. Now the hard working kids will be campus  celebrities!!!