This is my first year to use WBT. I love it. I am a First Grade teacher in Missouri. My students love it too. They get so excited , they have a little trouble calming back down when they have to go to other teachers that do not use this method, and that is most of them. How do I help them understand that these other teachers do not use this method? They must calm down. We also must calm down in the hall and to restroom trips. This is improving. Thanks!!

Some teachers see the engagement and are impressed. Some see the students as off task. Is this a common problem?

I am so glad you brought this up! I am having similar issues. I have tried promising smilies for good hallway behaviour and sometimes it is good and sometimes it is not. Most of all the teacher who takes my kids for PE is having a hard time. Any suggestions? There is no scoreboard in the gym.

Hi,
We have some special area teachers that don't use WBT. When I pick my students up, I ask the teacher with them listening, if they earned a tally(smiley or frownie). I tell them I carry my "air scoreboard" wherever I go. Right then and there we use the mighty oh yeah or the mighty groan. The teacher feels validated and the students know there is accountability wherever we are at school.When we get to the room we add it to our score board. I try to convince my team mates to use WBT and at my school it is optional. If they don't, I explain that some teachers have their own special way to teach and that we need to respect that. I also vary the volume of my voice for the Class Yes and Teach Ok to a whisper and this helps my students to mellow as well. I hope this helps!

Dawn Nelson
WBT Intern

Thanks for the suggestions:) I tried the air scoreboard and it worked well:) I'm going to mention it to the gym teacher and see how it works.

I like the air scoreboard idea too! I think I will try that this week. Every time I pick the students up from specials, and a teacher has to talk to me about a problem, we go back to class and altogether repeat the rules that were broken. If it is a specific child, then they have to stay back with me during recess and repeat the rule they broke for 2 minutes.

My scoreboard is a picture of a happy face and then picture of a frowny face. I wear a "necklace" with the same happy/sad face back to back as well as a timer. When we're in the halls I hold up the face that reflects how we're doing. Sometimes if they do exceptionally well I will give them a tally when we get to the room or vice versa. Same with special classes. I ask the teacher how they did, tell them they earn the happy or sad face. If they earn the sad face they apologize to the teacher and tell the teacher "We will do better next time". If it is something like lining up at specials then I have them practice or I get there a minute or two early to watch them line up holding my happy or sad face in hand. It's a great visual to keep with me all day!

Great idea Megan!

Liann

WBT Intern

I use volume and the way I have them respond to me. When I know they will need to bring down the excitement I will do a very quiet class yes or when I call lines. That way I set them up to be quiet from the beginning.

As far as in other rooms with other teachers, i have them say my rules and set up the volume. I also have them tell me and the other teacher what we will see from them.

I have been doing whole brain teaching for about a year and a half now. I talk to my class a lot about expectations. Students will rise to your expectations. I have also talked to by special's teachers and they are on board with using at least the attention getter in their class. The special's teachers have ended up trying it with all of their classes. I would definitely encourage you to empower your specials teachers with class-yes. The kids then have an easier time calming down because they are in their element.

In the hallways I carry a mini dry erase board and give them points as we go. I also offer points for compliment from others teachers while we are walking in the hallways and how well the specials teachers say that we did. We do silent yes's and silent no's in the hallways as we get them. The kids end up having fun walking in the hallways. I have also used a timer in the hallway to see how long it takes us to get from one place to another. If we beat our time and do it in proper fashion, points are awarded. This has gotten my class to participate more while in specials and definitely an improvement in behavior.

I hope this helps

The school I teach at uses Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS), which Jackie has a blog about using this alongside WBT. They actually go hand in hand. Our students have expectations that they are to follow in different settings around our school. When I line my students up in the room to go to their special classes, I say, "Line up," and my students repeat 3 times as they are lining up. When they get the line, we hold up our level 0 hand signal and I say, "Quiet, straight, 3rd grade line, level 0 voices," in a chant style. They repeat this and we're ready to go. When I go to pick them up from their special class we line up the same way. If we can't get to our line quietly and say our chant, then we go back to our seats and try it again with the "Seats, seats, seats!" This doesn't happen very often at all because they are usually very anxious about getting to their special class. Combining WBT and PBIS also allows our class to earn TEAM (Try hard, Enjoy a safe environment, Always show respect, and Model responsible behavior) tickets. They can earn these from anyone in the building that sees them walking quietly to their next location or for their behavior in special classes. When the class earns 10, we have some type of celebration. My class usually goes for a round of mind soccer! Oh yeah...still incorporating learning and they do what I want them to do!

Thanks,
Staci

WBT proves itself over and over. Having professiional development on WBT helps a lot. Staci and I did a presentation on one of our PD days this year. We already had most of the school using the Class-Yes and the scoreboard. After the presentation we got a lot more teachers on board with using WBT to teach their subject areas. As Staci said, WBT works great with PBIS (our behavior management plan).

I started introducing our faculty to WBT by showing some of the WBT videos at different faculty meetings. I tried to show a different one each time, pulling out those that were at the same grade level as the teachers in the building taught. (Even high school teachers couldn't say it was too elementary when there is a video of Chris teaching his college class with WBT.) These videos are short. It was easy to just add one to the beginning or end of a faculty meeting. Even if you just get a couple of teachers interested in learning more, you have made a start.

As you get more people on board, you will start to see great changes in your situation.

At my school very few teachers use WBT... however lucky for me... the ART teacher does! She has been using it for a year longer than me! The good news with this is... ALL the students in the building know about Class-YES, five rules and so on... so I can get their attention easily with class-yes! They problem isn't the kids... it is the teachers that roll their eyes about my WBT enthusiasm. I am hoping a few more teachers will go to a WBT this summer and people will start seeing the power behind being a wibbeter!

I really like the air board idea and I love hearing that it was successful. Thanks for sharing! I thought I read about a scoreboard app that was in development... Does anyone have any more information on this?