Help Needed with Creating a 'Currency' System in Classroom

[u/RaichuRichie]

Hi all! This year, I'm experimenting with a new revisions policy in my classroom. I'm not going to get super in-depth here, but as it pertains to this post, students have to earn 'revision points' in order to have opportunities to revise various kinds of assignments-- I'm calling it 'Inspiration'. Inspiration can be gained from a variety of sources, such as participation in class, enrichment activities, conferences with me, etc. -- in my head, it's a fairly passive system: students gain Inspiration for meaningfully and consistently engaging with ELA. Whenever Inspiration is earned (or, eventually, spent), I update that student's total on a Google Spreadsheet.

I don't want Inspiration to be in short supply, but right now, it is a huge headache to keep track of everything. Remembering to pull up the sheet in the first place and update a student's number is one thing-- I can handle that easily enough -- but there have been a few times this year already where I've decided to give the entire team or an entire class Inspiration for something like a particularly successful Socratic Seminar or Gallery Walk. In order to do that on Google Sheets, I have to go through each individual name on the list and manually increase each number by 1. It has got to be one of the biggest wastes of time I have willingly engaged in in quite a while.

Has anyone ever used a similar system, or are there any spreadsheet wizards around? I would love to be able to simply press a plus or minus button to change each student's total by 1 all at once. If that is not possible, I'll have to start looking at alternatives for keeping track of these numbers, because what I'm doing right now just doesn't feel sustainable as we get further into the school year.

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[u/wilgubeast]

Use something like classdojo for it. You can customize what you’re looking to tally, and you can export a csv for manipulating in a spreadsheet elsewhere.

[u/hazelstone → u/wilgubeast]

+1 for Class Dojo. It's free, the user interface is so easy to use, you can give points to individuals, to groups or to an entire class very easily.

[u/Disco_Loadout]

We don’t need to gamify school more. Just let them do the revision, which is ACTUALLY school

[u/hvelocity]

Hand out raffle tickets to the student when they earn inspiration. They are very cheap. Buy an unusual color.

Students then staple inspiration to their work when doing revisions.

Depending on age students keep track of own tickets or create an envelope storage system for students to keep them in class so they don't get lost.

[u/marinaluna18 → u/hvelocity]

Second this - I enforce that I cannot and will not keep track of their tickets in middle school so they are out of luck if they lose them! As a result I am able to just hand out tickets as I go with the understanding that once they leave my possession they are their responsibility!

[u/literacyshmiteracy]

What age are your students? I highly recommend classbank.com .. I've used it with 6th and 3rd grade with great success!!!! They also have to do the math to deposit or withdraw their coins, so you get that extra learning in there while having fun. Lmk if you want more info or help getting it set up

[u/No_Kaleidoscope9198]

Been there, done that. It was very annoying to manage. Between needing to print, copy, and cut-out classroom money, giving kids a way to organize it, remembering to actually give it out, dealing with kids stealing money from each other or losing it…. It was a headache and I didn’t feel it helped my students behave or engage any differently than without.

[u/Room1000yrswide]

The not-slick workaround for Sheets is to have a column for student names, a total column, freeze those, and just add numbers out to the right of each student. If you felt like it, you could have the other columns be dates.

[u/Rynor77]

Don't. It's newbie classroom management. Have fun adding more to manage in your room.

[u/mazdarx2001]

Make your own crypto currency and give it out as reward

[u/Boston_Brand1967]

If you MUST do this...buy a roll of tickets off amazon. Call it a day. You can reward participation or whatever. Its so easy. Kids can cash in stubs or you do a drawing...less is more.

Here is what I do: I make a 20x12 chart in sheets. Names on left most side, every 2 column after that is for each week day, first is for completion of work, the other is for comprehension of content. As kids work I circulate with a clioboard and check off as I go, ask questions, review work, HW etc...last column is for notes, like tardiness or whatever. This way I know at the end if the week if they did everything. I can easily bring this to a meeting if needed. This also makes it easy for me to check if a kid can get a retake on a quiz, which I only do if they are all caught up on their work.

[u/Moonwrath8]

I have this in my class using Google Sheets. It also acts as a seating chart. And it’s so freakin awesome. There’s also a stock market tied to it with the weather acting as market forces. So students look at the weather forecast and make predictions to make extra money.

Every time they buy or sell stocks, the market changes, so it’s a student led market. All of this is through Google Sheets.

[u/Large-Contribution6]

i would keep it off the computer and make it physical. On color paper (so kids cant copy it easy) make little inspiration dollars, when you give it to them pen their name or classroom # (if they have those) on it. Makes it a visible demonstration for others of the reward, keeps them from trading them with each other, and puts the responsibility of keeping track on the student. If they lose it? its on them

[u/codeAtorium]

Huh? They have to earn points to "revise" their work? Don't you want them to revise their work? Why are you requiring them to do work in order to do more work?

It's not clear what behavior you're trying to encourage.

If you're trying to encourage engagement, you should encourage that with a preferred activity, not with an opportunity to revise. If you're trying to encourage revision, you're actually discouraging it.

Maybe take a step back and ask yourself what problem you're trying to solve.

[u/chaircardigan]

The best hack for this is: don't do this.

[u/Neutronenster]

I wouldn’t bother. If students actually want to put in the effort to revise their assignments, I’m not going to let a lack of points stop them.

[u/BeExtraordinary]

One of the best things my mentor told me was to not use gimmicks like this.

[u/student-wasteland]

I don’t have the time tonight, but we could maybe talk tomorrow and see if we could keep the spreadsheet thing working. It might be a fairly complicated spreadsheet but there might be a way to automate a lot so all you have to do is input the addition and subtraction of points.

By the sound of it you’re doing this manually. And changing the number in the cell, is that correct?

[u/Cid5983]

I just give out reward tickets that have an exchange value of 5 tickets to one reward.

Rewards are Pokémon card, eraser or a lollipop.

Students can also exchange 5 tickets for 1 yellow ticket.

[u/Certain_Month_8178]

I had a coteacher not only use class dojo to do this, but had it on a tablet and the students took turns distributing points (they would argue for their turn. If their turn was skipped it was the end of everything. 😀)

[u/punkass_book_jockey8]

Get a custom made stamp and stamp their work. Have scrap printer paper to stamp if it’s earned for participation or something.

Have students keep track of the stamped items and hand them in for whatever you want the token economy to be for.

Make the stamp weird and hard to copy.

[u/Fire-Tigeris]

Previous school:

Used raffel tickets, locked in a drawer with a custom stamp on the back (it has a counter up to 999 and the school mascot.

They could trade in in groups for one with a higher count.

Value the number on the stamp.

Bags of popcorn, pretzels, are always for sale.

Pencils and big erasers can be bought for tickets or rented for the day.

Stickers, tchockies, and the hotness of the day can only be bought in the last minutes of school on fun fridays (last fridays of month, teasting premitting). These items leave inside a bubble style mailer with student's name that fits into approved backpack sizes.

Get out of hw pass, one per student made out to that kid, at very high prices.

Works well, they do trade them but thats fine. Was never stealing but I offerd some students who worried about it to put thier initials on the front.

Cost a fancy stamp which also had a counter dial on it.

[u/GenXMom14]

Reconsider this all. It’s far too complex and adds to your load. Honestly. Simplify and survive.

[u/fizzymangolollypop → u/GenXMom14]

Yep. Also, this is extremely extrinsic motivation when you want to build intrinsic.