Board Points: A Simple Whole Classroom Management Strategy [Episode 249]

Rebecca Joyner [00:00:01]:
After talking about popsicle sticks with you 2 weeks ago, it was brought to my attention that I have also never done a full episode dedicated to board points, which is crazy because it could arguably be, after prime times, it could be my all-time favorite whole classroom management strategy. Prime times are more than just a classroom management strategy. It’s a procedural thing. It’s an assessment strategy as well. But Board Points are my favorite, like, simple thing to do to manage the class as a whole while also really impacting the classroom culture that you’re creating and essentially like the vibe amongst your students. And I’m sure I’ve mentioned Board Points in like at least 20 episodes up until this point, but they are truly worthy of their own episode. So that is what we are going to do today. I’m going to cover the origin story of Board Points, like where did this come from, how to implement it as simply as possible, which is what I love about Board Points.

Rebecca Joyner [00:01:02]:
Like, it’s just so easy. I’m going to give you some additional helpful tips for implementation. I’m going to answer a few like Q&As I get from people when they’re kind of pushing back on its effectiveness and kind of what I would say in regards to those. And then I’m going to end with some ideas where if you want to kind of maximize this, if you do not want this to be simple, like this is one of those situations where you can do the least or do the absolute most with it and really turn it into a whole thing if that’s kind of your vibe. But honestly, it’s just so simple the way it’s been designed and it was not designed by me. That’s going to come up in the origin story. So I feel like I can fully brag on this strategy without it feeling like I’m gloating or anything because it wasn’t even my idea. And I will give credit where credit’s due.

Rebecca Joyner [00:01:51]:
So I’m excited to dive into this episode all about Board Points. This is Secondary Science Simplified, a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca Joyner from It’s Not Rocket Science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum writer, I am passionate about helping other science teachers love their jobs, serve their students, And do it all in only 40 hours a week. Are you ready to rock the time you spend in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place, teacher friend. Let’s get to today’s episode. Let me take you back to my first year teaching. I was at a large public school on semester block, so we had 4 90-minute classes All fall semester, and then come January we got 4 new 90-minute classes for the whole spring semester.

Rebecca Joyner [00:02:49]:
And honestly, I think that is the best bell schedule when you’re a new teacher because you get to basically get 2 chances your first year to like totally start afresh. Like especially with classroom management where I feel like so much of the culture of your classroom is established really early in the school year. I I don’t feel like I did a very good job of that my first semester, so it was like I got to totally wipe the slate clean and start anew come January. And something I learned really, really quickly in that spring semester was humility is the best way to say it, because my 4th block biology class, on-grade-level biology, they put me through the wringer. Like, I had learned a lot from my mistakes my first semester. I was so so excited going into second semester. I just had this new confidence. I was teaching a lot of the same classes again that I taught in the first semester, so I was just feeling so good about it and so excited.

Rebecca Joyner [00:03:45]:
And then my fourth block class was like, you’re gonna learn that you know nothing. And so it was hard. And so I sent an SOS out essentially to my neighboring teacher, Jamie. She was just down the hall. She was one of the 5 biology teachers at my school. So we were already working closely together on biology things, and she was like, you need to use BoardPoints. And she taught me exactly how to use them, and I never looked back. Used them ever since in every classroom I taught with such a variety of personalities of students.

Rebecca Joyner [00:04:18]:
And now thousands of you guys have started using BoardPoints because I wrote a blog post about it like 10 years ago, and then I’ve talked again about it on the podcast several times. And so, so many of y’all will email me. I actually searched my email before recording this and I had hundreds and hundreds of emails where you guys like were emailing me about something and then you mentioned like, oh yeah, and by the way, I’ve tried Prime Times and Board Points and they’ve been amazing. Like something along those regards. I was actually gonna read like snippets from emails, but I’m like, I’m not gonna waste your time with social proof. I’m just gonna ask you to trust me and trust me that the testimonials exist. And again, this is so low stakes to implement. Like, why not just try it this school year? And if it doesn’t work, like, it’s genuinely no skin off your back.

Rebecca Joyner [00:05:03]:
It’s even less effort than the popsicle sticks were. Okay, here’s how board points work. You take a corner of your whiteboard and you have class periods numbered on it. So like, let’s say you teach at a school with 7 class periods. And you teach every block except for 3rd block. That’s your planning period. On your whiteboard, you would have 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and then you just put a dash. And then at the start of each unit, whenever that is for each of the classes, you put a 5 next to their class period number.

Rebecca Joyner [00:05:38]:
Okay, so every class starts every unit at a 5, and we reset at the beginning of a new unit. So if they’re at a 0 by the end of the first unit, Unit 2, after that Unit 1 test, We reset to a 5. I keep a very simple bell on my demo table or like the desk at the front of my classroom. I’ll link one in the show notes, but like if you just look up classroom bell, it’s like the simplest thing. Like think about if you’ve ever walked into the front desk of an office building and there’s no one sitting at the desk and they have a little bell you can ring. That’s what I’m talking about. Okay. So I have one at the front of the classroom.

Rebecca Joyner [00:06:12]:
And essentially my rule is. If I have to ring this bell more than once to get your attention as a class, then I’m taking a board point away. That’s the most basic of the rules. Like, if I’m having a ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, no, board point gone. I should ding it once, someone in the classroom will hear it, and then they get everyone, hey, settle down, Ms. Joyner wants our attention. It creates like this whole class vibe where we’re all working together to be quiet, to maintain our board points. Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Joyner [00:06:42]:
It’s like a group game where they’re competing essentially against me to keep their board points. But you can take board points for anything. Like the bell’s the simplest thing, but oftentimes, like what I did with that 4th block class is it was one of those classes, y’all, where I would turn my back and be writing something on the whiteboard and like there would just be voices, whispers, snickering, and I couldn’t necessarily always identify who was the problem to deal with it on an individual level. It was always like a small group. And I couldn’t figure out who was actually being disruptive. And so then I could, I would just turn around. I wouldn’t even turn around. I would just go to the corner of the whiteboard, take a board point, and then someone would inevitably be like, y’all hush, pay attention.

Rebecca Joyner [00:07:23]:
Again, they like self-police each other. It’s amazing. And you can continue this throughout your unit. They can also earn points back. I think that’s the big thing too. Not only can points be taken away. Mm-hmm. Points can be earned back.

Rebecca Joyner [00:07:38]:
You can say things like, okay, hey, y’all are about to work on these practice problems with your next-door neighbor. If I don’t hear anyone off task or talking about something irrelevant, I’ll give you a board point back. Or, okay, you’re about to go get your lab supplies and then go to your lab station. If everyone does that with no horseplay, no funny business, I’ll give you a board point back. So there’s opportunities. To go up or down. Typically, my rule to keep it simple is they’re never allowed to get lower than 0, and they’re never allowed to go greater than 5. Now, there were exceptions to this.

Rebecca Joyner [00:08:15]:
Like, if I had a substitute teacher and they’re— if they were already on a 5, and I have a sub come and the sub leaves like a raving review, I would give them a 7. Like, and they thought that was insane because again, it was like not the norm. Vice versa. Let’s say it’s a class that has a 0. The sub comes, the sub was like, they were absolute monsters. I would take them down to a -2. Okay? Now you’re wondering, what do the numbers mean? Why do they care what the number is? Okay, here’s what the board points mean. For my class, again, I’m going to share lots of alternatives if this doesn’t work for you.

Rebecca Joyner [00:08:50]:
But for my class, what would happen is that on the last day of the unit, when I gave my unit test or whatever my like summative assessment was going to be, There would be a bonus question, an extra question on the test that was relevant, but like very reasonable to answer. Okay. It cannot be too hard or else then they’ll have no motivation for board points. It has to be something that they can really do. Usually it was just a question from their study guide that didn’t necessarily like make it on the test. I would put it there. Honors, I would typically make it a little harder because again, my honors classes tended to be easier to manage. They tended to have a higher board point number regularly, so they might get a harder question versus like my CP on grade level, it was gonna be a very answerable question.

Rebecca Joyner [00:09:36]:
Then however many board points the class had on the test day at the end of the unit, that’s how much their bonus question on the test was worth. So if they have 5 board points, they have a 5-point, pretty easy bonus question that they can answer. And that gives them the opportunity to have like 5 easy points back on their test. Now again, this may seem too simple. You may be like, there’s no chance. I tell you, it’s amazing how effective this is. It’s like when you put a sticker on a high school student’s paper. I used to give stickers to anyone who got an A on any sort of summative assessment, and they like were obsessed with it.

Rebecca Joyner [00:10:15]:
It was so funny to me. Like you wouldn’t expect it to be so effective, and it was. That is how board points. And it was like that with every group, like I said, that I worked with. And it locked down that rambunctious class. That first year teaching 4th block class, there were so many big personalities. And again, was it chaotic when they would be policing each other and like telling each other to shut up? I would have to say like, hey, we don’t talk to each other like that. You can tell them to hush.

Rebecca Joyner [00:10:42]:
We’re not gonna tell anyone to shut up. But even in the rowdiness of policing, I’m still not having to raise my voice. And that is huge for me. I’m not going to sit up here and shout over you. It’s just not going to happen. Or not even just the noise level, like just small group or large group disrespect, or again, misbehavior in lab. Anytime it’s not like an individual student that I can easily pull out and isolate, it’s the whole class is going down for even a small group’s behavior. It’s truly amazing.

Rebecca Joyner [00:11:11]:
Like, I never took a sociology class, but I’m like, you could do sociological Studies and psychology studies on this group mentality and how it impacts people’s behavior, because they are very affected by how their behavior affects other people in their classes, even the most selfish students, I promise. Okay, that’s the basics. Now let’s talk through some helpful tips, and then I’m gonna answer questions where people are like, well, this won’t work because— and I’ll have my answers for you. Okay, so a few helpful tips first. So what if the class gets to a zero? On test day, they have no board points on test day. If that is the case, the bonus question becomes a required question on the test so that I literally put the test in the gradebook out of like 105 points. And I don’t make it an easy question. I make it harder.

Rebecca Joyner [00:11:56]:
I don’t type my bonus questions on my tests. I always pull them up on like a projector slide and then they just like write in the bonus at the bottom of their answer sheet. And so that gives me the flexibility to like change it day of if I want a harder versus an easier question. If they have 5 board points, I wanna reward them with an easier question. If they have 0 board points, I want them to feel the weight of that. So it will be a little bit harder of a question. But again, those students that are studying and paying attention will not be punished cuz they’ll be able to get it. So I do make it a required question and they never wanna get a 0 again after that.

Rebecca Joyner [00:12:29]:
If they have negative board points, which only happened to me one time, but I, all I had to do is to tell them, I’m gonna take 2 points off every single one of your tests. That got them right in gear and it never happened again with a negative. And And again, that was like a very unique situation where I had a class just be tares for a substitute. That was a very unique situation, just like the group that got like a 7 because they were so good for the sub and they already had a 5. Like, that was a unique situation too. That 7-point question, I did make that one a little bit harder because I didn’t want like everyone getting an extra 7 points. That feels insane. But they could get partial credit on that bonus.

Rebecca Joyner [00:13:05]:
So I’m strategic with the bonus. That’s my other helpful tip. Be strategic with it. You want a win to be a win and you want a loss to be a loss, but you do want there to be opportunities for individual students to not be punished by the whole class. So be strategic with the questions you’re choosing. If you are not allowed to have bonus at your school, you can’t do a bonus question, usually a workaround that rule is just to cap it at 100. So like no one’s gonna get 105 on the test, but you could get a 95 and earn 100 if you got the bonus question right. So I, you can kind of phrase it instead of as like a bonus question, if that will get you in trouble, as like a replacement question or just an extra question, that kind of thing.

Rebecca Joyner [00:13:47]:
Again, I think this is super helpful for a sub. Another way I would motivate students, like my students that had like 0 or 1 board points, those classes, I would tell them, if the sub leaves me a great note for y’all, I’ll reset you to 5. And they were like so pumped on that. Or if it was a group that had a 5, like I always told them, if the sub comes and tells me you were terrible, it’s going down to 0. So really helpful when you have a substitute. Okay, now let’s address a few questions I’ve gotten about board points over the years. First, what if you don’t have a whiteboard that you can leave board points on? Like you’re a floater or you have to erase your whiteboard every day, you know, or you just don’t have the real estate. What would you do? I would personally get a small mini whiteboard.

Rebecca Joyner [00:14:30]:
I’ve always had like a class set of them because I use them for so many like formative assessment things and games. But I would just like have one of those and I would prop it up. Like every whiteboard I’ve ever had has had like some sort of little shelf and I would just like prop it up like that. I would take it with me when I’m floating. I would literally bring it on my cart and prop it up and have it so that we can reference it every day. Like to me, this is that important of a strategy and I can’t imagine teaching without using BoardPoints. So that’s how I would combat that. Another question, how do you keep students motivated to care about BoardPoints? Again, I will say my students were incredibly motivated just by the opportunity for extra credit with the one extra credit question.

Rebecca Joyner [00:15:09]:
And here’s why. One, I don’t have any other extra credit opportunities in my class. I do not curve tests. I do not have bonus projects. I do not drop grades. Like, this was their one chance. And so they really cared about it. And all you have to do to get it is just be respectful and not speak over me and listen when I’m ringing the bell, you know? So it feels very manageable.

Rebecca Joyner [00:15:32]:
And then again, second, they were motivated because they did not want the required question on their test because they knew I made the question harder if it was a required question, and it made the test longer, and they had less time to complete all the questions. So that was extremely motivating for my students. Now, again, I encourage you to not just assume your students won’t care. You will be surprised how much they will care. Now, if you do try it. And you find that they don’t care at all, I have a couple of ideas for you that I’ll give you in a second that can be alternatives for the extra credit question if they truly aren’t motivated by that. And here’s my last question, and that’s why I’m kind of saving that answer for this one. We aren’t allowed to give extra credit at all, so how can I manage this? So again, one option, just max their grade at 100, so it isn’t really like extra credit technically.

Rebecca Joyner [00:16:21]:
A second option, which this is a really good one too, if you don’t even wanna deal with the bonus question at all, you could treat your board points as a curve. Say, I’m gonna curve the test anywhere from 0 to 5 points that you’ll just get free, and it’s gonna be based on your board points. That’s a very great motivator. So then it’s no extra work to get the 5 extra points. Again, don’t let anyone get over 100, but that way they could miss 5 points and still get 100 on the test. I think that’s a great way to do it, especially if you’re like me and you don’t curve tests. That would feel very good for a class. And then my third suggestion is make it a quarterly competition.

Rebecca Joyner [00:16:58]:
And this is where you can do the least or the most. Everything I’ve explained so far is very simple and it’s doing the least. Here’s if you wanna like maximize this a little bit, or again, if your students aren’t motivated by the curve or the bonus question, this is what you can do for a reward. Instead of resetting and changing every unit, you reset and restart every quarter. And make it a quarterly competition between classes, and whoever has the most points at the end of the quarter gets a very big prize. Okay, so the way this works is you would not cap it at 5 points, and you would not like make it minimized by 0 points. There would be no cap. You could go in negatives, you’d go positive, and then just at the end of the quarter, which is the same for all of your classes, you would see who had the most points.

Rebecca Joyner [00:17:46]:
They get the prize. And there are a bunch of options I’m going to give you, but the reason this works really well is, I will say, having the board points on the board where every class can see all the other classes’ board points, it’s an effective strategy. I remember, again, that 4th period class, and then at a different school, I had a 6th period biology class that was rowdy, to say the least. And everyone could see that they always had like 0 to 2 board points as a class. And the other classes would be like, wow, what’s going on in 6th period? And then It would even go around the school like, oh, you’re in Ms. Joyner’s 6th period class? Like, why do y’all never have any board points? Like, it was very, very effective. And that kind of like zhuzhed them up to make them try a little bit harder. But so making it a competition, it is crazy how competitive these students can be with each other.

Rebecca Joyner [00:18:35]:
So here are some prizes I think you could award. And then the great thing about this is you’re only doing it 4 times a year. So you could offer like a hot chocolate or a coffee bar. Like you get a couple boxes of Dunkin’ coffee, bring a couple fun creamers, and they get to have that one day. That would be so fun for a class to win. Maybe your class is in the afternoon, so you do a pizza party and you order pizza to your classroom. If you’re in a full lab space where you do lab, maybe you like swap classrooms with another teacher for that day for their pizza party. Again, this would be a quarterly competition way of doing this, not like an end-of-unit way of doing this.

Rebecca Joyner [00:19:08]:
So it’s only a 4-time-a-year thing. Another option is you could say, okay, we’re going to drop a quiz grade at the end of the quarter for your— the class has the most board points, or Drop a primetime grade or sub out a project grade for a test grade for the class that has, you know, whatever kind of academic award you want it to be. You could give the class with the most board points the week before the quarter ends, give them a ketchup day. Have you ever heard of that? Like instead of saying catch up, people write ketchup, like the condiment on their board. They put like a big sign up like it’s ketchup day. And they can just listen to music and catch up on work and basically have a study hall day. You could do an open note test. You could say, hey, whichever class has the most board points at the end of the quarter, I’ll go through and make all of the prime times that we’ve done for the quarter out of 20 points instead of 25.

Rebecca Joyner [00:20:01]:
So that’s like a 5-point curve on their prime time every week that you’ve done it. That’s a great reward. You could do a class outdoors day where we’re gonna go be outside all day if you have great weather where you live. Those are just some examples of rewards. And again, you would do it once per quarter for one class, whoever has the most board points, and it becomes this competition. It’s so, so fun. Okay. So that’s kind of a way you can maximize this if you want, or you can just do it the simplest way, like I described at the start of this episode.

Rebecca Joyner [00:20:31]:
So your take-home challenge today is to start board points this week. Like if school is in session, go ahead and put it up. Even if you’ve been in session for a couple of weeks, say, hey, We’re gonna start something new. Here is how it works and explain it to your students. And it’s just, it immediately starts. You can even too make a slide that has, if you’re gonna do the quarterly competition version, make a slide with like all the different options. And maybe it’s something where you choose what the prize is gonna be that they’re working towards for, and do something different each quarter. Like this quarter we’re working towards a pizza party, or this quarter we’re working towards an open note test, or when it’s 4th quarter, we’re working towards outdoor class day.

Rebecca Joyner [00:21:06]:
I don’t know what it’s gonna be. Or you can let them say, hey, here are all the awards. Your class gets to vote if you win on which one you want at the end of this quarter. And that’s another fun thing to work together with as a class. So I just love this strategy cuz it’s so simple and students are highly motivated by it. And I just love the culture it creates in the class of uniting them together. It’s kind of like with siblings, like every single adult that I know who has a great relationship with their siblings. It’s because their parents really cultivated them getting along, even if it meant it was like them versus the parents.

Rebecca Joyner [00:21:41]:
Not that you should really create tension between like parents and children, but just a sense that like you guys are in this together, like you are on one team. That’s what you create with board points, but it’s like you as students versus me the teacher, and I’m here to reward you with things, but you guys have to work together. And I love the culture that that creates of teamwork. So take-home challenge, implement Board points. If you haven’t left a review for the podcast yet and you found this free podcast that I put out helpful for you, I would love it if you would leave a rating and a review, or if you’d send this episode or another one to another teacher. That is like the greatest way you can support this podcast. I wanna keep it free forever and ever and ever, and to do that, it just needs to, you know, keep getting out to all the teachers that need to hear it. So I would love it if you would leave a review for the podcast today.

Rebecca Joyner [00:22:29]:
And last but not least, there really aren’t any links that I have for you for this episode, so the show notes are pretty bare. But if you do want a link to like one of those classroom bells that I would mention at the top of the episode, I’ll link one in the show notes that you can check out. All right, teacher friends, that wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher, head to itsnotrocketscienceclassroom.com/ to grab your Classroom Reset Challenge. And guess what? It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I’ll see you here next week. Until then, I’ll be rooting for you, teacher friend.