Where to use Interest Igniters
You’ve just stumbled on a super simple motivational tool for students! The uses are endless, but here are some ideas of how to harness the power of Interest Igniters in your classroom. Students are motivated to earn Interest Igniters chances for the class and so you use that motivation to bring out the effort and behaviors you want!
Important Note: Any chances earned to play the Interest Igniter challenge are entire classroom chances. They are not earned for specific students. We understand not all students are comfortable getting up in front of their peers so we don't want kids to intentionally "fail" to save embarrassment. We ALWAYS allow participation by choice and use volunteers. This creates the "classroom playing as a team" mindset that builds a unified classroom community where they are all pulling for each other.
Uses for all classrooms:
Academic uses:
Worksheet - anyone reaching target score earns the class an Interest Igniter chance (you can also simply check a few specific problems instead of whole sheet)
Assessments - anyone scoring at a target score or higher earns an Interest Igniter chance for the class.
Homework Completion - anyone arriving to class with homework completed earns an Interest Igniter chance for the class.
Interpreting a rubric - hand out sample work and students have to try to determine what grade it gets per the rubric. Each correct one earns the class a chance in the Interest Igniter challenge
Increase class discourse - keep tallies of anyone that adds to the conversation in a meaningful way. Could give bonus tallies for things like adding to thinking of others, making connections to someone else’s thinking, questioning, etc. At the end, they can turn in tallies for chances in Interest Igniter challenge
Any behavior you want to promote:
Arriving on-time and with materials - each student that arrives on time and with materials earns the class a chance in the Interest Igniter challenge!
Reduce Blurt Outs - start with 10-15 Interest Igniter chances for the class. Each blurt-out reduces the number of chances by 1,2,or 3…whatever works best in your class.
Reduce disruptions - same as above, but any disruption reduces chances.
Participation - keep tallies of anyone that participates - either by asking or answering questions in class. At the end, they can turn in tallies for chances in Interest Igniter challenge.
Notetaking - at the end of notework, do a quick lap around the room and award an Interest Igniter chance to the class for any student who took acceptable notes.
Meeting deadlines - Ideal for projects with stages. Each group meeting any deadline along the way earns an Interest Igniter chance for the class!