A Few Words about Extra Credit...

​A few words about Extra Credit…
It rocks my world and there have been so many gains in student achievement and understanding about the world and interests beyond the grade level curriculum by simply having Extra Credit available to all students within the classroom.
    What do you do when your students have completed their classwork that will be challenging and take them beyond what they just learned? How do you motivate students to complete work that is already challenging for them?
     You offer Extra Credit to enhance all the learning going on in your classroom.
You are the gate keeper to learning, let us open the gates and let your students learn as much as possible in just one short year.
     Extra Credit cannot take the place of grades. Let it be said that extra is extraordinary, however test scores and assignments scores paint a picture we need to keep in mind when grading students. If students fall short they need more teaching on the areas where they are weaker. Extra credit cannot take the place of that weak area to boost the scores, only hard work on those skill areas can do that. Extra Credit is just extra, in addition, a bonus and lots of fun!
 
     You set up an area in your room where you can keep files of activities and the corresponding papers, resources to find information, a folder for each student to keep the Extra Credit work stored when not being worked on and an interesting economy system in class where students earn based on their extra credit work.
     Any set of cards, books, activity sheets, etc. can be turned into an Extra Credit Activity. What is Extra Credit? It is research, a mini project, a challenge.
Although the thought of building a system may be daunting, start slow and build one activity at a time because you must introduce and advertise each activity to make it exciting and enticing. Everyone needs a chance to do one of the activities, turn it in and see how easily the process works and to earn a reward.
 
     My reward were tickets that could be cashed in for a monthly auction. My students have helped me with Extra Credit and Auctions when they went to high school because they thought it was so fun and they learned so much more than just using a textbook. So…that being said Extra Credit is very literacy heavy. It is all about reading and writing. Read, learn, write about what you learned. This is the time to teach formatting, quality work, and turning it in when completed. This is exactly the type of practice our students need and they are choosing from your array of choices what they are interested in the most. This is a win-win and I have been developing and revamping my tried and true activities to make it easy for you to start….
​Tuscarora Teacher
 
Please check out my links on my website and products may be found on Teachers Pay Teachers when you are ready...