A Math Idea Worth Checking Out

I've been meaning to post this for a while, ever since I was visiting Heather Robitaille's fifth grade classroom last fall at Rumney.  As an ongoing math thread in her class, Heather has her students use checkbooks use to track various debit and credits that she devises for them.  In her own words, here's how she works it:

I give the students deposits each day and throw done withdrawals in there as well.  For example, students have to rent their chair...  If I rent it to them for $3.75 a day, then how much would they be charged for the week?  Some students decide to do a daily withdrawal, while others pay the sum up front for the week.  At the end of the week students have to have a certain balance.  If their balance is off, then they go back and find their mistake and correct it just like you and I would have to do.  I really try to make this very realistic for the kids. Adding and subtracting decimals with real life skill.

One thing to note is that Heather doesn't restrict this practice to "math" time.  I first heard about it during a morning meeting when students were chattering about their checkbooks.

When I first got wind of this, a few things occurred to me:

1. It could be valuable as a classroom management tool or individualized progress tracker while simultaneously reinforcing math concepts.
2. It is flexible enough to span many grades (start with using only credits and whole numbers in first grade, in ninth grade there can be interest compounded daily, for example).
3. The real world relevance is glaringly obvious.

Thinking about chapters 2 and 3 of Rigor... (by Witzel and Blackburn), I see that this thread could be a great tool for moving students from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation in a way that is individualized.

There is a multitude of ways this could work, but I'll share some ideas that came out of a brainstorming session that I had last spring with a couple of high school teachers who were interested in increasing the rigor of their lowest achieving math students where motivation was a major concern:

Each student gets a checkbook register.  In a 1-1 computing environment, this could be electronic (created as a Google Sheet like the one pictured at right above).  Or it could be an actual register from a bank (I have heard that banks are willing to give these away in bulk to teachers who ask).  Or it could be a simple template that the teacher prints out and students staple into the back of their math notebooks like the one pictured at the top of this post that I made in about 30 seconds that you're welcome to print off and use (the link is here).

Either way, the teacher can introduce the idea towards the beginning of the year.  I love the idea of unpacking the terms "credit" and "debit" as a class coming up with examples of each together that you could use to start off the checkbook.

As the year progresses, you could have credits earned individually (or perhaps students get an increase in their salary) and/or collectively for gaining mastery of a skill or for having an learning environment where students feel that they belong and are supported or for persisting in problem solving.

The teacher (and students) could track the change in their balances and celebrate months (or weeks or days) that are "high growth."

There could be rewards (those tangible extrinsic rewards - a sticker, playing a favorite math game, etc.) that are either public or private, whole group or individualized.  The teacher would have the flexibility to "look under the surface" and adapt to make the reward meaningful.

Those are just a few of the ideas that I have.  The possibilities are endless.  How would you adapt this idea to motivate your students?  I would love to hear your ideas...

Thanks so much to Heather for being willing to share with us!