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Oops. Sorry - forgot to paste in the 12th response: I recycle LOTS of newspapers left over from CHS's Newspapers in Education program. The money that I get from that I use to fill a candy jar for my student library aides. My impression as a high school librarian so far is that most adolescents aren't interested in constructive library tasks, but would rather surf cyberspace, mess with e-mail and otherwise act like most teens. If nothing else, I'm learning something about various kinds of candy. Larry Librarian Davinna Artibey Library Media Specialist Horace Mann Middle School Denver, CO 80211 -----Original Message----- From: Davinna Artibey [mailto:davinna@comcast.net] Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 6:31 PM To: (LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU) Subject: HIT: MID Incentives for Student Assistants? (long) Hi. I received 11 responses to my request for incentives to motivate student assistants to shelve. The answers are below: Davinna Artibey Library Media Specialist Horace Mann Middle School Denver, CO 80211 I try not to, but I did at one point when I had a long term sub in and they weren't working for her well. We then gave them a free ice cream in the cafeteria for every 50 or 100 books they shelved. That meant I had to keep track of how many they shelved. I had a system of having them all have different colored 1" strips of cardstock w/their initials on them. It meant the extra task of separating the cardstock tags, keeping tallies and filing them in an expandable folder. (I normally have students use the same cardstock tags, pull them and just reuse to know they are filed correctly). The cafeteria let me buy boxes of the ice creams at cost and give out my coupons. The other idea I gave my sub. that she chose not to use was to have them enter a drawing once for every 10-20-30 however many you want, books shelved. Then at the end of the month have a drawing for a gift certificate to friendlies, small stuffed animal, book, etc. We too have lulls in the reshelving, one incentive I've found that works well for me (no extra work, lots of extra reshelving" is for me to drop everything I'm doing and challenge them to help me "clear the cart". If we clear it they all get double treats (they normally get two pieces of candy for their recess reshelving...but I'll double it to clear the cart). I find they love to work with me on it and the challenge. Deb Becker North Broad Elem. Oneida, NY Jbecke1@twcny.rr.com I have middle school students for library aides. I have no problem having them shelve the books that are returned daily. Every 9 weeks, I assign them a section of the library. Example nonfiction, series, and then fiction by reading level (we shelve our fiction books by AR reading level - controversial, but that's another story). The students seem to take pride in making "their" shelves look good, by dusting, shelving, and making sure books are straight. They do a great job of shelving the books alpahbetically, but many books still end up in the wrong location, due to other students. However, making sure that the books were totally in alphabetical order and locating lost books was another story. I give the aides a grade on their shelvesonce a week: 0-3 out of order is an A; 4-6 books is a B; 5-9 is a C, more than that and they have to do the shelves again the next day to earn a grade. Even that gets old, so sometimes, but not always, I bring treats for an A,B, or C. Sometimes its cookies (1 for a C, 2 for an A or B), sometimes it's bookmarks, pencils, candy kisses, or any other special surprise. (On the second day of grading, if they flunked the first day, there is no treat.) It's not every time, so the students try for that A or B, and don't know until they are finished if there is a surprise on that grade day. I hope this isn't confusing, but contact me if it is, and I'll try to answer questions or explain it better. My library aides do a great job of running the library, while I catalogue books. I am sure to tell them often, that the great job that they do, makes ME look good! Nora Jones Keep smiling! It makes people wonder what you're up to ;) I have a huge plastic jar full of candy for bribes. I also have two parties, one right before winter break, with all kinds of desserts, and one with pizza and dessert at the end of the year. It's definitely worth the cost. Of course, I work with younger kids, and don't let them shelve. I'm bribing them to straighten shelves! Good luck. Mary Clark Library Media Tech I La Costa Meadows Elementary School Carlsbad, CA USA 760-290-2128 Mary.clark@smusd.org Lucky me, I have a girl who shelves without my asking, and then shelves more and more and more. I try to make the shelving assignments small and spread the joy to everyone(other than Becky who marathon shelves). If I give only 12 books to each student, that's a lot by the end of the day. I've also had great luck, believe it or not, being the detention monitor b/c some of those students would much rather shelve, or organize the cart, than sit still. My best motivator is food. We promised a lunch from any of the fast food restaurants to the group that completed the best project. Our winning group selected Subway. We ate with them that day. When I suggested that type of reward again, the winning group not only applauded the great food they had had, they said they had a really fun lunch that day with great conversation. But small candy bars for completed assignments etc help too, or the chance to listen to headphones while they work. Let me know what works. Terry Good morning: OK-this may sound obvious but I have found that it works. Shelving-one of the ways that I have been able to motivate others to do it is to do some of it myself and trying to be excited about it. Yes-I know we are all busy and feel that this is something that we hired the aides to do, but few students want to do things that they feel is "unimportant" and "boring". If they come in and see a big stack of books that haven't been touched all day, they will feel that it is not quite as important as you seem to think. Another way to motivate them is that I point out all of the good books that are on the shelf that may have been missed if you hadn't shelved the book next to it. Most of my student aides are readers and are always looking for new books and some are interested in what others are reading and just grab off the returned book shelf, while others are always wanting to scope out the shelves anyway so they might as well be doing some work while they are wandering. Sorry if I sounded condescending in all of this, but if you show in some way that it is important and necessary that the books end up in the right place on the shelves, they will have a much better attitude about doing the job. Blessings- Carol Van Brocklin Librarian Mindanao International Academy Davao City, Philippines My student aides receive community service hours for their help in the library which is reflected on their transcript. That seems to be the best motivator and the fact that I have been known to fire and replace students.... Shelley Bertsch I split up the areas, so each student is only responsbile for a certain section. You can periodically check out their work. Give tickets each time everything is correctly done, shelved etc. Then have them drop tickets in a jar for drawings of prizes!!! More times they are caught doing something right, more chances they have of "WINNING." You can be very creative about prizes depending on your budget!!!! Barbara Herman Kennedy High Taylor, Mi Davinna; When I was blessed with student aides :), I let them pick sections of shelving to be responsible for. Every so often I would inspect them. This was then part of their grade. Now that I'm in a K-8 school, I don't have student aides. So I have the students who wish to do so "adopt" a shelf. I then periodically "inspect" them, based on their ages, of course. If they pass inspection, they receive a smiley face in my grade book. Smiley faces may be used to check out additional materials, or traded in for prizes I pick up at the dollar store, Oriental Trading, and my own collections. I gave my middle school aides at my previous position many privileges. They were allowed to use my bathroom, and I gave them a place to store their stuff. They could check out more books than other students, and check out videos. I also gave them little birthday parties, and had contests between different class periods for shelving, processing, and even minor cataloguing. Winners received lunch from McDonald's, nachos, pizza., etc. (Not all at once, of course!) It also helped when we all went out and shelved together. Seeing me shelve kept them on track and helped them to see how important shelving is. Hope these help! Louise Colette Leonard Martin J. Gottlieb Day School Library Jacksonville Jewish Center Jacksonville, FL Lleonard@ssdsjax.net I have 4th and 5th graders helping out which I know is different than middle schoolers, but they seem to really appreciate this incentive: they receive a "waiver" for an overdue that can be applied at the circulation desk and allow them to overide a block on their account. I made little certificates on the computer, had each kid sign one, store them in an envelope at the student assistants' work area. They are for one use only. Robin Ludmer Teacher-Librarian Peidmont, Ca. Good luck there! I have high school T.A.s and they don't like to shelve and sometimes getting them to read shelves is like torture. I have known adults that were not capable of shelving books and I have had others who were fantastic. Personally, I don't mind shelving books but it seems like a waste of my salary to pay me to put books away. Plus, I am always too busy doing other things to make shelving a good part of my day. My TA's get a grade and a good part of their grade is based on shelving and other basic, clerical library tasks. Jaime Meadows St.Helens High School St. Helens, OR Maybe you need to set a time limit. A daily / weekly prize for how many books they can shelve in 10 minutes. The first 10 minutes they come in, have them shelve. Then THEY HAVE TO STOP! Have them do something else. Keep track and give small prizes according to output. They might get more done in that short time period than 1/2 hour of moping. Just remember, no one likes to do the same thing day in and day out, every day. Most people like candy! Katherine Martinez -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. 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