Student Contributor: A. Turner
Classroom cheers is a great supportive phase tool to promote a positive classroom culture. Each day, a new “cheer of the day” is selected for students to participate in when a classmate is spotted doing something great in the classroom.
For this tool, you will need to come up with a number of classroom cheers to have on hand so that you can rotate through them. I found this tool on a blog post that linked a TPT post where you can purchase a bundle of cheers, or you could come up with your own! Each cheer should have a motion that goes along with it. For example, in the robot cheer, students move like a robot while saying, “Really great work!” in a robot voice. Another fun cheer is the Dino Stomp Cheer. During this cheer, students stand up and stomp like a t-rex while saying, “GRRRREAT job!”
At the beginning of the school year, you will tell students that each day is going to have a new cheer that will be used when we see students going above and beyond. It’s up to you when you would like to use these cheers. They could be used to reward great academic work, or to reward students for using life skills. Each day, you will teach a new cheer until all the cheers have been taught and you can start to rotate through them. I think this tool is great for younger students because not only does it involve positive reinforcement, but it also gets each student involved and moving.
I believe that this tool is best supported by the teacher directed and collaborative theories of influence. Firstly, it is supported by a teacher directed influence because the teacher does make the decisions about which cheer is going to be used each day and decides when the cheers are going to be used to recognize students. It is also supported by the collaborative influence, though, because it involves students in the process each time. As students are being recognized for their achievement or positive behavior, they are being appreciated by the whole class instead of only the teacher.
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Tool Source: Foxwell Forest
