Acknowledgement System Overview - Masterbuilders

Why do we want to recognize expected behavior?

It is not enough just to teach expected behavior, we also need to regularly recognize and reward students for engaging in appropriate behavior. Research has shown that recognizing students for engaging in expected behavior is even more important than catching students breaking the rules. In fact, research on effective teaching has found that teachers should engage in a rate of 4 positive interactions with students to every 1 negative interaction (4:1 ratio). As staff it is very easy to get caught up focusing on catching students engaging in negative behavior. The goal of an acknowledgment system is to increase the number of positive interactions that all school staff have with students.

At Gorsuch West Elementary we use Masterbuilders, Building Block Character Skills to acknowledge students for appropriate behavior. Through this program we hand out Masterbuilder awards to students for following the school rules and displaying the Character Skills.

When recognizing students with an Masterbuilder Award, it is important to identify specifically what behavior the student engaged in and link it to the appropriate school rule.

For example: Ethan, I wanted to thank you for helping pick up the books someone knocked on the floor, you were being very responsible and it really helped me out. Here is a Masterbuilder.

Ideally, students should be given these acknowledgements immediately following the behavior and be told exactly why they received it. In order to promote expected behavior it is important that students know when and why they are being acknowledged.

Who should be handing out Masterbuilder Awards?

All staff in the school should be provided with Awards to hand out.

How many acknowledgements should be given out?

The goal is for the program to touch all students in the school. All students should feel like they have a good chance of being recognized for good behavior. Even the most challenging students engage in appropriate behavior much of the time. The challenging students probably have more to benefit from such a program than other students.

How often should assemblies/announcements be held to recognize students for positive behavior?

Students who receive Masterbuilders are announced daily on the morning announcements. A weekly drawing is held for added recognition and these students are in-turn able to recite the pledge during the morning announcements.