MS Sunday Funday: Advisory

This week's MS Sunday Funday topic is advisory. Now, I will preface what I write by saying that my experience with advisory is four days in length, and I have not seen its full effect just yet, but from what I've gathered and what I've been told, here's a basic rundown of what advisory class looks like 5-12 in my school.

Advisory is an 8th period class, and we get 45 minutes at the end of the day. These kids are what I'd label, for all intents and purposes (and because I'm still trying to get out of my elementary mindframe) my home room. I see them for about 15 minutes in the morning before I send them off to specials, and they are my first class of the day.

We use advisory for a varied amount of things, included but not limited to:

• PBS lessons: As a way to remind them of the expectations that were laid out at the beginning of the year, we teach PBS lessons on Mondays. Each teacher 5-12 has one or two assigned weeks and is in charge of creating a slideshow/lesson plan for the MS/HS community to present to their advisory classes
• Targeted Tutoring: in a few weeks, my grade level groups should have a firm grasp on which students need some extra help in our given subject. So, one or two days per week (likely two for me as I've got one of those "serious" subjects that's graded with a standardized test), the students that I have on my targeted tutoring list will come to my room during advisory for specific, additional help during math. I already have plans to do lots of reteaching of multiplication and division facts during this time, as I have a dismal amount of students who are able to rattle them off in a proficient amount of time and that frightens me a little. They got 80 seconds to do 20 problems in division and only a handful of them got even 50% of them correct? Yeah. Worried about testing in the Spring just a bit.
• PBS Goals & Rewards: Students in each advisory, at least at the MS level, pick a goal to aim for. There's a variety of things from extra recess to a pizza party, to being able to bring in handheld gaming devices and board games from home. When they earn enough CAT tags (our way of telling students to keep up the good work when we catch them doing something good) as a class, they get to have a reward day on Fridays. We need 500 of these lovely tags before they get to the game day that they all so eagerly chose (and to which I upped the ante by saying I'd try to bring my Wii in...I must have a death wish).
• ZAP room: When a student does NOT turn in homework when it is due, they get a ZAP (zeros aren't permitted), this sheet must be filled out by the students, taken home to be signed, and brought in the next morning along with the finished homework assignment. If they don't bring it in finished, they go to the ZAP room until they do get it completed. So far, no ZAPs. Let's see what Monday brings. My personal policy on ZAPs is that if they finish their homework the day it was due (say, in advisory class) and get it to me before we go home for the day, they do not have to get the ZAP sheet signed, but it does say in the gradebook that they received a ZAP.
• Study Hall. Pretty basic right there.