Tips for Teachers #6: Mental Math in a Token Economy

I recently read a great reminder that the human brain works faster than Google in a variety of ways. Kim Marshall writes, "Retrieving a memorized piece of information – for example, 4 x 9 – is much quicker than opening a browser and accessing the times table. In addition, when students go to the Internet for information, they can lose the thread of solving a problem... in fact the National Mathematics Advisory Panel advocates 'quick and effortless recall of facts' as essential to math proficiency. "

For the last 6 months, my husband and I have been using a strategy for our 5 year old son, to encourage great behavior choices. Since we are a Disney family that attends the resort several times a month, our son bugs  asks us to buy him e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. 
1. we never do, 
2. it annoys us. 
3. sometimes we give in to stop the asking. 
#CanIGetaWitness

About 6 months ago, I was tired of the kids' poor behavior choices. As an educator, I have used several strategies throughout the years to encourage better choices with my students. I've used a token economy, clip charts, and Class Dojo. I thought, "what might work with my kids?"

Let's take a quick trip down memory lane... Disneyland once had it's own currency to use in the park. They were called Disney Dollars and you could purchase them at the ticket window. It was an even exchange, and no other incentive other than good ole Disney memorabilia. Disney Dollars were first used in Disneyland May 5, 1987 and stopped May 14, 2016. I never used them, but you can see the images on Google. I found an image with Daisy Duck on it, in $1 denomination, and printed a bunch out. I showed the kids that they could earn "Daisy Dollars" for excellent behavior. On the flip side, they could lose Daisy Dollars when they don't make good choices. On our next Disney trip, I tried to keep track of their paper dollars, but as the day went on, I noticed that my 2 year old did not care about them other than looking at Daisy's picture, and my 5 year old didn't want to hold them. So they stayed in my backpack and I verbalized the amounts they were earning or losing. Over time, my daughter didn't care about earning anymore, and my son was excited to earn them, and bonus, it was a motivator for better behavior choices at home, as well. A few weeks ago, my son got really into Star Wars. About halfway into his journey in watching the eight released movies, he decided he wanted a lightsaber. Lightsabers in one of the gift shops is $29.99. Given how infrequently my son plays with his toys, I was VERY hesitant to buy him another toy so close to Christmas. BUT, it was a great motivator to use Daisy Dollars.

Fast forward a couple trips and I trashed lost the Daisy Dollar printouts, and switched to giving them verbally full-time. My son was earning and losing, but he was keeping track of his balance without my help. Adding and subtracting within 30! He was doing mental math! This could change the way we use the token economy in classes!

Now, if you're not familiar, A token economy is a system of contingency management based on the systematic reinforcement of target behavior. The reinforcers are symbols or tokens that can be exchanged for other reinforcers. There is research behind it that shows parallels to real life application, as well as building math skills in written form.

This is fantastic. I love it. TeachersPayTeachers sellers have a lot of cute and simple templates for this. I don't discount the written form.
My suggestion for this strategy is to make it verbal for early grades. When regrouping with larger numbers, the written form is very important. Showing great behavior or completing tasks may earn more than $1 at a time in the upper grades, so I love this.

I recommend trying the token economy in a verbal/mental math way. This could be a game changer!