The Magic of Math Dollars

This week's "What If" Question has got me thinking about money and school. I simply can not move forward and answer the question this week, without first telling you the tale of the magical math dollars! It seems there is no way for me to think about money in the classroom without thinking of these beauties!

The Birth of Math Dollars

Once upon a time there was a young high school math teacher filled with frustration over the lack of motivation shown in her students. While at a professional development meeting, some middle school teachers started discussing the merits of tangible rewards. This young teacher listened very carefully - she knew that her "older" high school students were really only a couple of months older than those middle school kids!

One teacher said she had a point system - every time a student showed some reward-able behavior, she would mark it down in her "point book" and when the student received enough "points" she would give them either extra credit on an exam, or a homework pass. This idea seemed intriguing, but the young teacher, even after less than two years on the job, knew that keeping things like "point books" was one of her greatest weaknesses.

Another teacher shared another system she had - "bonus bucks." She printed out fake money, called it "bonus bucks" and, like the teacher before, kept an eye out for reward-able behaviors. When she spotted them, a student got a buck. Then, each Friday, the students could trade in their "bonus bucks" for candy or small trinkets the teacher would bring in. This teacher said her key was that getting the buck got harder and harder as the year went on. The teacher with the "point book" concurred that it was the same with her points.

The young teacher went home that night, head spinning with ideas. How would she do this? She couldn't start a project that would ultimately fail at her own hand - which would happen if she dared start a point book. And she couldn't start buying candy for all of her kids

1. her mother would scream again about how she would never make any money if she kept spending it all on her students, and 
2. her colleagues would hang her for sure if she sent them students on sugar highs! 

 Then it hit her - combine the two! Create "Math Dollars" that can be traded in for extra credit or a free homework pass.
The Creation of Math Dollars

Math Dollars happen to be the silliest looking things you've ever seen. They are modeled after the American dollar, but shrunken to be about the size of Monopoly money. Depending on the year they may have had some clip art on them, some mathematical function, or, my favorite, a caricature of my face drawn by one of my students in the center where George Washington's face is supposed to be. Instead of saying "In God We Trust," Math Dollars say, of course "In Math We Trust" and they are printed in all types of colors (basically whatever color printer paper I could get at Staples for the semester). Many of the design elements I picked up all over the place, as it is true what they say in education - There really is no such thing as a new idea! (Lots of people use some type of Math Dollar in their classroom!)

I would get anywhere from six to eight math dollars per 8.5" by 11" piece of paper (I got better at fitting more on the page over the years) and copy them in my bedroom/office/creation zone. I'd then have to cut them out which ultimately led to me buying a paper cutter (of course, this was before I bothered to ask if we had one at school!). I'd wrap up huge stacks in rubber bands, put them in my locker and make sure I always had at least one stack in hand as I entered my room.

The Magic of Math Dollars

I only ever meant to use them with ninth graders. They were the silliest things in the world and they had no business being as effective as they were. By the time I was teaching Advanced Placement Statistics, those students were actually offended when I didn't use Math Dollars with them, so after a one semester mistake (maybe a whole year, I don't remember), all classes got to use Math Dollars. Here's their magic:

Math dollars can be EARNED when you do amazing things. Some amazing things are: answering questions in class, ASKING questions in class, being prepared, explaining your work to the class, presenting a group solution, being on time, being a "Super Student," volunteering to do a HW problem on the board, etc.

When you EARN ten Math Dollars, you then have a choice. You can trade them in for a FREE HW pass OR for TWO POINTS on any test (even one we've already taken!!).

And with this, these silly little pieces of paper transformed me into a better teacher and my students into angels!

• How did I become a better teacher because of Math Dollars? I was constantly engaged with my students. I was watching them, working with them, walking among them and talking to them throughout the entire lesson. Not just the students who were participating, but also those who were not, because I would become aware of the fact that I hadn't walked to this corner or that corner, wherever it was. I knew what was going on in my room. I was able to individualize rewards, talk one-on-one with kids, "OK, you've been getting too many Math Dollars for putting up HW problems. That's too easy for you! If you want more, the class is going to have to hear your voice!"or "How come you haven't gotten any Math dollars today? What's going on?" -I can't tell you how many times that led to valuable discoveries about students that require parental contact or guidance counselors (kids are quiet, but they usually let everything fly if you just ask them directly what's going on).
• How did my students become better learners because of Math Dollars? They wanted them. I still don't fully understand why, but they did. All of the things I would normally ask students to do that their teenage-ness just forced them to resist, would come so easily with the possibility of Math Dollars. Students would see me in the hallway before class and say crazy wonderful things like, "Miss! I did the homework last night. I'm going to put number 4 on the board for a math dollar, OK?" Um... OK, sure - no one used to put homework problems on the board. The bell would ring, I'd unwrap my Math Dollars, start to circulate the room mumbling something like, "I wonder if anyone has done that problem yet?" Heads would whip around, notebooks would fly open, pens to paper, calculators punched, a hush falls over the room. And, while it was unintentional, the students were given more autonomy over their rewards (no one really has to know it's because I feared the paperwork of a "point book," right?). They had to keep track of their dollars (most carried them in their wallets - very cute!), then they had to make some pretty big decisions about how to best use them.

Math Dollars are magic. That's the only way to explain something so silly, so simple, having such dramatic effects.


Funny after-thought: I just did a Google search to see if there were any Math Dollar users out there that I could link up to for you, instead I found an aging Facebook group! It's about to be archived, so I'm not going to link it, but, for awhile, it seems our Math Dollars even had a little Facebook fame!