Don't quit. Here are some reasons to stay and play; there are others. SWAY is a learning system designed to engage students and involve parents in the learning process. A primary goal is to reduce teacher stress and workloads. As you go through the lessons, reasons to stay become apparent.

A SMART WAY to Learn, Earn, and Play was reduced to a SMART WAY to Learn; it was still too long, so the word SWAY was chosen to represent the idea and the company. WAY represents the WAY Game. SWAY is also what I hope to do - sway people to a new path for classroom teachers.

The name - a SMART WAY to Learn is a double entendre - has two meanings. Meaning one is taken at face value - this project is a smart way to learn. Secondly, the lowercase [a] represents respect for other learning systems; SMART represents SMART Notebook software; a lesson planning model and resources are presented. WAY is an acronym; it stands for Who Are You. WAY represents the gamification of education.

It's a combination of Teaching and entrepreneurship. It's a new mindset—teach students practical lifelong learning skills through entrepreneurship. Teachers use SWAY resources as classroom fundraisers. Teach students how to make a living.

The WAY Game is many things; foremost, it's designed to help students learn. The WAY Game is an information processing system that develops technical and creative skills. WAY is designed to create an awareness of one's gifts and talents. WAY is a team-building activity. WAY helps develop healthy relationships while learning how to learn.

The tools and techniques associated with the WAY Game take time to implement. There are things students must do and learn before they can play; I took the month of September to slowly work on all the tools and techniques that need to be in place. Including parents in the WAY Game is important. Invite parents into your class to watch students play way.

CAP Notes are Graphic Organizers students use to summarize daily lessons and draft Questions & Activities for the WAY Game. Teachers use CAP Notes to plan lessons. Parents may use CAP Notes to check the progress of their child on a daily basis. CAP Notes come in a standard paper format and appear on SMART Lesson Planning Templates.

CAP Notes have evolved into CAP Notebooks for Parents and Players.

Pathfinder is a comprehensive student learning profile with multiple home and school applications. Pathfinder comes with audiovisual support and an instruction booklet.

A Game Card is the size of an index card, four by six inches; the front side is for graphics that represent what was taught in school that week. The back side is for Questions and Activities, 21 representing key ideas from the week's lessons. Game Cards summarize, in creative ways, lessons and important personal experiences and should be treasured for what they are, a history of you. Game Cards are works of art and science. Students become producers of learning content when they create and share their Game Cards with classmates.

WAY Cards come in four per sheet and are printed on card stalk. Make three class sets: one for the WAY Game, one for the teacher's desk, and one is a backup. WAY Cards require a picture of students, names, year, game preferences, and checkboxes for tracking things, for example, B for Bathroom {frequent 'flyers' need to see this}. Y/N/A = when asking questions - Yes, No, Attempted. WAY Cards are used.

WAY Cards are used by teachers whenever calling on a student for any reason. Randomly selecting students is fair; it keeps students on their toes.

Support for playing the WAY Game comes in two formats, paper and digital. Paper - Judges Cards, Captain's Job, Yellow Card, Red Card, Card Boards, Place Cards, Weekly Planner, Game Card Templates, 7 Games, Pathfinder Clues, Game Card Rubric, CAP Note Rubric/Key, and Prizes. You will need 2 Captain's Binders to keep a list of the team's players and a Pathfinder Response sheet.

Digital: Widgets = Timer, spinners, dice, Weekly WAY Games, Game Selection Tool, Clue selection Tool, Student Selection, scoring, CAP Note Templates, Background Pictures.

The WAY Game was developed to help teachers make their class a place that students love to be. The WAY Game was designed to motivate students to learn their lessons through play. WAY is a game that helps students discover who they are and what they stand for. A game that develops relationships where students become producers and distributors of Game Cards. Students rule; they create Q & A's for the WAY Game based on their weekly lessons.

We play a full round of WAY on Friday afternoons. A complete game takes about an hour to play, and then we evaluate Game Cards, which takes another half hour or so.

The Game's objective is to win clues to uncover the secret identity of the Mystery Kid. Each team captain is given a blank Pathfinder Response Sheet where they will highlight the clues that were won by the team. Keep this sheet safe and secret in the Captain's Binder. The teacher will use the MK's Pathfinder Response Sheet to secretly present clues to their identity. {This is an extension of the Student of the Day activity where students share information from Pathfinder about themselves with their classmates.}

The WAY Game was initially designed as a game student's played in school as a class. You can adapt any number of students to play in class or remotely. Ideally, pairs of randomly selected using WAY Cards are put in Place Cards by the Judge.

Shuffle a class set of WAY Cards; the top card will be the Mystery Kid, the teacher will keep this a secret, and the following three cards will be the Judges, take the remaining cards and divide them into two teams. The top card in each pile will be the team captain, and the second card will be the assistant captain. Once the captain and assistant have recorded teams, the team's cards are dealt and placed in the 7 Place Card pockets. Deal the 7 Games Cards similarly; put them face down, one Game per pocket. Always play with a partner when possible. What you have are two teams, with 14 players each[some students may play two games if a partner is missing or there aren't enough students for two teams of 14 players]. Play 2 on 2, turn over one of the seven Games and select the Q & A using WAY Game Notebook Templates. Q & A's have been chosen from the class's weekly Game Cards. The teacher/volunteer selects the best Q & A's from the class's weekly Game Cards and enters the Q or A on specially designed Pull Tabs for each of the seven games.

Once all seven games are played, the students may try and guess the identity of the Mystery Kid.

For a more complete understanding of how the WAY Game is played; watch the videos on this site.

Print Judge's Cards on one sheet using Card Stock, a heavy grade of paper and or laminate each of the three cards. You will need three break-away lanyards, one for each Judge to wear the card around their neck. Each card contains the Judge's responsibilities; they are the - SMART Board, Card Board and the Discipline Judge. The SMART Board Judge runs the SMART Board; Card Judge manages WAY Cards & Place Cards. The Discipline Judge is the class 'cop.' They can take clues away from a team due to a team member's rule-breaking.

Team Captains use A Captain's Job Graphic Organizer to record: 1. Penalties yellow/red cards, 2. Captain Challenges & 3. Player Swaps. A Captain speaks on behalf of the team when giving answers or speaking to Judges. If a Captain wants to challenge the decision of student Judges, they issue a Captain's Challenge where each Judge has a turn to justify their judgement of the game to the class. The teacher has the final say to overrule the Judges or not. After a win, the team receives a clue from the Mystery Kid's Pathfinder. A Captain receives and records Pathfinder clues won by teams and highlights clues on the Pathfinder Response Sheet while being supervised by the Discipline Judge.

The Discipline Judge uses the Yellow Card Red Card sheet to record student infractions during a game. A Yellow Card is a warning; if a Red Card is given, the team loses a clue. Minor talking disruptions get a Yellow Card; if it continues, it turns into a Red Card. A Red Card can be issued for disrespectful behaviour and cheating, but in the end, it's up to the Judge to judge. One sheet is good for six games. Print 2-sided.

Card Boards are folded to hold student Game Cards. They are used for peer evaluation of Game Cards. Card Boards are where Game Card scores are entered. Game Card grades are worth 10% of a student's grade. Students grade students for actual grades. They are hung on strings on a class Bulletin Board. Every Tuesday, Game Cards are due. Students are to deposit their three Game Cards in the Card Board Pockets. It's easy to see who has done their homework.

Place Cards hold WAY Cards and the 7 Games of WAY Cards. They are homemade with plastic and Bristol Board to receive 7. Look for Place Cards in the WAY Game videos. Once made, they last for years. Play with the construction and design.

Game Card Templates come in Pages, Word and PowerPoint formats. Download and save a master copy of Game Card Templates because students will use them weekly. Please do not move the position or size of the Templates because they won't print correctly. See the lessons on making Game Cards.

Print the 7 Games of WAY page on Card Stock because they are handled a lot. Choose two-sided printing. Cut the cards along the lines and place them randomly in the 7 Place Card pockets.

There are about 100 Pathfinder Clues. You can use a print version or use digital Notebook version. Print the cover page with the 12 clue pages, and use card stock paper and a shower curtain ring to bind them.

A Rubric is defined as a set of instructions or rules. Students use Rubrics to evaluate Game Cards. Once assessed, students keep a card, give the teacher a copy, and a random student gets the third copy. Three points are awarded for each of the 21 Questions and Activities on a Game Card. Q & A's are worth 63%, and 37% are awarded for Design.

The CAP Note Key is a reference to the symbols and abbreviations that are found on CAP Notes. The Rubric gives evaluators 12 points to consider for a value of 50%.

There are 9 Prizes: Bathroom Break. Choose & Give a Reward [ this acts as a wild card, you can turn it into any prize, but the catch is, you have to give it away]. Food Break, [you can eat in class], Sit By a Friend [ for a day, the student can move their desk right next to a friend], Best Chair for the Day, [I had a nice chair as a spare that was used for this purpose. Otherwise, the teacher has to give up their chair]. Late Pass for assignment. There are 3 Add 10% prizes. Ten percent can be applied to any test or assignment, not including government tests.

Homework is necessary, but only if it is meaningful. Please keep it simple; put parents and students in charge. In my class, homework was; to work on long-term projects, study for tests, make one set of Game Cards per week and work on areas that need work. I'd encourage parents and students to define areas of need, like more math; more writing stories; the choice is made based on defined goals and learning resources at hand. Students were provided with a time management sheet, a page protector and a non-permanent marker so that the sheet could be re-used weekly. Students would plot their outside commitments and when they planned to work on using abbreviations like ST study for the test or GC = Make Game Cards. Students can make their own words and symbols to plan their activities.

Except in rare cases, I would always use WAY Cards to determine where students sit. Using a class set of WAY Cards, you shuffle and draw the first card; that's where the student sits. Continue drawing cards and moving students. I would do a new seating arrangement once a term. And so nobody is stuck in the back, we rotate desks once a week, so everyone moves up a space, and the front person goes to the back row. This is fair. Do away with teacher-determined seating plans set in stone. I like a traditional arrangement for desks, all facing the SMART Board.

Widgets = Timer, Spinners, Dice, Weekly WAY Games, Game Selection Tool, Clue selection Tool, Student Selection, Scoring, CAP Note Templates,

Entrepreneurial Project-Based Learning. Let's encourage teachers to have a year-long project that students can learn from and look forward to. Students learn to run a small business or put on a show. Proceeds go to the class in the form of school supplies, WAY Game Prizes, Parent Volunteer Gifts, and a raise for the teacher. Teacherpreneuring is completely optional. Projects can be run by teachers, or why not have a small group of parent volunteers to help run the business?

As I am new to all of this, my primary means of teaching will be virtual. I envision office hours for Q&A's. Go to the About Page for more information. What are your needs?

SWAY offers 5 models of improved communication:

1 Rebrand homework to Game Prep Time.

2 Daily student CAP Notes 'reports.'

3 Daily Board Notes. [Class Website]

4 Weekly Game Cards.

5 Annual Pathfinders [Student Learning Profiles]

6 Parents are invited into class to watch the WAY Game.

Teachers want to invite parents into the learning process to see what happens in class because we have their children—improving school-to-home heads off problems of not knowing what to do, leading to frustration and failure. Having a class website, posting test reviews, project due dates, events, and the like is available to parents 24/7. Daily CAP Notes report student focus and activities. Weekly Game Cards are another way to check in on student progress. Your class will be more transparent to your administration.