How Attendance Brackets Can Boost Student Engagement

What are Attendance Brackets?

An attendance bracket is a daily vote that students participate in to find the best of something. For example, in September, my students participated in the “Battle of the Candy” where they determined which was the best candy! I got this idea from Rachel (@hashtagsinhistory_) on Instagram! When I saw it, I knew I needed to incorporate it in my classroom.

Every month my students vote on a different topic or answer a different question. This is the line up for this year:

September – Battle of the Candy
October – Video Game Showdown
November – Pie Picking Time
December – Best Time of the Year
January – MARVEL Heroes
February – Disney Villains
March – Fast Food Places
April – Pixar Movies
May – Ways to Eat Potatoes

My students have some say in the topic for each month. You can pick or have some student say. Whatever makes it easier for you.

Listen to the full episode to hear how I use attendance brackets to engage students.

How It Works

Then every day my students come to class and vote on the two of the day. I do this at the very beginning of class after we do our “greeting”. That way those who are present and punctual get to participate in the daily vote. It is a privilege to participate and that is why I do the bracket. It helps students be on time because they know that is the only way they get to have a say in the vote.

This is what my daily slides look like. That way when students get to class, they know what they are voting on. I like to add the pictures because I think it makes it more enticing than just the words.

I count the votes in two ways:

When I greet students at the door, I hand them a small piece of paper (like 1/24th of a full sheet). It asks them to put their name and vote on the paper. Then at the appropriate time, they get passed in and counted by a student.
I have some classes raise their hands to vote. After our greeting, I’ll ask students to think about who they want to vote for. Then I ask students to raise hands if they are voting for the first one. Record that number. Then they raise hands for the second one. Record that number.

And then whichever wins gets 1 overall point for the day. So each class has one collective vote based on the majority vote of the class. Because I teach 5 classes, it works out perfectly!

What if there’s a tie?

When there is a tie, I will add my vote to the class’s vote. But I will only do this once a day to make it fair. If I have already voted, I will have two students with opposing votes do a round of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Then that vote is the majority for that class.

Why does this Boost Engagement?

I know what you might be thinking: “This isn’t academically engaging!”

You’re right; it isn’t. BUT it gets students in the door and excited. I can’t begin to count the number of students who come into my classroom before school to check out what they get to vote on that day! Even students who I don’t have!

This gets my students excited to come to class to vote and see what will win. PLUS when students come in to my classroom before school, it gives me easy conversation starters to better build relationships with them. I remember some very in-depth analysis and conversations my 3rd period class had about why Thor was better than Iron Man.

Those relationship pieces are something that not only bonds me with my students, but helps them become a closer-knit community. Those things ultimately boost engagement.

How to set up an Attendance Bracket

1. Choose the Topic

The way I set up an attendance bracket is first I choose the topic. Like I mentioned earlier, I have some student input. I give them three options and they choose from that list.

2. Fill in the Bracket

After the topic is chosen, I figure out how many school days we will have in the upcoming month. You don’t have to do it this way, but I like the “hard” deadlines and fresh starts each month.

For example, in September, we had 19 days of school. So I made a bracket that would take 19 votes. I created a bracket that had that number of votes and it turned out that meant I needed 18 items to vote on. You can see a picture of the brackets I have done below.

Once I have those numbers, I google the top 18 candies or superheroes. Those become my votes for the month. I get nerdy with it and put those votes in a Google Sheets and sort them with the Randomizer. That way the votes are random and not biased by me.

Ideas for Voting Topics

Here are pictures of some of the attendance brackets I have done this year.

Don't have time to make your own?

No worries! I’ve got you covered with these fully editable bell ringer attendance brackets.

These bell ringer attendance brackets are the perfect way to get your students excited to start class! With these 12 pre-planned brackets, implementing attendance brackets will be a breeze.