Hi, I’m
Stacy from over at Funky Fresh Firsties {Hi, Stacy!} and I am so thrilled to have
the chance to be a guest blogger while Rachel is away! I wanted to do my post on a behavior management
tool that I've used for 2 years now. I
have used Class Dojo in my 4th grade classroom as well as this year
in 1st grade. The results in
both settings have been AMAZING to watch.
Class
Dojo is a web based classroom behavior management tool. Teachers can sign up for a free account {who
doesn’t love free, right?} and get started the very same day. Once you have signed up for your account, you
will load the students’ names online.
Each child will be assigned an avatar (monster themed) OR you now
have the option to upload a picture or other icons for each child. My kids really like the monster avatars so I
left them, but I have a co-worker who uploaded pics of the kids and that has
really worked well for her!
The basic
premise is that you can reward students’ good behavior by giving them points. You can give them points for very specific
behaviors that you (see the pic below).
Their points accumulate for as long as you like. I let my points accumulate for the week and
then the children with the most points on Friday get first pick for fun Friday
centers. They go all kinds of CRAZY to
try to earn those points to get first pick.
Who knew?!?!! If you choose, you
can also dock students for negative behaviors.
Some teachers do positive and negative… some only want to record the
positive.
I
believe that the Class Dojo works so well in my classroom because I have a SMART
Board that all of the children can see and the impact is immediate. I turn the sound on high. When I reward a student with a point, their
name/avatar pops up on the screen showing WHY they earned the point!
WELL DONE, Ashauna!!! +1 for teamwork
When I
dock a student for a negative behavior, their name pops up on the screen and the
speakers do a low sounding BONG! These
sounds are a HUGE motivator in my classroom!
A cool feature of this program is the app that I can run on my
iPhone. I usually have my phone with me
and I can give/take points using the app.
I really like to pick out one or two students who are doing a great job
during small groups and give them points.
The loud DING gets everyone’s attention.
Everyone gets a little more focused knowing that I am awarding
points.
With
accountability being such a huge issue in the classroom, this program helps
communication with parents (you can email them a student report OR print a
report and send it home). It also helps
when tracking student behaviors for discipline referrals, etc.
Overall,
using Class Dojo is a huge benefit in my classroom. The kids really like getting rewarded
publicly and I like the ease of the program.
I hope that you will give it a try… I know you will love it, too! Please stop by sometime and visit me. You can find me at Funky Fresh Firsties.
-Stacy
3 comments:
I have been curious about this tool and now I am ready to give it a try! Thanks for the great post!
Growing Firsties is giving away Erin Condren and LOTS more!
My colleagues at my old school, that I worked at before I moved, are raving about this. It is an urban school and we have had behaviour issues for a long time. This is the first year they are using it and they love it. The principal is a close friend of mine (we were teaching on the same team her last few years as a classroom teacher) and she has told me it has turned around the school and office referrals are way down. If I wind up teaching in a classroom next year, instead of subbing, I plan on giving this a try.
I like Class Dojo, my kiddos love the idea of having their own monster and I like having it as an app for my iPad. Another classroom management app that I've used that is very good is Teacher Asst. Pro. This is good for multiple classes and will keep a record of who did what when and you can email parents a copy of reports easily. I use it as a way of keeping track of positive and negative behaviors and assigning a point (both negative and positive) value to common behaviors. At the end of the week I look at the totals and give students their weekly "paychecks" based on how many points they have accumilated. I like how I can visually see who has had a lot of negative focus and might need more positive focus.
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