ClassDojo
Classroom management made easy and FUN! Kids, parents, and teachers love it! ClassDojo is a tool that is used to reward good behavior. It can also be used to track bad behaviors as a means of collecting data for progress monitoring. Each student is given an avatar that they love to talk about and see on the screen of the computer or device. ClassDojo can be used on any smart device or computer. This app has MANY features- see below for some of the highlights:
Big Ideas- these are short videos that give the students ideas for managing emotions to help with behaviors in the classroom
Student Stories- like Instagram for the students to post their work and parents can see their work live through their app
Can change the behaviors to anything that you choose
Can create groups to record behaviors during small group teaching
Can record whole class behavior
Random selector can choose any student and you can reward the students if they are on task or record their behavior- has a fun sound that alerts the students that you are choosing at random
Creates reports for behavior which is especially helpful for progress monitoring
Resources to get started using the app on home screen
Easily message parents through app to avoid giving out your personal phone number
Toolkit on the app (soon to be on the computer) that gives you many tools right at your fingertips- one in particular is the group maker- it creates the groups for you, just tell how many students you want in each group or the number of groups you want total AND the noise meter- alerts you when the noise is too loud in the classroom
Attendance ensures that you do not give points to students that are not present in class today
Can set up multiple classes in case you need to progress monitor without the other students noticing
Add notes to parents about the points given to each child
Negatives: One negative that I have come across is that students can get tired of that form of classroom management. It requires that you change up the way you use it in the classroom. Below I have listed a few variations that I have seen or tried that you could try with your kiddos. There is so much to explore and learn about with this app which can get confusing. It is also a lot to keep track of in one app.
Classroom Ideas: (1) Classic way- Reward students throughout the school day for good behavior. Be sure to have your volume on so that the students can hear when you are rewarding students. (2) With school-wide incentives- Reward students throughout the day and a set number (2 or 3) of good behaviors results in a school-wide incentive. (3) Set a goal for the class. The goal only records the positive marks for the class. Have a whole class reward for each goal amount (50, 100, 150). Vary the time frame- start with 2 weeks and shorten the time to see if they can reach a goal within a day! It’s a challenge!
