During my holiday break, yes I rested, but I rested so much I found myself venturing over into Pinterestland. That blackhole of teacher crafting & time wasting, I love it.
While I was enjoying my time there in Pinterest, it's never boring, nev-ur. I came across an link for this mystery Class Dojo app. So as always I went fishing....Oh My Gawd!!!
I came into this year using my same behavior checklist sheet & had last year. Basically an excel file with a column for my students' names, praise/sticker column, warning column & a place for me to make notes. It served my class last year pretty well especially when I was keeping track of my kids' behaviors, or when I had to call parents for whatever reason.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I started using my checklist with my class this year. It was working pretty decent. After so many weeks I hand off the checklist to a line/class monitor as one of my class jobs. Toward the end of the 1st semester the checklist wasn't being as effective as before. I was going to continue using it after the break. Most kids rest & get that break & come back in January refreshed.
Enter Class Dojo. I devoured all the information on their about, love, share, & stories. I immediately signed up for an account, uploaded my kids, installed the app on my phone.
Before I even began using it & figuring out how I was even going to use this & flesh it out for my classroom I was already downloading the videos to share with my coworkers.
Then I realized I need to figure out how exactly this is gonna work in my room with my group of kids the rest of this year. In addition to my behavior checklist each student had a sticker chart. They earned stickers for being on task, prepared, timely transitioning between subjects. For each completed sticker chart students would earn tickets that could be traded in for prizes, rewards, etc.
As I use Class Dojo, the kids are earning points for the same things they were getting rewarded for before. I imputed my class behaviors & expectations to their already decent list of basics in each category: positive & negative. Each day & week you can get reports & percentages of each student's behaviors. What I've decided to do is each week based on what their percentage is they can earn those same rewards from before without the tickets.
Class Dojo even tracks how the whole class does each day/week. I'm going to give the whole class a reward, like maybe extra recess, which they always want :)
Go check it out & save on paper checklists, behavior charts & stickers, put that $2.99 back in your wallet!
