Classroom Management

App: ClassDojo

Knowledge: Class Dojo is a classroom management app that fosters positive student behavior and classroom culture. Behaviorally speaking, each student has a monster in which they can earn or lose points based on classroom behavior. The teacher can decide whether or not they want this information shared with the parents with or without the addition of detailed notes. Class Dojo provides a forum to keep parents up to date with the progress of their child and the happenings of the classroom. The app provides the teacher with a tool kit of tools that can aid in the management of their classroom, such as a timer, music, noise meter, group maker, message board, random participant chooser, and attendance. This app is free to all users.

Monsters and their behavior points.

Positive Behavior Awards

Capability to add personalized behavior skills and their point value.

Create activities for students to respond to.

Tool Kit

Parent Communication

Application: Class Dojo would certainly be helpful in my classroom with certain modifications. I think the students would have a difficult time understanding the use of the monsters, and personally as a teacher I don't like to display the behaviors of all children for everyone to see. I would likely use the behavior management tool as a way for me to document and keep track of behavior as well as a way to communicate student progress with parents. In a busy day it is hard to remember to tell parents about behavior issues during the commotion of pick-up, especially when the behavior occurred 5 hours ago. Class Dojo will allow me to document and track the behavior as well as communicate the behavior with the parents. Currently, parents receive weekly updates of classroom happenings in their email, and when there is time, pictures are posted to Facebook. Class Dojo would allow for me to to share all classroom information in one location. Many parents miss emails, delete emails, or find their emails in their junk folder. I believe the communication modalities of this app will hold parents accountable for reading information, as it is all in one place. Currently, our attendance is done with pen and paper and creates a mountain of paperwork. Class Dojo would allow me to take and track attendance without a paper trail. The tool kit will be helpful to play music and mindfulness videos in a pinch when a calming activity is needed to provide a brain break and refocus students. Students in my classroom are constantly asking "How much longer until...?" The timer tool will provide the students with a reference of time and will also keep me on track. There are many times we tell our students "5 more minutes", somehow that 5 minutes turns into 20 minutes, and your students have a skewed sense of time. Ultimately, the ability to do all of these classroom management tasks in one place will streamline a lot of the current management systems in my classroom, as well as document information needed for future reference.

Timer

Noise Meter

Music

Random participation selection tool.

Mindfulness Movement Activities

Yoga Movements

Reflection: While I find there to be many useful tools in the Class Dojo app, I do have some concerns. I think many of my concerns can be worked around with modifications from the intended use of the tools. Personally, I don't necessarily like to display individual behaviors or overly gratify behaviors that are expected. I try to gratify behaviors that encompass students going beyond their expected responsibilities. With that being said, I think it is a great way for the teacher to track and document behavior. I think it would be a great documentation to pull up during parent teacher conferences to show student behavior patterns over time. I also think it is a great tool for communicating behaviors to parents. My other concern is in regards to messaging parents through the app. A teacher is very busy throughout the day and has very little time to communicate with parents during the school day. I worry the text message style of messaging on this app will create an atmosphere in which parents think they will have instant responses. This could cause tension and become problematic. While keeping parents informed about student behaviors, I think behavioral conversations should take place in person. Sending a parent a message at 9am that their child is misbehaving at school is only going to put stress on the parent and also they are going to have a thousand questions. I think in-app communication in regards to behavior should be limited to positive notices. Positive notes at 9am will create smiles and will calm a parent. I think there needs to be very clear guidelines in regards to communication through the app, otherwise teachers will never be able to put the device down. I think it would be helpful to distinguish a block of time that teachers will respond to messages with the exception of time sensitive dilemmas. Despite these concerns I do find Class Dojo to be an all encompassing classroom management tool that would streamline many of the current management systems currently used in my classroom.