Personal Experience with Discipline Procedures
Wanting to be a First Grade teacher, I feel as if this app will be a big help. I have had the amazing opportunity to be able to observe classrooms throughout my college experience. One of my favorite classes and teachers that I have observed used an app called "ClassDojo." At first I was extremely curious, because in a way "ClassDojo" sounds like a "ClassDummy" but it is not that way at all. Oh, was I wrong. ClassDojo is a interactive points system.
I can remember when I was in First grade and we had a system called "Pin It." My teacher had a long piece of felt material hanging on the wall. She painted the felt piece in three colors; green was painted on the top third of the felt, yellow was painted on the second third of the felt piece, and red was at the very bottom of the felt piece. Each colored part of the felt piece had words that my teacher had written on there; on the green part it said, "Great Day", then on the yellow part it said, "Warning", and on the red part it said "Needs Work." My teacher then had each one of her students names written on a clothes pin. At the start of every morning, all our clothes pins started clipped to the green part of the felt piece. As the day progressed if one of my peers got in trouble, maybe talking back, not listening, cutting in line, throwing food, or putting hands on someone else, they had to go up to the felt piece hanging on the wall and move their clothes pin to the yellow part. That was just the way my teacher dealt with class management.
I can remember when I was in First grade and we had a system called "Pin It." My teacher had a long piece of felt material hanging on the wall. She painted the felt piece in three colors; green was painted on the top third of the felt, yellow was painted on the second third of the felt piece, and red was at the very bottom of the felt piece. Each colored part of the felt piece had words that my teacher had written on there; on the green part it said, "Great Day", then on the yellow part it said, "Warning", and on the red part it said "Needs Work." My teacher then had each one of her students names written on a clothes pin. At the start of every morning, all our clothes pins started clipped to the green part of the felt piece. As the day progressed if one of my peers got in trouble, maybe talking back, not listening, cutting in line, throwing food, or putting hands on someone else, they had to go up to the felt piece hanging on the wall and move their clothes pin to the yellow part. That was just the way my teacher dealt with class management.
Introduction to ClassDojo
Classroom management will always be a tricky part in being a teacher. With this app, it is fun and interactive for all ages of students that you may teach. This app is a way to keep all students on the right track. On the app you make your classroom, which means you get to name your classroom, put all your students in the class, you can either upload a picture of them or use the little monster creatures they give you.In the picture to the left I have created my own classroom, with all of my students names and their own little monster to match their personality. You may have the ClassDojo app on your computer, iPad, iPhone, or any other smart phone device. This app encourages your students to be on their best behavior in
order to earn "dojo points." To earn dojo points they must be kind, listen, share, and you may add any type of positive feedback to earning dojo points. While they have a chance to earn dojo points they also have the opportunity to lose points. They may lose points for not listening, not following instructions, touching their friends, etc. With this app you may also be able to set up goals for each individual student, and also goals as a whole for the class. In the picture to the right you may see the first white box says "Class" and it has all the students points added together to make a whole. By doing this you may say at the beginning of the week, month , or even school year what the goal is, or how many points you would like for the class to earn and have a party planned or a field trip planned if they exceed the goal.
How to set up an Account:
Here is how to set up your ClassDojo account:
Classroom management will always be a tricky part in being a teacher. With this app, it is fun and interactive for all ages of students that you may teach. This app is a way to keep all students on the right track. On the app you make your classroom, which means you get to name your classroom, put all your students in the class, you can either upload a picture of them or use the little monster creatures they give you.In the picture to the left I have created my own classroom, with all of my students names and their own little monster to match their personality. You may have the ClassDojo app on your computer, iPad, iPhone, or any other smart phone device. This app encourages your students to be on their best behavior in
How to set up an Account:
Here is how to set up your ClassDojo account:
- Go to the App Store on any Apple device or smart phone app store.
- Type in "ClassDojo"
- Click on create an account; when you do this the app will then ask you to create an account as a teacher, parent, student or school leader. Go ahead and click on educator because you are an educator and this is for your classroom use only.
- Next you will get to add all of your students first and last names. You must add their first and last names so that if for example you have two girls named Brittany the app will show their last names as well.
Teachers feedback on ClassDojoHere are some thoughts on how teachers feel about ClassDojo in their own personal classrooms. Here is a wonderful article on how to use ClassDojo Effectively in the classroom. Most teachers that I have talked to love the fact that they can easily discipline their students without the harsh term of writing their names on the board or moving their clothes pin, but in fact they can just pull their phone up and give the student a "positive feedback" point, or "needs improvement" point. As you can see in the two pictures on the right and left that I have made my own "positive" and "negative" points. I can give these points to either one particular student or all my students as a whole. Having this convenience of having my whole class system in my phone brings such relief. I do not have to keep up with scrap papers with all the "positive points" for my students and "negative feedback" points on another piece of paper.
What I think?
As you can tell I have a many positive things to say about ClassDojo, because I really think teachers will get so much use out of the app, and it relieves much stress off of the teachers shoulders which makes it even more important. At the same time I do have found one flaw in the app. For example when a parent/guardian looks on their child's progress they can see ever child in the classrooms progress, which I do not like at all. I feel like it is a privacy thing, and I wish the app only allowed that parent/guardian to only see his or her child progress. With that being said I think that is the only problem I have with the app.
Overall, I think ClassDojo is an extremely useful tool in any classroom. With that being said, it does not just have to be used in a school classroom, it could be used for a sports team, a Sunday school classroom, for your own personal children at home to earn prices. It gives you and your students a way on bonding and they can feel comfortable in your classroom, because no matter what your classroom should be a safe zone for all children, and they should feel comfortable with you and feel confident in you as their educator. And also using this app it should give you the confidence to be the best teacher you can be and want to help your students and make them the best possible people they can be in life.
References:
@. (n.d.). Idea Board | ClassDojo. Retrieved September 05, 2016, from https://www.classdojo.com/ideaboard/#getting-started
Trio, T. (2015, September 10). Using ClassDojo Effectively. Retrieved September 05, 2016, from http://teachingtrio.blogspot.com/2015/09/using-classdojo-effectively.html
