ClassDojo has changed the way I look at positive reinforcement! During my first year of teaching, I learned pretty
fast that praising the behaviors you want will make them happen more often. I love the power of praising all students that are doing something right so that all others will want to be doing the same. Last year, I would go around the classroom multiple times a day giving out tickets. Every time a student got 10 tickets, they could trade it for a prize, or save it for bigger prizes.
For my second year, I went to Wal-Mart and bought a bunch of red tickets to give out. However, my students this year were not getting any motivation from those tickets! I noticed that most of the time I would pull tickets out and try to go around the room silently praising students, most students would be oblivious to the cue.
As I thought about the different learners I have this year, I realized that what worked from my group of students last year would not work for my students this year. I then started looking for other classroom management ideas. I found many good ideas, but I was having a hard time finding something that would be visual enough for my students to notice when I was praising someone. I then came across this awesome
video by Joshua Dumas, which showed how ClassDojo can be hooked up to the projector, giving a huge display of students' points for my visual leaners. As I started looking into it, I found more and more good things about
ClassDojo. I loved the idea that you can be very specific with your positive praises as mentioned by Flapjack Education Resources on "
Fifteen Ways to Give Positive ClassDojo".
I also wanted my students to be setting behavior goals and achieving them. I decided that each day that my students got 10 or more points, they would get a check on their tracker (you can get a
Dojo Points Tracker here).
Once they had a few checks, they would earn a karate belt to put on their ClassDojo monsters.
We have had a lot of fun with these and my students have been working really hard to become Dojo ninjas!
More next time!
Amanda Maliwauki
I printed all 220 Dolch Words on colored paper and taped it to my classroom ceiling. It not only looks beautiful, but it also helps my students learn to their level!
