Why Teachers Love ClassDojo for Classroom Management?

Bharti, B. (2014, June 8).  Why teachers love ClassDojo for classroom management?  
     EdTechReview.  Retrieved from http://edtechreview.in/trends-insights/insights/1261-
     why-teachers-love-lassdojo-for-classroom-management/

     The article “Why Teachers Love ClassDojo” gives a quick overview of what ClassDojo is and how it works.  ClassDojo is online classroom management tool for teachers to track student behavior.  Teachers set up an online classroom and assign each of their students an avatar.  Teachers can reinforce positive behavior by rewarding students points and/or deduct points for undesired behavior.  The students are notified why they were awarded or deducted a point. 

     The article then highlights 3 benefits of integrating ClassDojo into the classroom.

1.    Improve Behavior- According to the article, student behavior improves due to the motivation to earn points.  When a point is earned, they are informed the reason for their point.  Students enjoy being noticed and recognized by their teacher for positive behavior.    

2.    Save Time-  Instructional time increases because the program allows teachers the ability to track and record student behavior in quick manner.  Students also transition quicker because they are motivated to be recognized for being ready to learn and earn points.   

3.    Communicate with Parents -Teachers also have the opportunity to communicate student behavior with parents via ClassDojo.  Teachers have the option of printing students’ weekly report to send home and/or parents are able to signup to be able to login to ClassDojo to view their child’s data.    

     I like the idea of utilizing ClassDojo as a management tool for the classroom.  My school uses the “Nurtured Heart Approach” with our students.  This approach is all about making the students feel noticed and recognizing their greatnesses to build their inner-self.  ClassDojo would work well and compliment the Nurtured Heart Approach by focusing more so on rewarding points rather than taking points away.  In my classroom, I currently recognize students’ greatness through verbal praise and hand out tickets to students who are SOARing.  (Students who SOAR are : safe, on-time and ready, accountable, and respectful).  When students aren’t making good choices, they are given a verbal reminder of the appropriate behavior. The past couple years I have been using a green/ yellow/ red card system.  If the student continues the behavior after the verbal warning, the student then has to pull a card.  Using this system, the student’s visual of themselves is negative.  They now see that they are “yellow.”  Whereas, the ClassDojo display is of the times the student has been recognized in a positive light.  “I have 8 points. I want to get 12.” vs. “I am in the yellow.  That means I wasn’t making good choices.”