Class Dojo - GROUPS!

I am so excited that ClassDojo has just launched one of the most anticipated updates...groups! So many Dojo teachers have begged for this feature and it's out...now...today! And perfect timing for me because we just started school yesterday (it was a great first day, thanks for asking).

I haven't introduced ClassDojo to my new class yet, although some had it a bit with their fourth grade teachers. The group feature is definitely a game changer and it's so easy to use.  There are now two buttons at the top: students and groups. Just click the group button and add your groups in. You can use group names or numbers - whatever you use in class. Then you just add the student to the groups they are in and wah-lah - you're read to award group points.

I especially love the group view because it has all the little monsters that belong in each group!

When you award a group all group members will pop up as you award them. You don't need to click on the students in the group, they are automatically selected. 

Award away! Give some positive feedback to your amazing group!

Now each person in the group has a point and it will show up in their individual total. Easy peasy Dojo squeezy. Thank you ClassDojo! I already love the new feature!

And of course you can use groups in the slick app too!

Next school year, I am definitely going to . . .

I've been following Kim at Finding JOY in 6th Grade since I started this blog last summer and I am so excited to participate in her first linky party - What will YOU do differently? I'm also excited because this is something that I do every year anyway. It seems like once state testing is over my mind starts to think about all the end-of-the-year tasks to complete as well as all the changes that need to be made for the next year. I've always got a post-it with ideas jotted down or a list going on the computer.

Some of the items are small, for example, I need to buy some screw eyes (you know those screws that have a loop on the end) to install in my window area for hanging student work. And some are a bit heftier, like being a team leader! Two of our amazing 5th grade teachers (half our team) are transferring to another school in the district so I have been asked to be team leader next year and not only will I be a first time team leader, but I'll have two new (to the district and grade-level) teachers to help.

Here are some of the other big items on my list for next year.....

Have you ever tried out something that you saw online or heard of from a colleague and it just didn't work for you and your style? This has not been the case with Class Dojo and Class-Yes. I tried both of these strategies out in the the last quarter of school and I am glad that I didn't wait until next year because they have both STUCK. Both have worked wonders for my chatty, too-often-off-task class, and I will DEFINITELY be using them next school year.

In the 5 years that I have been using a classroom economy system it has evolved and improved each year. But it is still far from perfect. I still haven't figured out what changes I am going to make yet, but I need the system to be more streamlined and take less class time. My bankers had been using Google Docs (now Drive) to manage bank accounts, but something happened with our district's filter (?) and suddenly Google was unavailable to the students. So my bankers had to use my computer, which you can imagine was a pain. I recently stumbled upon mykidsbank.org. I set up an account and toured through it a bit and it looks like a great alternative. Each student has their own account, but I can also create teller accounts so that my bankers are able to enter checks. I also love the bank note generator. They can be created to have any amount of money and each have a one-time-use code. I will DEFINITELY be using this site as part of my classroom economy improvements.

Marzano is the new model that our district has adopted for teacher evaluation and the buzz for next year is to include more student data tracking. This is great, because I had already been planning on making this happen in my classroom. I've seen several great resources online and on TpT and I will DEFINITELY be investigating them and planning a system for my new 5th grade class.

Eeks! One of the challenges of moving to a new grade level (even though it isn't entirely new, it's just been a few years), is the different topics, especially in social studies and science. I relied on my new team to give me the lessons/activities they had done in the past, and to make sure we stayed on track. But that fell through the cracks, especially in social studies. Prepping for JA BizTown took a lot of instructional time as well, and that set us back. We should have covered American History starting with the first people and ending with the Civil War. Instead my class ended with the American Revolution. We never got to Westward Expansion and the Civil War. We will DEFINITELY be covering everything next year!

Thanks for the awesome linky Kim!

Class Dojo Update

It's been just over two weeks since I started using Class Dojo with my class and I am LOVING it! I am having trouble finding the words to express how wonderful a tool it really is, but I'll try.

• At first the students would look at the screen every time they heard the sounds of class points that were given, it was a bit of a distraction, but now some may glance, but they immediately return to their work. 
• I've tied it in to my classroom economy. Prior to Class Dojo students would receive fines for a variety of reasons, now I just award a negative "bubble". With my previous system students had to pay for the fines they received, with Class Dojo I am giving them the ability to get rid of the fines by earned positive "bubbles". At the end of the day any negatives result in fines. This has been stellar for my struggling students - I think they think of it like video game achievements - they want to earn more! 
• The data tracking tools are wonderful! At the end of the day students look at "bubbles" earned as well as the percent of positive behavior for the day. I show them their previous day's "bubbles" at the start of each day so that they can make a goal for the new day. Then I reset the "bubbles" for the new day. 
• We've been using the trendspotter tools to track the behavior of the entire class too - there has been a lot of talk of teamwork and I've been giving teamwork points to the whole class as well. 

Last week our behavior was improving everyday and Wednesday was one of the most productive days of the year! And then in went south. I think they were a bit burnt out on some of the big projects we had been working on, and by Friday we had a sad 69% positive. 

At the start of this past week I showed the class the trendspotter graph and we talked about how we could work together to how improvement. I had to explain to them a few times that each negative "bubble" brought the whole class percent down. This strategy paid off...look at how they did this week...

We improved every single day and finished the week with an amazing 92% positive! The students were all very proud (their teacher was too)!

I'm still piloting Class Dojo (and will be for the last 7 days of school!!!!!) but at this point I am certain I will be using it again next year. It has been easier for me (I love being able to use it on my phone too) and has had wonderful results.

Class Dojo - Tried It Tuesday {on Thursday}

I've been "hearing" about Class Dojo, a free behavior management tool, through Pinterest and kind of filed that into a far away corner of my stuffed brain. Last night I stumbled on it again and decided to check it out. I just wanted to know what it was all about, I wasn't expecting to immediately sign up for it and try it out today! Class Dojo is probably old news to a lot of you, but it was so fun and worked really well!

It took only about 20 minutes for me to understand how it works and get my class set up. Basically you can set up a class with student avatars. You can give positive awards and negative awards for different behaviors. Class Dojo keeps track of how many each student earns or loses during the school day and then tracks the data. This data can be shared with students and parents! The dojo can be displayed and teachers can connect with their mobile device (Android or Apple) to remotely give awards. So not only does that allow teachers to move about the room and give awards, but they can be given outside of the classroom, like in specials or at recess.

This morning I didn't tell my class what it was, they just suddenly saw monsters on the board with their student numbers (I used student numbers instead of names because of FERPA privacy). Several students walked up to the board to get a closer look. As they were up there discussing what it was I began to give "awards" to those students who stayed in their seats and were on task. I did this from the opposite end of the room with my phone. Suddenly they began to hearing the dinging and see the message on the board that someone had gotten an award for being on task. The lightbulbs went off and those at the board realized that there were not on task and went straight to their seats and got started.

This continued further into the morning as students continued to work hard and hear dings as students received awards. The first negative award came and they quickly realized what the new buzz sound was. I refused to answer their questions and asked them to wait a bit until I explained what it was (I was already hearing students discuss the avatars). Finally I showed them the student video and gave them a quick overview of what I was doing. Basically I told them that it was something I had heard about and wanted to try out in class. If it worked with them in the final weeks of school I may use it for all of next year. And, I explained that they could get to customize their avatar. I sent home the student codes and within an hour of school being out I already noticed that many students had logged in and changed their avatar!

At first thought I figured that it would be a lot of work and a bit cumbersome. I was so wrong! I was having just as much fun as the kids! I wanted to give those awards often! Sometimes I gave the awards straight from the computer (I don't have a smartboard) and sometimes I used my phone (while I was around the room). The most exciting part of today was the amount of work my students accomplished and the comments about how the day went quickly yet they felt like they go so much done! Guess which teacher will be using Class Dojo again tomorrow? Who else is using Class Dojo? Tips? Advice? Hated it? Loved it?

I hope FourthGradeFlipper allows me to post this as my Tried it Tuesday Thursday! Class Dojo seems to be gaining popularity this week! Go check out the other Class Dojo posts!