I posted a few days ago about the troubles I have had with my class this year. It seems no matter what I do, rewards or consequences, nothing works! You know it's bad when I asked my students to raise their hands if they have made it to every behavior reward party this year and a student asks, "What's that?" Funny, but sooo not funny! Someone named Kriss commented that they have started using a site called Class Dojo. I had never heard of it, so I decided to look into it a bit. Please keep in mind I am writing about this completely blind. I have not used this in the classroom yet, but I am planning to after break. Basically, you set up your class (or in my case, classes). Yes, I do get a little break in the afternoon when I get a new crop of students for reading class! After setting up your classes, you decide what positive and/or negative behaviors you want to track. The beautiful thing is that it can be displayed on the SmartBoard and you can work it from your iPad or Smart Phone. If a student is participating or helping out a classmate, or just doing what they are supposed to be doing, you can reward them points. If a student is being disrespectful or out of their seat, or not doing what they are supposed to be doing, you can take away points. I think I might start out focusing on the positive. But with this particular group of students, I might need to eventually do both. In my grade level, we use a checklist behavior management system, which I posted about here last year. The great thing about it is that it is portable and can move with my students to other classes. The downfall is that when students get checkmarks, it is not a visual reminder of their behavior (like the card system). Displaying Class Dojo on the SmartBoard would serve as a visual reminder to students.
Picture this: I'm sitting in small group during Daily 5 time. I have my iPad next to me. I notice two students reading the entire Daily 5 choice time. I can quickly award them points. A student I'm in group with has an interesting insight, I can award her a point. Another student decides to get up and start walking around the room. I take away a point from him. He sees on the SmartBoard that he has just lost a point. It quickly corrects his behavior and my group is not interrupted because I am doing everything from my iPad. Can you picture it? I can! I just hope it works the way I'm visualizing!
I am interested to see if anyone else has used or is currently using Class Dojo in their classrooms? If so, what do you like or dislike about it and what advice can you give?
Showing posts with label classroom management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classroom management. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Procedures, Procedures, Procedures...
As I'm very much looking forward to next school year, I am looking back at some of the main "issues" I had this year, and previous years. My biggest issue is teaching the students to be respectful of property. They also need to learn to be respectful of people, but that's another blog post!
Anyways, as most of all you fabulous teachers do, I spend a lot of my own money on materials in the classroom. I've bought hundreds of books, and lots of supplies: glue, pencils, colored pencils, crayons, markers, etc. The last two years, I had a check out system for my personal books. My students this year did not go along with the check out system, and honestly, I was beyond caring. If they are reading, and they need a book at home that bad, they can keep it. Next year, I'm not going to have a separate shelf for my books, I will just intermix them with all the others. So..not worried about that one.
Other supplies, though, I really wish they would care more to respect them. I bought letter stamps and stamp pads at the beginning of the year from Target. They were perfect for my word work station. I had to throw them out before the second semester because they were just a mess. Same thing with the play-dough.
I have a "Have a pencil, take a pencil" policy, where students turn in their pencil supplies at the beginning of the year and I keep them. The pencils are sharpened each night, and students pick up a pencil in the morning to use. If one breaks, they can pick a new one up out of the container. I've done this for three years, and this is way better than supplying students with pencils all the time. The only problem is that a lot of times, the pencils don't get returned at the end of the day, so there are none to sharpen in the morning. It is a "job" to collect pencils. I have to open new packs every day it seems. Needless to say, we were out of student-supplied pencils about two months ago. I bought 50 right before our OAAs and the school supplied us with 30, and I told my students I was done buying pencils for the year.
I also bought tote bags (like from Kroger & Walmart) this year for my students to use instead of book boxes. I was very clear from the beginning that the only things to be stored in their bags are their books, their binder, and their spiral notebook. The bags started falling apart before the end of the first nine weeks! I see students dragging them on the floor, stepping on other bags that have fallen off the chairs, etc.
I welcome any suggestions that will help me with the procedures so that my students will learn to respect the classroom supplies a little bit more. I'm sorry if this sounded more like a gripe than a blog post!
Anyways, as most of all you fabulous teachers do, I spend a lot of my own money on materials in the classroom. I've bought hundreds of books, and lots of supplies: glue, pencils, colored pencils, crayons, markers, etc. The last two years, I had a check out system for my personal books. My students this year did not go along with the check out system, and honestly, I was beyond caring. If they are reading, and they need a book at home that bad, they can keep it. Next year, I'm not going to have a separate shelf for my books, I will just intermix them with all the others. So..not worried about that one.
Other supplies, though, I really wish they would care more to respect them. I bought letter stamps and stamp pads at the beginning of the year from Target. They were perfect for my word work station. I had to throw them out before the second semester because they were just a mess. Same thing with the play-dough.
I have a "Have a pencil, take a pencil" policy, where students turn in their pencil supplies at the beginning of the year and I keep them. The pencils are sharpened each night, and students pick up a pencil in the morning to use. If one breaks, they can pick a new one up out of the container. I've done this for three years, and this is way better than supplying students with pencils all the time. The only problem is that a lot of times, the pencils don't get returned at the end of the day, so there are none to sharpen in the morning. It is a "job" to collect pencils. I have to open new packs every day it seems. Needless to say, we were out of student-supplied pencils about two months ago. I bought 50 right before our OAAs and the school supplied us with 30, and I told my students I was done buying pencils for the year.
I also bought tote bags (like from Kroger & Walmart) this year for my students to use instead of book boxes. I was very clear from the beginning that the only things to be stored in their bags are their books, their binder, and their spiral notebook. The bags started falling apart before the end of the first nine weeks! I see students dragging them on the floor, stepping on other bags that have fallen off the chairs, etc.
I welcome any suggestions that will help me with the procedures so that my students will learn to respect the classroom supplies a little bit more. I'm sorry if this sounded more like a gripe than a blog post!
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