Blog #7: Classroom Dojo

 

Dojo

    I learned about this technology from my mentor teacher in my practicum who uses it multiple times throughout the day in various ways. Class Dojo is a site that allows teachers to connect with students and parents to build positive classroom communities. It is one of the most versatile tools I have used and makes communicating with parents direct and easy, provides classroom management tools, and contains resources that make teaching easier. 

Versatility/ Experience

    One of the most common reasons teachers use this free and very easy-to-use tool is to have direct, quick, and simple communication with each parent. The site can be pulled up on the teacher's account and shows every single parent under “contacts” and throughout the day, teachers can click their name and send them a message about anything and can have a conversation about anything. Parents have to create an account in the beginning of the year and can download it on their phone to basically replicate the convenience and speed of text messaging. My mentor teacher uses this tool religiously and is constantly communicating with parents about if their student has had a good day or bad day, provides encouraging notes from their child, any questions, and can be used for setting up meeting times as well. 

    Another use of this tool is for classroom management. Each student can create their own monster icon and the teacher can have all of their students’ monsters and name shown on the main screen along with a bubble near their name with a number in it. Class dojo has a setting where throughout the day, teachers can select premade options like “kindness” or “good listener” that can give them points or options like “blurt out” or “distracting class” that takes away points. My teacher uses this and it immediately reminds the students to behave because they can see how many points they have. We have certain prizes that can be received as long as students have that many points and every month have the opportunity to spend or save them. This immediately notifies the parent every time their child receives or gets points taken away (unless the parents silents their notifications). 

    Dojo also has a variety of tools that can make teaching lessons efficient and easy. It has tools like a timer, random grouping, can choose random students, plays background music, and monitors noise level. Dojo also has portfolio templates for the students to work on for any topic. My mentor teacher has recently had the students take advantage of this tool to create a portfolio of their learning to present during their student-led conferences at the end of the month. Dojo also contains a significant amount of small lessons that can be used for SEL or behavioral reasons. For example, we used a video that was interactive about “The Learning Pit” and “Kindness” when we were talking about those two subjects (at different times) in our morning meetings. Students were more engaged and listened very well when we played these videos.

Communication to Course/ Likelihood of Using in the Future

    Overall, this tool a highly effective and helpful in teaching. I plan to use it in most of the ways I have listed that my mentor uses it because I have seen the success with my own eyes. This site connects perfectly with the Communication piece of the TLC framework. Class Dojo makes it so simple and easy to communicate with parents throughout the day and provides clarity to the parents about how their student is behaving, based on the point system.

Sites used: ClassDojo