Dojo

So recently I heard about a site called class dojo. Actually it's thanks to Alissa at Frolicking into First Grade that I even heard about it. HOWEVER, I am in love. I've used it for three days now an it has totally transformed my once unruly class. Okay, they aren't totally transformed, but kids who never seemed to by into any previous behavior management system are buying into this, and really trying to do the right thing.

Basically you input students names and make a list of both positive and negative behaviors.

Here's my class on their third day of using this system. You can take  away and add points based on pre-determined behaviors. Here's mine.

I have to be very specific with my kids or it doesn't work for us. You can add as many positive/negative behaviors as you wish.

How I've been using this system goes as follows. I take a time that was typically noisy for us. For instance cleaning and lining up. When I see someone doing the the right thing I add their name, within seconds everyone else sees their name up on the board and starts doing the right thing too. Within minutes I have a clean classroom and a straight line of quiet kids. I have one kid who I swear has never willingly picked up a piece of trash in his life, moving around the room picking up everything is sight. 

There are a few other cool features I want to highlight

1. It dings whenever I add a positive point. When the kids hear that ring the automatically look up to see who got a point and look to see if they can earn one too. 

2. It has cool graphs. 

This chart measures the amount of positive vs. Negative points. There is a class graph and individual student graphs.  The kids are OBSESSED with seeing our reports. They are always trying to figure out what our percentage is going to be, and thinking about how many positivie points it will take for us to get the negative percentage down. (I have some real math brains in my class) 

3. You can email reports to the parents weekly, monthly or whenever you see fit. 

4. You can use your smart phone as a remote. So even if we are somewhere else I can add/take away points. 

I am in love with this thing, and so are the kids. The little monster avatars are a huge by-in for them and they love to get points. You can tie in your own rewards if you would like, and it looks like rewards built into the site are going to be a new feature. Currently I offer 1 raffle ticket for every two points. I have a few items I am raffling off at the end of the year and the kids get to decide where they would like to place their raffle tickets. It's a perfect tie in to our math curriculum as we are studying probability and chance. 

Next year I think I'm going to say a certain amount of points equal a trip to the coupon box. The coupons will be for things like, sitting at my desk for a day, use the kindle during silent reading, 10 minutes of extra computer time etc. 

Every month I think I will start over. The kids have noticed that one you get a single negative point taken away. You can never have a 100% report card. I have some kids for who that is a big concern of theirs. Starting the points over every month allows them to have a fresh start. 

So if you have a projector/smart board in your class room and you are in the market for a new behavior management system, check this one out. It is super simple to set up and use, which helps me be more consistent which is a must with any system.