Behavior Savior

Anyone have a hard time with behavior in the classroom? Fear no more...Class Dojo is your answer!

Class Dojo is a realtime behavior management program.  With Dojo, you can keep track of students' positive and negative behavior and the best part is students are able to see it as it happens.  One of my fellow teachers introduced this site to me and I am in love with it.  It's really simple to set up, too!  Simply go to www.classdojo.com and follow the site directions to create a class.  This site is awesome because more than one teacher can be logged into a class at once so behavior can be tracked throughout the day.  Class Dojo also works on iPads and Smart phones, so you can keep track of student behavior as you travel through the school building. 

Step 1: Create a class.  You can type in student names and create an avatar for them.  This is how your class will look once you've created it.  The site also has a demo class so you can practice the features and see how everything works before creating your own class.

Step 2: Set up behaviors.  The site has a pre-made set of behaviors you can use or you can create your own.  You can change the icon and the name to match the positive or negative behavior you want. 

Step 3: Start a class.  Once you've customized your class and behavior options, you select "start a class."  This begins the realtime behavior management.  Simply click on a student's name and award them the appropriate behavior.  Once you award the behavior, a bell sounds and a banner comes across the bottom of the screen announcing the student name & behavior point given.  

After you award the point, the screen keeps track of student points so students can see their behavior in live time.  

At the end of a day, you can "end class."  After ending the class, you can get a graph of overall performance of the class.  This chart shows how the class behaved throughout the day.  It gives a visual and also lists the behaviors that were observed.  You can also click on each individual student and get a report of their behavior throughout the day.  

With Class Dojo you are also able to download or e-mail the PDF files of the behavior charts.  This is awesome because you can simply attach it to an e-mail or print it out and send it home to parents.  Parents can easily see the breakdown of their child's behavior throughout the day.  

Some of the teachers in my building began using this and it's amazing to see how it has helped the behavior.  The kids are constantly looking up to the SmartBoard to see their point values.  Traveling in the hallway is  no longer like a circus.  One teacher carries her iPad with her and the kids know that if they are rowdy in the hallway they'll lose points so they are quiet.  It is a wonderful tool to use to monitor behavior within the classroom.  And I forgot one of the best parts of this....IT'S FREE!