Class Dojo was the only way I could get them to understand their behaviors and not blame adults and act out more. The started tracking their own behavior and saw the clear connections. The clips the cards, the names on the board nothing worked like the lovely little Class Dojo sound for a positive reward.
I also used other strategies from Whole Brain Teaching and Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov. We instituted Class Yes. The choral response was a great consistent tool.
We started to try to beat the clock or in my class because I likey the music we would beat the song . I selected " Everybody Wants to be loved" Ingrid Michaelson song.
I just loved seeing the boy labeled a bully sing this sweet tune as he packed up his Readers Notebook. Everytime I hear this song I still think of this group of kiddos.
Next, I used Phonevite paired with Class Dojo.
The kids set a daily goal. Yes, daily because that is what they needed. I would call every student every day using Phonevite, with a positive pre recorded message " Yay, you met your goal" or a different positive pre recorded message" Bummer, you did not meet your goal today. Make a plan with your family of how you will be able to meet the goal tomorrow." Then plans and parents flooded my classroom. They loved it and the kids knew everyday before we were dismissed I would check Class Dojo and set up the phone calls to be made in Phonevite. Everyone was getting a call either way. The parents were expecting it. They would begin to monitor and correct behaviors throughout the day if they knew the day was off to a bad start.
Things started to change and this was a class that I really enjoyed and was sad to see go by the end of the year. Some of the plans were, you will have a goal every 30 min to earn 0 negative dojo points and 1 positive dojo point. That's when the ipad and multiple alarms with different sounds came in handy. Each of the kids with the short term goals knew their sound and knew I would be checking in on them when that sound went off as well the rest of the class would check in with them and soon the other students were cheering them on. They were getting their MOJO. No they certainly were not the highest scoring class but they had grown in behaviors and academics some kids doubled their test scores from previous years, some tripled it. AMAZING group!
Well, Well, Well, the folks at Class Dojo are much smarter than me and they took this one step better and now Class Dojo can be linked to texts. What you talkin bout Willis?
You can do a few amazing things;
1. Send out text blasts ( similar to what I was doing with
2. Send private text with parents and leave those open for parent responses.
3. Send out private texts to parents and just leave it so you know they read it. They are properly called; read receipts.
Their info graphic is much prettier than mine:
Oh YES! and do not forget it works for both the iphone (itunes store) people and the little green Robot folks as well (Android) I am new to iphone so I love both. Green robots! Hmmmm! MOJO is this maybe shall I quote the movie Star Wars; "I am your father MOJO."says Android. Maybe IDK, I see a resemblance.
I am in love with these new features. I am an Teacher on Assignment this year and I have been trying to find ways to use it for my new role. Sometimes I model lessons and sometimes I just release teachers. If you have any great ideas I would love to hear them.
P.S. MOJO is much cuter than Android.
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