Creating a positive relationship with someone is a key way to become influential in that person's life. For teachers and students, a strong bond carries significant benefits for students, including better school adjustments and higher levels of academic achievement (Skipper & Douglas, 2015, p. 276). Children bring their own life experiences to bear on the classroom, however, and some connections can be harder to make than others. One thing I have found that cuts across differences to make relationship inroads: giving specific, positive feedback.
Feedback is well-documented for having a powerful influence on learning and achievement in the classroom (Skipper & Douglas, 2015, p. 277). But it can also communicate to your students that you care about them and are invested in their achievement. One tool that has been invaluable in maintaining my commitment to specific, positive feedback is Class Dojo, a classroom-communication app. It provides a quick and effective way to give positive feedback, while also helping establish my classroom as a community of learners that works toward shared values.
What Is Class Dojo?
Class Dojo is an online classroom-management system that helps teachers record and track student behavior over time while simultaneously giving the students and their parents instant feedback (Garcia & Hoang, 2015, p. 3). The app is designed to give teachers ways to help individual students, groups of students, and whole classrooms. The students in the classroom can also use Class Dojo to share their learning by creating videos and photos to add to their profiles. The teacher can use the app to communicate with parents through messaging as well as sharing photos and videos from classroom moments. The app provides the teacher with a platform that connects students and parents to create a positive classroom community.
How Does It Work?
Class Dojo is a quick and effective way to provide students with immediate feedback in the classroom. This app engages the three crucial stakeholders in successful education: the student, the teacher, and the parents. Each child in the classroom is given a "dojo" or monster that they can customize to look the way they prefer. Class Dojo works like a token system where students can earn or lose points for positive and negative behaviors that they demonstrate in the classroom. The teacher can customize feedback for any skill or value. For example, students could earn points for working hard, being kind, helping others, teamwork, and any other actions that she would like to recognize in her classroom. Another amazing feature of this app is that the teacher can quickly maintain a positive relationship with parents through the app's messaging and classroom story feature. Parents and teachers can message each other with praises, reminders, and questions or concerns about a specific student.
Tips for Using Class Dojo:
- Keep it positive: Remember to award mostly positive points to your students. I try to award five positive points per every one negative point. This will encourage them to "buy in" to the program and stay motivated to demonstrate positive behaviors in the classroom. I have used the app for four years, and on the days that I give out more positive points, my classroom environment is more productive and the students are more engaged.
- Give students control: At the beginning of each year, I allow my students to come up with the behaviors they would like to be rewarded. We have a classroom discussion about what types of behaviors make a classroom successful. When students have a voice in the decision-making process, they hold themselves more accountable for those behaviors.
- Establish a reward system: I have created a store where students can use their Class Dojo points to buy different prizes or privileges. Each week, students can either cash in or save their money for a later prize. I have been pleasantly surprised with how many students choose to save each week. Pairing Class Dojo with this type of reward system not only gives students control over how rewards are meted out, but also teaches them a valuable life lesson about managing money and working hard for what you want.
- Keep parents informed and involved: Use the app's messaging feature to maintain a positive relationship with parents. At the beginning of each week, I use the messaging feature to share homework and announcements with my parents. I also use the feature to send out positive feedback about specific students each week. Too often, we forget to share the positive behaviors and success stories with our students' parents. This app makes sending a positive note quick and nearly instant. If parents send messages, be sure to respond in a timely manner.
- Use Class Dojo outside of your classroom: Sync the app to your mobile device and use it to recognize great behaviors during lunch and transition times with your students.
If you would like to learn more about Class Dojo and try it out in your classroom, visit www.classdojo.com. It has helped me create a positive community in my classroom by strategically developing the strong relationships that are the foundation to happy, successful students.
