What is the "Mojo" with Class Dojo?

As students embrace the 21st century skills of collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity, their work beckons to reach beyond the walls of the classroom. Class Dojo is an online platform that provides the space for students and teachers to share what is happening in the classroom with families. With tools for behavior management and family communication, Class Dojo serves as an easy-to-use and efficient tool for educators in classrooms around the world.

Best Practices in Classroom Management & Family Communication 
As student behaviors shift, so have best practices in classroom management. In “11 Research-Based Classroom Management Strategies,” Finley (2017) suggests the following best practices for managing today’s classrooms:

• Nonverbal Cues: hand signals, eye contact
• Nonverbal Transition Cues: ringing a bell, turning lights on and off
• Timeouts: “provide an emotional breather in a less socially charged area of the room”
• Over-Correction: model, rehearse, re-visit
• Notes of Praise: leaving positive notes for students, sending positive notes home
• Private Reminders: brief reminders of expectations
• Greetings: using names and accolades
• On-the-Spot Corrections: immediately and briefly address misbehavior
• Mindfulness Practice: managing emotional regulation through breathing and meditation exercises
• Notice and Comment: noting and discussing changes in behavior
• When-Then: providing students with a structure for the cause-effect of behavior choices

Overall, these best practices suggest that educators should define clear expectations, equip students to take ownership of their actions, and provide continuous feedback on behavior to students.

In addition to managing student behaviors, communicating with families is also an important role of educators today. Communication looks different today than it has in the past, so it’s important to recognize best practices in this area of management, as well. In “Policies & Practices: Family Communication Ideas That Really Work,” Moore (n.d.) suggests that communicating with families should be happening consistently, all year long. The four topics of practice include: Maintain Your Momentum, Investigate Contact Options, Open Lines of Communication, and Keep It Going! Overall, Moore (n.d.) suggests that communication should be respectful, consistent, positive, and geared towards meeting the needs of the families that are being served.

Class Dojo 

Class Dojo is a free, online classroom management tool for teachers, administrators, students, and parents. The program can be implemented in individual classrooms or in whole schools, and is accessible on all devices. Class Dojo (n.d.) reports that their program is used in 90% of K-8 schools in the United States. The online platform provides teachers with an opportunity to “create a positive culture,” “give students a voice,” and “share moments with parents” (Class Dojo, n.d.). The variety of features included with Class Dojo are listed and explained below (Class Dojo, n.d.):

• Point System: This tool allows the teacher to track behaviors, both positive and negative. Completely individual to the teacher’s preferences, this feature allows the teacher to assign point values to specific behaviors that align with their classroom’s behavior management plan or school’s PBIS matrix.
  
• Toolkit: The Class Dojo Toolkit includes the Classroom Directions App, Random Group Generator, Classroom Music, Classroom Noise Monitor, Think Pair Share, Random Student Selector, Classroom Timer, and Morning Meeting App. The Toolkit is accessible on phones and tablets, so these mobile devices act as a remote for the computer display. Once selected, a tool appears on the computer screen and its display mode (SMART board, projector, etc.).
• Student Portfolios: Students can share their work through pictures, videos, and written text directly with their families. After teachers approve the student work to be added to their portfolio, families can add encouragement and feedback to their child’s work. This new feature allows families to access everything through one app.
  
• Class Story: This feature allows the teacher to instantly share photos, videos, announcements, or files directly with student families. The Class Story is always accessible to families so they can go back to locate information.
• Private Messaging: Class Dojo offers a private messaging feature, much like texting. This feature allows the teacher to communicate directly with parents. Messages can be translated in more than 30 different languages so families can easily access the information being provided. “Quiet hours” are also available so families know when the teacher is not accessing Class Dojo to check messages.
• Mindful Activities: Class Dojo’s main character, Mojo, provides videos and activities that support student learning in the areas of growth mindset, perseverance, empathy, gratitude, and mindfulness.
  

As a total package, Class Dojo serves as a very effective and engaging tool in the classroom. Class Dojo provides the opportunity for teachers, students, and families to be connected and collaborative. From allowing teachers to quickly share information with families to easily and privately message individual family members, Class Dojo is an excellent source for family communication. The automatic and specific tracking of student behaviors with quantitative data also allows the teacher, student, and family to be aware of concerns and celebrations, and to work together in addressing areas of concern.

Planning Ideas & Useful Websites 
Class Dojo has a “Resources” page where teachers and school leaders can access all of the steps and materials for implementing Class Dojo effectively and efficiently. The page includes a full presentation that can be used to introduce a staff to Class Dojo and all of its features, a back-to-school night presentation with parent handouts, and a classroom decoration kit. With so many features and tools, the ideas for using Class Dojo in the classroom are endless!

A quick scroll through Twitter can also provide a surplus of planning ideas. Check out these ideas from fellow tweeters:

• “Ss are applying their knowledge of saving money from #UniqueLearningSystem! They made proposals to share with their parents on #ClassDojo. Some are even wanting to give to others!” -@resouders
• “Integrating the Storytelling feature of @ClassDojo in 2nd grade with @stephlbee and her awesome students!” -@londonelem
• “We use @ClassDojo & learners post to their portfolios for parents to see. Sometimes we give them questions/prompts, but more often they will think something is awesome and want to share it, so they take the initiative to post it! We get a kick out of the parents’ replies!” -@misslewis02
• “I love using @ClassDojo for class debates. Input debate groups as ‘students’ and assign/deduct points in real time as the debate progresses. For extra fun, project your teacher screen so students see their point accumulation as it happens for reinforcement/motivation of skills.” -@rmchurchward

For additional planning ideas, Class Dojo has a Twitter account and an Instagram account, where they post examples of the program being used in classrooms every day. The hashtag, #classdojo, can also be searched and/or followed on Twitter or Instagram for additional ideas.

What are people saying about the program? 
Class Dojo is receiving excellent reviews on social media platforms. A quick search of the hashtag,

#classdojo, or a scan of Class Dojo’s Twitter reveals the many wonderful things that educators are saying about Class Dojo as a tool in the classroom. Here are some of the tweets:

• “Half my parents feel connected with @ClassDoj and half feel very connected.” -@ahitchck
• “Love sharing our work with our families with digital portfolios on Class Dojo!” -@MrsFlorio1st
• “This book talk had me laughing! I love how students can share their inferences with me through class dojo portfolios.” -@TiffanyKingston
• “What a great resource. I use ClassDojo and have had so many parents tell me how much they love it! It makes communication so easy, just like texting!” -@Claudia05951236
• “Class Dojo does wonders! Teamed my students into groups of 3 to help motivate one another on coming to class on time, staying focused, & showing the Panther Principles. Today, my students were cheering each other on to do their best & earn points.” -@MissMAmelio
• “Trying something new this year: digital portfolios in Class Dojo. It makes it a one-stop-shop and is great to see student learning and feedback from parents. I love how Class Dojo has made my students more engaged and my life easier!” -@paniagua_kate

As displayed in these tweets, Class Dojo is being used in a range of creative ways in classrooms across the world. Teachers and students alike are embracing the resource as a platform for sharing their work beyond their classroom walls.

My Review & Reflections 
My school currently uses Class Dojo as a part of our PBIS matrix. Every teacher has points directly linked to our matrix and schoolwide expectations. Every administrator, specialist, teacher assistant, and support staff member (EC teachers, bus drivers, interventionist, speech-language pathologist, guidance counselor, nurse, social worker) is connected to every classroom’s Class Dojo page. This means that each of these faculty members have access to awarding or removing points for student behavior, as well as the opportunity to directly message with the family members connected with each student. I appreciate the schoolwide use of Class Dojo because behavior awards and consequences are consistent whether students are on the bus, in the classroom, or at specials. The points are tracked in reports, with the option to add notes, so everyone can have access to a student’s behavioral data. This creates a culture of “our” kids and the opportunity to all work together in problem solving for students that need additional support in behavior management. In addition, the program notes which staff member awarded or removed each point, so questions can be directed to that staff member directly through the private messaging feature. The other new feature I have really appreciated is the “School Insights.” This display shares the number of messages sent to families, photos and videos shared, and the percentage for positive feedback as a school. This provides us all with a quick glimpse of how we are supporting and communicating with our students and their families on a schoolwide scale.

Two components of Class Dojo that I wish were different are both related to the private messaging feature. The first is that when messages are sent to the family by someone other than the homeroom teacher, these messages are not accessible to the homeroom teacher. For example, if a student misbehaves in a specials class and that teacher reaches out to the family about the situation that occurred, they often forget to mention this to me as the classroom teacher. So when the parent comes to me concerned with what happened, I am often completely out of the loop. I wish that there was a way for these messages to be accessible to me so that I could be aware of the communication happening with the families of my students.

The second component of the messaging that I would prefer to be different is that group messages cannot be sent. Many of my students have more than one parent connected. Some even have up to six family members connected! Class Dojo has a feature where all of the family members can be selected and sent the same message, but they cannot see each other’s responses. This has caused some confusion for parents when I am requesting a meeting or addressing behaviors because they aren’t sure how their spouse has responded. I have also had grandparents who live in other states reach out about behavior concerns that the parents never mentioned, so this creates the need for clear expectations for who I am to communicate with, and about how much information to release through the private messaging feature. I think it is important that each school establish these policies, and make them known to parents.

Connecting back to the best practices suggested by Finley (2017) and Moore (n.d.), Class Dojo provides an opportunity for consistent communication and collaboration between the school, student, and family. Class Dojo allows for praise and correction, with the opportunity to make notes and track data for further growth. Class Dojo is an excellent tool for every K-6 classroom!

Goals for Using Class Dojo in My Classroom 
I use the Point System, Class Story and Private Messaging features of Class Dojo on a daily basis with my students and families. I tried the Student Portfolios when they were first released but they were not compatible with our student Chromebooks, and we did not have enough ipads to keep it going. The Student Portfolios are now accessible with the Chromebooks, so I would like to set these up for my students so they can start sharing their individual work with their families. Especially now that so much of our work is digital and interactive, I think this would help families see what we are up to in the classroom. In addition, I do not utilize the Toolkit in my classroom. I have tried using these tools in my classroom, but the slow internet speed and lack of cell service at my school caused glitches with my phone/ipad connecting to my computer screen. The delay made the use of the tools ineffective. I have not tried these in quite a while, so I would like to try to utilize them again.

Continuing My Learning 
As I continue learning about useful digital resources, I would like to explore Nearpod, an online

interactive learning platform. This tool was promoted heavily at the Teach Your Heart Out conference in Atlanta this past week, and I was awarded a free 3-month subscription to try it out. I would like to get to know how the program works so that I know if it is something I would like to request that my school purchase a license for to use next year.

References 
Class Dojo. (n.d.). Learn more. Retrieved from https://www.classdojo.com/#LearnMore

Finley, T. (2017). 11 research-based classroom management strategies. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/11-research-based-classroom-management-strategies

Moore, K. B. (n.d.). Policies & practices: Family communication ideas that really work. Retrieved from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/policies-practices-family-communication-ideas-really-work/

Image References 
[Class Dojo logo]. Retrieved from https://static.classdojo.com/img/social_icons/logo-purple-min.png

[Class Dojo messaging]. Retrieved from https://static.classdojo.com/img/page_homepage/communication_image.png

[Class Dojo points]. Retrieved from https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*c7nJ75RQyKr87Qm6yc34LA.png

[Class Dojo portfolio]. Retrieved from https://static.classdojo.com/img/page_studentportfolios/section5-all.jpg

[Mojo with hand]. Retrieved from https://static.classdojo.com/img/page_schoolwide/5-asset-hand.png

[Nearpod logo]. Retrieved from https://nearpod.com/