Class Dojo-Positive Management

Class Dojo, funny name right? Have you heard of this classroom management system? I have heard of it probably for the past five years and never felt that I needed to use this way to manage classes. I've always described one of my strengths as being classroom management and depending on my grade level I would use color charts, clip charts, and the classroom economy. Most recently, I've used the classroom economy to manage my fifth grade classrooms. In the past two years, students loved managing themselves and having the jobs in the classroom and being paid for the jobs. I love the classroom economy as well and felt it really helps build responsibility for the students. Last year, my students who come from a very affluent area were less than motivated solely by my treasure box and having a lack of money in their bank account. They loved the classroom economy, don't get me wrong but there were still a lot of students struggling with returning homework and putting in maximum effort because up until this point, they never had to. Either that or their parents somehow got them out of those responsibilities.

By the second half of school also known as the 3rd quarter, also known as "please help", I decided to use Class dojo to track the participation, accountability, etc. in the classroom.  Let me explain what Class Dojo is. Class Dojo is an online management system in which teachers put in every student into the online page, each student is given six expectations during the day for positive reinforcement and five missed expectations for negative behavior. The positives are:

Helping Others
On Task 
Participating
Persistence
Teamwork
Working Hard

These positives were right on target with what I wanted my students to learn this year. I have very high expectations as many of us do, so when I saw that I can give points for persistence and participation as well as team work, I was more than excited to jump in. These are the conversations I was having with my students all the time-I want students to be active participants as well great people with great character (a quiet classroom is not always the best classroom).  The negatives are:

Disrespect
No Homework
Off Task
Talking Out of Turn
Unprepared

These negatives are listed on the teacher page, student page, and parent page as "Needs Work". How awesome is this? I loved seeing things like no homework and unprepared on the list of things that need work because this was what I was struggling with as a teacher.

Another component of Class Dojo is the instant access parents have. Once parents were added by email, they were able to see what points students received as well as message me whenever they had a question. This is instant parent communication and every school wants to have excellent communication, check this off your list!

So what happens at the end of the week? Theoretically, the best a student could do in a week is earn 30 points, this is 6  positives, 5 days a week this is if they get no negatives or don't miss out on the positives. For my students I allow some "ooops" moments in the beginning of the year so students with 25-30 points will  get a chance to go to the treasure box at the end of the week.

I was not a believer from the start, but Class Dojo makes digital management easy and effective. It also allows for immediate feedback to parents.  Have you used Class Dojo before? Will you use it now? What management do yo use and how do parents understand it?