Does your school use PBIS to build positive behavior and school wide community? PBIS has made a meaningful impact on my classroom and school, and ClassDojo has been a major tool to that success! Whether you’re a PBIS newbie or a veteran implementor, integrating ClassDojo into your school-wide PBIS will be a management miracle that will make you smile. Read below and check out the helpdesk for information on best practices for marrying PBIS and ClassDojo in your school.

What are best practices for using ClassDojo as a teacher in a PBIS school?

Think about the last school leadership team meeting that took place in your school building. This can be any kind of a meeting where the voices of leaders from your building/district were present, representing key stakeholders. Who did you see sitting around the table? You may have seen: a grade level teacher from each grade in your building, a representative from special education, a representative from the PE department, art, music, technology, a social worker, a psychologist, a speech pathologist, a teacher’s aide, a cafeteria worker, a bus driver, a resource officer, a secretary, etc. If the aforementioned voices were not present at your leadership meeting, (you are not alone, there are a lot of stakeholder voices that schools are notorious for leaving out of leadership meetings) this would be a great opportunity for you and your team to consider inviting any one or all of these important voices to your next leadership meeting that takes place. However, with that said, there is still a key stakeholder that has been left out of this list — students. Although students are our participants, clients, customers, consumers, teammates, etc. they are often one of the first voices to be left without a seat at the leadership table for collaboration, decision-making, assessing needs, planning, creating action plans, etc.

Why are the youth who fill our hallways everyday, who receive our curriculum that we worked on tirelessly all summer, who motivate us to be better educators and people ourselves, not sitting at the table next to us? Although our youth know our classrooms inside and out, understand the nuances of many of the individual teachers and staff at large, live and breathe the school climate and culture, why do we still think that they will not be able to contribute to our critical conversations?

Not only do our youth need to be at the table while we are developing systems, analyzing school data, and implementing academic and behavioral practices to help support them, but they need to be asked their opinions, thoughts, feelings, and perspectives every step of the way. It is important to ask not one or two students (often pulled from student council or student leadership), but ALL students. There are several different ways to create a larger student voice at the table and involved in the critical decision-making that is taking place in our schools. Here are a few to consider:

• Invite students to be leaders on leadership teams throughout the school, where their voice is equal to others on the team.
• Send out student surveys throughout the year regarding items such as school safety, discipline, acknowledgments, etc. Share the results with the staff and students throughout the year.
• Create a student voice committee. Invite students from all different corners of the building to be on this committee. Try to make sure that all the different voices of the youth in the building are represented, not just the faces that are typically seen. Ask this committee for their opinions regarding all different kinds of decisions being made in the building.
• Ask a forum/roundtable of students to give their feedback on the student handbook. Use their feedback to make appropriate adaptations in the handbook, and let the staff and student body know that this took place.

Now, imagine your next school leadership team meeting. You are sitting next to the principal on one side and a student from the building on the other side. Which student will you choose to be at the table with you?

Teach ALL: Think positive. Be proactive. Nurture partnerships.

I often get asked how I got started presenting, especially at such a young age. And as much I’d like to pretend it was this long and beautifully thought-out process, it wasn’t. I just went for it.

Project Based Learning (PBL) is using projects to teach. They can be challenging but are the cornerstone of my classroom and have been for many years. Here are 12 tips for successful project based learning in your classroom.

So it’s the middle of the year, you are finally feeling pretty confident about using technology in class—at least some of the time. You have your class routines down, you’ve identified your student tech support whizzes, and you have at least some idea of how to get the students to do their work on their iPads or computers.

What’s next?

It’s report card time. As teachers, we want to try to phrase things positively in reports. That’s someone’s child after all and no one responds well to pure criticism. However, sometimes you have to broach difficult topics in a report and the sugar coating can get in the way of communication.

We wanted to share some recent news and powerful stories with you!

1. You may have recently seen some press about data privacy policies for education companies, including ClassDojo. While some of the coverage was badly researched, and occasionally just plain false, we do think that scrutiny on privacy policies is a great thing. After all, we are teachers and parents, so we care deeply about the privacy of student data. As a ClassDojo teacher, we wanted to make sure you know the facts, and that you feel confident ClassDojo continues to lead the education industry in protecting teachers, parents and students.

What’s the first thing you do when you come home at the end of the day?

Turn on the TV? Take a shower? Pet the cat? Untangle your children from a roll of duct tape?

Many people put music on. It sets the tone, creates a certain kind of space: relaxing or energized, comforting or upbeat.

Once upon a time, I lived in a bubble of discontent. There was always something that would steal my “happy”. It could be a student’s behavior, curriculum woes, or even losing my favorite grading pen. When I look back on it now, I see how completely exhausting it was to be that unsatisfied with my world around me. I’m sure I was exhausting those around me as well. I was just clueless to how far I dove into this pit of despair.

And then it happened.

I can remember the day and hour so vividly. I was sitting among a few of my students during a mini lesson. One particularly challenging young man laughed at a humourous comment made by another young man. We all laughed at his comment, but the sound of his particular laughter was unlike anything that I had heard from him. It was the type of innocent child laughter one might hear from a child watching a Disney movie. I could only stare in amazement because I finally saw the little boy and not the rough around the edges kid who left trouble in his wake.

That evening, I went home and shared the moment with my husband. Through tears, I explained how it affected me and how wonderful it felt to have that small moment. The next day, I found myself looking for little moments. I wanted to see the moments I was missing by being constantly frazzled by deadlines, paperwork, and the non stop routine that being a teacher can bring to a day. I found three things that day. Three small moments that brought me a little happiness. The next day, I did the same thing and found a few more small moments. It continued day after day until I found myself finding five things during my day.

Each and every day I make it a practice to silently review the five things that have brought me some bit of happiness. Occasionally, I share them with others either by talking about them or posting them on my Facebook page. Not everyday ends in sunshine and rainbows. And I still get frustrated a time or two at curriculum changes or the lack of parental support. It just comes with the territory of the field we have chosen.

It’s a challenge not to become overwhelmed with the demands of both work and home. Ruts occur. Burnout can rear it’s ugly head. However, there is true joy in teaching. If we examine the day close enough, we can find things that make us completely thrilled to be a teacher. It starts with one thing. Only one small moment can become five things in no time. All we have to do as educators is observe. I mean really observe our surrounding. It’ll change your outlook.

Teaching is emotionally intense. Along with the pressure of working with adolescents and children. There are short deadlines and an expectation to go ‘above and beyond’ every day.

Here are five factors that make burnout more likely: