Can’t we all just get along?

Sometimes a class will just “click” on day one and you won’t have to spend too much time developing a sense of community with your students. This has yet to happen for me or anyone I know. It is easy, especially with all the pressure of new standards, to breeze through or even do away with this important first step of the year. I can’t stress enough how critical it is do something to create cohesion amongst your students from day one. It may just be the most important thing you do. Think back to your learning theory class, remember Maslow’s hierarchy? Feeling safe and included is a necessary foundation for learning.

There are so many great books and programs out there to choose from. I tend to pick and choose from several, but the one I keep coming back to is Tribes. It’s not just a philosophy, it is a treasure trove of useful lesson plans and resources. If you buy just one book about community building, I’d start here.

Embed it into your instruction and daily routine

I like Tribes because the “agreements” apply to every possible situation. Attentive listening, no put-downs, mutual respect, pretty basic stuff. If you review what each of these looks like, sounds like, and feels like regularly, it will be easier to discuss what went wrong when problems arise. At the very least you can do a community circle each day.

Take a look, it’s in a book

When I focus on social and emotional learning in the beginning of the year, I find it helpful to use great literature as a guide. These are some of the books I have used. Sometimes it’s a simple read-aloud, but I also love challenging groups of students to find the hidden lessons in each story. If you have older students, some of these might seem babyish, but I’ve used all of them with fifth graders successfully.

Enemy Pie

This is a great story about befriending those you may consider your enemy, and not judging people before you know them.

Mr. Peabody’s Apples

Yes, I know, Madonna. But it is a great story about how saying negative things about people cannot be undone.

The Sneetches

A classic story about how physical differences don’t really matter.

Have you filled a bucket today?

Great for all ages (even adults). This book teaches kids about how they have the power to make someone feel better or worse.

Simon’s Hook

A great book about dealing with bullies and put downs, helps if you have a tattle-prone bunch.

The wonderful thing about sharing all of these books with your class is that you develop a common language. It can open up a dialogue and help kids solve their own problems. After reading Simon’s Hook, I don’t have to explain to students how to respond if someone is pushing their buttons. I just say, “Oh no! You took the bait, just like Simon!” Sometimes they think I’m ridiculous, but they get the point and they remember some of the strategies Simon used in the book. The more books like this you read, the more characters they can turn to for advice. So, read, read, read! Let me know if you have any other great books to add to the list!

This is Post 2 of a 4 part series by Emily Dahm. Read Part 1 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here.

There is no “right” way to implement ClassDojo in your classroom. The ways to utilize ClassDojo are as varied as the number of teachers using It all over the world. So how does one begin?

Start by familiarizing yourself with ClassDojo. Take the tour, and explore the website to discover uncharted territory. Enter your students’ names. Peruse the behaviors listed and decide whether or not you will add to what already exists to personalize your behavior plan for your classroom. Create and customize new behaviors as needed.

Introduce ClassDojo to your class by first building interest and ownership in the program. You might ask questions like, “Who likes monsters? What would you think if we used a behavior plan in which YOU were represented by a MONSTER? How would you like to be able to design your OWN monster?” Student buy-in will be astronomical — guaranteed!

Show students the student video. This will get them fired up and excited about using ClassDojo. Be ready with copies of the parent letter immediately following the video, encouraging students to share it with their families. Offer an incentive for students to bring it back signed, saying their parents will participate. Take a look at ClassDojo Messaging, too! This will open up a whole new medium with which you can communicate effectively with parents. Parents with wireless mobile devices love ClassDojo because they have access to instant feedback about their child’s behavior progress.

At the beginning of each day you can “check reports” and view graphs to analyze student behavior data as a class. This aligns with the Common Core graphing and data analysis standards and it helps students take ownership and control of their own behavior and learning. Commend students for the positive behaviors shown on the graph, and discuss ways to improve the negative behaviors. Set a goal for the percentage of positive points to be reached at the end of the day. Offer students a reward for reaching that goal.

Download the ClassDojo app on your mobile device and use it as you are teaching, circulating, and monitoring the classroom. Be sure that the sound is turned up enough for students to hear when you give a positive or negative point. This is highly effective! If you have ClassDojo projected on your ActivBoard or SMART Board, students love to see who received a positive (or negative) point when it pops up on the screen. Be consistent with your expectations for behavior and the assigning of points. This will ensure that your classroom management is uniform, and that student behavior remains as stable as possible.

From experience, hearing the positive or negative point sounds are even more effective if students cannot see who is being awarded points. Hearing sound immediately causes students to self-check and monitor their own behavior. This is called the “Dojo Effect”. They will literally sit up straighter and focus on the task at hand when they hear the sound. Students think, “Was that me? Am I doing what I am supposed to be doing?” You might even create a bogus student in your class to award positive and negative points to just for strategic implementation of the “Dojo Effect.”

End each day just as you began, by reviewing and analyzing the behavior graph available in ClassDojo reports. Discuss what you are doing well and what behaviors you need to focus on improving in the future. Cement the effectiveness of ClassDojo by rewarding students for reaching their positive point percentage goal. Small individual candies like Skittles or M&M’s work well.

There is no “yellow brick road” leading to the one, true way to use ClassDojo effectively in the classroom. Explore, experiment, and discover the possibilities with your students and ClassDojo. Never will students be so excited about and take such ownership in a behavior plan as they will with ClassDojo!

Let’s just get right into it! Here are three quick steps to set up your first classroom 🙂

1. Take Stock

If you are starting out your teaching career at a public school, in a classroom previously used by another teacher, you will probably be left with the dregs of furniture and junk. If that is not the case, you are lucky! I made the mistake of keeping all the items left by the previous tenant of my classroom and I never touched any of it. With the exception of books in decent condition, my advice is to throw it ALL away! It is best to start fresh. The first thing to do after a good cleaning is think about your teaching style. This should determine the layout of your room. I prefer my students to be seated in cooperative groups. Four is ideal, but I’ve always had to do groups of six due to large class size. Depending on your grade level, you should also have a rug area. I recommend a group meeting area for all ages — if you have the space. I gather my fifth graders on our rug everyday for meetings and mini-lessons. I make it a point never to teach while they are all at their tables, too many distractions. You may not have a lot of space or choice in how you set up your tables, but you will most likely have a lot of empty walls. Do not feel obligated to cover every inch with decorations and posters, blank space is good for learning!

2. Design with a Purpose

“Oh Ms. ______ is such a good teacher! I learned so much from her campfire themed classroom!” said no student ever. Do a google search for classroom decorations, and you will be amazed at the elaborate designs out there. If some teachers spent as much time and money designing and planning lessons as they do decorating their classrooms, there would be no achievement gap. Okay, so I might be oversimplifying, but all of the research out there states that children need blank space, areas for their eyes to rest. I love the article, “The Culture of Cute,” which describes how over-decorating has really become an epidemic in schools. And for what purpose? It certainly doesn’t help the students learn.

3. Resist the Urge to Over-Decorate

I’ll admit, I am a decorator. I love walking into teacher supply stores and finding that they have an entire aisle devoted to cute owl decorations. I allow myself one or two items, but that’s it! An owl sticker here or there, or even some owl pencils are not going to break the bank, and they will not distract from student learning. Decorating my classroom in floor to ceiling owls is not only expensive, it’s pointless. When you inevitably end up at the teacher supply store, or on TeachersPayTeachers.com, ask yourself, “What is the educational value of this item?” If the item’s sole purpose is to make your room “cute”, put it down, walk away, don’t look back. I also advise against buying pre-made “instructional” posters. You may find a poster that perfectly illustrates the water cycle, but your students won’t get much out of staring at it all year. It’s best to let them make their own. If you must have it, only take it out when you are teaching that particular unit, otherwise, it will just become a part of the landscape and the students won’t pay any attention to it. All you really need in terms of decor is space to display student work, which is decoration enough. A little fadeless paper and some tasteful borders should suffice! Remember, your classroom is a place for learning, it’s not your birthday party, it does not need a “theme”!

Now that your classroom is squared away, I’ll be sharing more ideas and suggestions as you venture on your path of becoming a teacher this year! Stay tuned!

This is part 1 of a 4 part series by Emily Dahm. Read Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here.

ClassDojo has worked wonders for me in terms of keeping track of student behaviors. Parents created accounts to be updated on student activity, students have never been more excited to use a behavior-management system, and I have felt more aware of student behaviors in the classroom. Originally, I had my classroom aligned by periods of the day and by behavioral expectations. This allowed me to use data from ClassDojo to complete the behavior section of report cards. However, many teachers agree that the behavioral section of report cards is the easiest to get through because we are so in-tune with student behavior.

During the second semester of the school-year, I began to use ClassDojo to record more than just student behaviors. I began to monitor students during Reader’s Workshop once a week. I added behaviors into my “Reader’s Workshop” class that included reading, writing, distracted, and talking. This allowed me to see more than just their emotional behaviors; it allowed me to monitor their participation in a much closer way. I began to use the same system for Writer’s Workshop and for math time. The behaviors differed slightly, but it was a great way to monitor students’ progress during these activities.

Checking in with students during these activities was quick and and easy. I could check in without disrupting students simply by observing their behaviors. I was able to keep a running record of their work habits during these activities. This record was something that I could use when writing report cards because it was data-driven and spanned an entire semester of learning. Using ClassDojo for report cards was extremely helpful for me, my students, and for informing parents of what is going on in the classroom in a various number of realms.

Have you ever thought about using ClassDojo for data tracking needs besides behavior? As educators, we are continually collecting data on our students. No matter what grade-level you teach or how many classes you have any given day, ClassDojo can assist in collecting, storing, and producing customized data without the need for a spreadsheet or paper. You just need to think outside the box!

In my own little fifth-grade world, I use ClassDojo to gather a multitude of data. ClassDojo allows me to create as many classes and behaviors as I’d like, so I can keep track of so many different types of data points. For example, I track our students’ work habits. I track whether students complete an assignment for ELA, math, science, and social studies. If a student does not complete the assignment, he or she receives a negative point for the specific subject area. Students can also receive a negative point if they are unprepared for class. This really comes in handy when quantifying subjective data such as “work habits”, which appears as a grade on students’ quarterly report cards. At the end of each quarter I enter the date range of the quarter within the “Customized Report” and instantly have a number of missed assignments for each of my 97 students. This number is then translated into an O, S, or N based on a grading scale pre-determined by our administrators. The data truly makes my job of submitting these types of grades much easier.

Another great use of my ClassDojo account has been tracking my Junior Beta members’ service hours and meeting attendance. Just as I do with work habits, I create categories for meetings and projects we are completing. Members receive points for attending monthly meetings and completing service projects. This replaces hunting for sign-in sheets or begging for Beta folders to monitor student participation. By the end of the year I have collected a useful report of students’ individual hours and have guaranteed proof of hours earned. Once again, this omits the loss of documents and playing the guessing game on which member may have gained his or her hours in order to receive an award at the end of each year.

The amount of data that can be collected through ClassDojo is endless. I have already started a list of spreadsheets I will be converting to ClassDojo next school year. This list includes the large amount of signed paperwork students must submit each year prior to school starting, fees collected, forms returned, etc.

It’s time to think outside the “paper” box you collect each year and save yourself a lot of work!

Before the school-year begins, you need to establish clear guidelines for technology in your classroom. Whether your school is 1:1 iPads, shared laptop carts, or computer labs, students need to know what is expected of them when they power up technology tools.

8 rules for technology in the classroom:

1. “Apples Up!”: When teacher is talking, iPads must be face down on students’ desks.

2. Use two hands to carry iPads or laptops. “Hug it like you love it!”: Great for younger students. Reminds students to hold the device to their chest. “Both thumbs on top!”: Good for older students. Students should stack books or papers beneath the device, then carry everything together.

3. Never carry devices by a cover or lid.

4. No food or drinks near devices. No devices in the lunchroom!

5. Always use the app or website the teacher directed. No unauthorized apps or chatting.

6. Wash hands before using any shared devices. We all know how easy it is for germs to spread like wildfire in a classroom!

7. When technology time is up, save and power off quickly. Do not take iPad or laptop out of bag/desk/cart unless directed by teacher.

8. As a teacher, it also helps to set some guidelines for yourself when integrating technology into your lesson plans!

5 rules for technology in the classroom — for teachers:

1. Make sure the technology adds real value.

2. Set clear expectations and guidelines for students. Make sure they know the technology has real educational value and is more than a fun tool or distraction.

3. Before any student work appears online, get administration and parental permission. No last names or location information!

4. Test all apps and websites before having students use them. If there are bugs you’ll want to know what they are and how to fix them before class starts.

5. Be open to student choice. Technology allows students to create animations, record podcasts, or make infographics all from the same device. Give students the freedom to explore outcomes that interest them.

Once you’ve established these guidelines, you and your students can start to enjoy the many benefits of technology in the classroom!

One goal at my school this year was to switch how we teach towards a flipped instructional model. On the surface, it may sound simple. Students learn from videos, online collaboration, and recorded lectures at home instead of at school; and voilà! — loads of valuable classroom time is freed up. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy.

Let me rewind back to phase one of our technology plan. Our first meeting revolved around questions like, “How come the Starbucks down the street only has one of those spaceship-looking thingies on the ceiling and about 200 people on the internet, while we have 5 of those things and no one can stream videos?” Yikes! Eventually, we figured out to send our most tech savvy staff to trainings and conferences to figure out our bandwidth issues!

Enter phase two — a 1:1 iPad program and full suite of great apps. We discovered a Learning Management System that allowed teachers to post assignments and videos, create “bundles” of lesson plans and units, and give students access to chat sessions, polls, and organizational systems. All year-long teachers and students collaborated to learn from each other using these amazing tools.

By phase three teachers were ready for seamless integration! I recall, in my relentless optimism, saying, “We aren’t going to assign any homework this year! It’s just practice!” I imagined shouts of joy, fist pumps, maybe even a student throwing a pile of worksheets in the air in ironic celebration of our new, paperless workflow.

By the end of the year it was clear that there were as many triumphs as there were challenges when it came to the flipped classroom. Both students and teachers agreed that organization was streamlined with an LMS, and we truly achieved a nearly paperless workflow. The copy machine soon lost its status as an activity hub and we got a Keurig! Students benefitted from the ability to review lessons online at any time and advanced students were able to work more independently and complete extra credit activities. Differentiation became easy and authentic. Students enjoyed online collaboration, something more familiar and natural for them. Everyone agreed that flipped homework was both meaningful and engaging — the way homework was meant to be.

Interestingly enough, the challenges we identified were some of the same associated with regular, old, technology-free teaching: lack of time for lesson development and the issue of incomplete homework assignments. The same culprits turned up unprepared for class. Without “pre-learning” the flipped model comes to a grinding halt. Teachers are once more faced with the choice of holding conscientious students back or plowing onward, regardless. Development and curation of bundles and lesson plans took hours and hours of prep time. It would have been very tempting for teachers to simply give up, considering these obstacles.

All things considered, year one of flipped instruction went well for us. If we were to do it all over again I’d recommend that other schools be sure to set aside as much teacher-training and preparation time as possible. Encourage your staff to “play” with this technology, make mistakes, and fail brilliantly. Start small. Ask teachers to post one video on your LMS per night. This might be all you get from tentative tech-users for a while, until students start asking for more — and they will. Know that effective teachers are not always effective online instructional designers, but blended learning can balance this out. Finally, remember that the flipped model is only a catalyst for learning. Students are still the center of the classroom and sound teaching methodologies and strategies are still as vital as ever.

When I heard Clay Shirky say that the only proven way to improve teacher performance is for teachers to learn from each other, my conscience stirred within me. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are a growing trend in excellent schools and we didn’t have one yet at my school.

Shirky went on to say, “Letting teachers choose to opt out of new tools is okay because it keeps the naysayers from blocking forward movement. Let those who are interested implement change.”

The next week I began asking my fellow teachers if they’d like to create a PLC. Within three weeks, eight out of thirty-seven teachers signed up. At our first meeting, eighteen showed up!

Our First Meeting

At our first meeting we discussed Harry Wong’s book, The First Days of School. This meeting was unlike any other I’d been to at our school. Several teachers had already read the book and shared how it had helped them. Teachers who were planning to read it asked incredible questions. I came away with at least 10 ideas for things I could do on day one of the next school year. I got more out of those 30 minutes than I’d gotten from 30 hours of certain professional classes. It was unbelievable!

What’s Next

Our next plan of attack is to have a “lunch and learn” at our school. Everyone is working to finish the book and we’re going to discuss and share ideas. No one is required to do this — we are attending by choice, making it that much more powerful.

Reach Out and Start Your Own PLC

It can be intimidating to reach out to colleagues, but we know that the way to improve schools is to improve teaching. We must do this for ourselves. Although it is frustrating to have an insufficient amount of money to spend on professional development, we can get so much from a PLC — for free! We are so excited to be part of a teacher-led group that encourages sharing and collaboration.

I encourage you to talk with other teachers at your school. See if there are a few who would be willing to start a PLC. Some may refuse to join you, and that’s okay! Don’t be discouraged, there will be other teachers who are just as excited about starting a PLC as you!

If you’re having trouble creating a PLC within your own school, there are plenty virtual PLC’s. In Summer 2014, thousands of educators joined the Summer Learning Series, open to any and all educators (#SummerLS on Twitter). You can also keep an eye out for Voxer groups and book studies that you can join.

When you work with teachers who are willing and excited, change happens. Are you ready to level-up your classroom?

Hello, folks 🙂

Since ClassDojo’s beginnings, millions of teachers have signed up to use ClassDojo in their classrooms. Over time, we’ve been excited to hear those teachers spread it to other teachers in their schools and grade-levels – creating entire ‘ClassDojo schools’ where every teacher uses ClassDojo, or whole grade-level teams using ClassDojo to help students develop the behaviors and skills they need for success.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce two features that make using ClassDojo across an entire grade-level or school – or even with just a few other teachers – a lot easier! Now, for the first time, you’ll be able to connect with other teachers in your school to teach classes together, share student rosters, and track your students’ progress across all their different classes. These features have been the most popular requests from teachers everywhere over the last few years – we hope you like them 🙂

There are two ways to work together with other ClassDojo teachers, Shared Students and Shared Classes:

• With Shared Students, teachers can connect with each other and share individual students to fill each other’s classes. Setting up your classes will be faster by pulling from the school roster, and you can also view students’ reports from their other teachers’ classes.

• With Shared Classes, you and your colleagues can teach the same class, awarding feedback points in each others’ classes, and instantly messaging parents! This feature is great for teaching assistants and also classes that move together during the school day.

Read more details on the ClassDojo Community Forum!

We’ve been hard at work building these features to help you use ClassDojo across your whole school or grade level – and this is just the first step! We hope you love what we’re launching today, and we’d love your feedback – let us know what you think in the comments below, or by emailing us at hello@classdojo.com 🙂

Over the years, I have worked with students of different cultural, socioeconomic, and academic backgrounds. One year I taught at one of Philadelphia’s most challenging schools with one of the lowest teacher-retention rates. Violence, poverty, and failing scores gave the school a negative reputation in the community. I quickly discovered that most of my colleagues were burnt out and expected behavior problems and poor performance. I was assigned a class of 32 below-level students without any special education, language, or behavior support.

Given the situation, how should a teacher envision the year ahead? Should a teacher expect every lesson to be interrupted with behavior problems? Should a teacher expect that no child will pass the state test? I refused to accept that the situation was out of my control.

I focused on attaining quality academic and behavioral performance from each student. I consistently set high, yet achievable, expectations and didn’t back down. These expectations were continually communicated with students and families. We celebrated growth, successes, and even attendance on a daily basis. The kids felt accountable knowing there would always be follow-through.

After the first trimester other staff members began to notice a dramatic, positive change in this class. By March my students were exhibiting record gains on the Benchmark Assessment.

Although I may not be a better or more experienced teacher, I believe I approached the year much differently than my colleagues. Preconceived notions did not dictate my school year. Past performance is certainly beneficial information to have, but this information should not be used to place students in a box. Rather, one should use this information to motivate students appropriately and raise the bar whenever possible. Instruction must be differentiated to meet cultural, academic, language, and learning style needs. However, the definition of quality must remain the same and shouldn’t waiver between student populations.

How do you set expectations for your students? Would love to hear your ideas!