At Sacred Heart School in Atherton, the “Code of the Heart” is a set of soft skills that all grades are expected to internalize and incorporate with academic skills. Characteristics of readiness, responsibility, respect and caring share equal emphasis on importance as academic performance. To this end, Mayrin Bunyagidj, a Sacred Heart first grade teacher uses ClassDojo to encourage her students for demonstrating the Code of the Heart aspects of character development. “Seeing and hearing specific comments about their character help my students to become more empathetic with their peers,” says Bunyagidj.

Watch more “Ideas for the Classroom“ to uncover other great ways teachers incorporate ClassDojo into their workflow.

Sonya Castillo is a bilingual 5th grade teacher teacher at Jefferson Elementary in San Leandro. Castillo tracks in-class participation with the ultimate goal of helping students understand how their goals are self-driven and self-motivated. Using ClassDojo, Sonya can customize feedback to be highly relevant to her classroom needs. She selects behaviors that help her students become more self-reflective. Also, she writes the behaviors in Spanish, enabling Castillo’s native-speaking families to check-in from a device or a home computer to see how their students are improving and participating. The specificity of her feedback also makes parent/ teacher conferences substantially more informative.

Watch more “Ideas for the Classroom“ to uncover other great ways teachers incorporate ClassDojo into their workflow.

Positive Behavior Intervention and Support specialist Paul Callis uses ClassDojo to help special education students build their confidence as learners. Callis, who supports students between 6th and 12th grade at the Coliseum College Prep Academy in Oakland, says his students usually need to work to build back some lost self-esteem before they can tackle more rigorous academic matters. Once the students feel valued and successful, Callis can begin to get through to their potential. “That’s when the work comes in. First, to get them onto grade level, they need to be in a positive place,” he adds. Using ClassDojo, Callis looks for ways to reinforce the positive trajectory he and his students are building. This reinforcement creates a virtuous circle of self confident students who help one another, are punctual and prepared.

Watch more “Ideas for the Classroom“ to uncover other great ways teachers incorporate ClassDojo into their workflow.

ClassDojo works well across all grade levels, including high school. For example, it can help facilitate group work in a multi-lingual setting where students speak a myriad of native languages. Managing group work in her highly heterogeneous classroom was tricky, says Tara Hobson of SF International High School. She uses ClassDojo to encourage group lab work in her 11th grade chemistry class. Points are awarded to students asking good questions, speaking in English, and following their roles during lab time. As Hobson moves around the classroom, she uses the ClassDojo app on her smart phone to track these behaviors, reinforcing them and bringing classroom expectations to a higher level. The dynamic of group interaction during lab assignments has since really improved she says. Hear more from Tara in the video below!

Hear how other teachers like Tara have used ClassDojo in their classrooms.

Evan Wolkenstein of Jewish Community High School of the Bay in San Francisco takes a telescopic view in his use of ClassDojo. He works backward from his desired outcome, asking the question “What kind of people do I want my students to be at the end of the year?” Wolkenstein’s 10th through 12th grade classroom is a place to not only learn material, but to learn great interpersonal skills for life. Evan believes one of the ways to bring this about is through cultivating active listening skills. Understanding the core concept — or the most important idea — of what you are hearing someone else say, builds the ability to reflect. Wolkenstein records instances when he observes his students’ applying this skill, and he rewards them for building on this somewhat ineffable quality. “The goal is listening to understand,” adds Wolkenstein. “The ClassDojo tool trains me as well; it helps me to remember what’s important to me.”

Hear more details on how Evan uses ClassDojo in his high school classroom:

Find more “Ideas from the Classroom” from other teachers, and see how you might be able to adopt new approaches to using ClassDojo 🙂

Miranda Hanson, a teacher at Travis Elementary School on Travis Air Force Base says ClassDojo helped her become a more positive teacher, and preventing her from only focusing on students who “act up”. Hanson focuses on conveying her expectations for good conduct with the visual interface of ClassDojo, and customizing behaviors to those important to her classroom. The visual cues help students understand the kind of behaviors she is looking for. By encouraging the good behaviors in children, other children strive to learn the same to receive positive encouragement as well! The students now even compete with one another to be the “Player of the day.” Watch more about Maranda Hanson’s use of ClassDojo:

Hear other teachers who use ClassDojo share their “Ideas for the Classroom” to improve motivation, classroom management, and student encouragement.

Kaytlyn Flynn of St. Joseph Elementary School in Alameda, CA finds ClassDojo an effective tool for easing the transition time between subjects. Flynn gives positive points to students for preparing for the next subject quickly and efficiently without stalling. Similar to Maranda Hanson’s students, Flynn’s students thrive on the competition of positive point rewards. When one student is rewarded for preparing quickly, the rest of the students then follow suit. Overall, “this cut the transition time in half,” says Flynn. Watch Kaytlyn share more details on how she reduced her transition times:

Hear from other teachers like Kaytlyn on how they used ClassDojo improve the classroom environment through student motivation!

We all remember classrooms in which the same three bright students would volunteer to contribute insights and opinions, while the rest of the class offered little but the “blank stare.” Net result? Risk-averse, introverted students miss out on the chance to move out of their comfort zone and the rest of the class misses out on the opportunity to elevate the discussion. Who is to say the girl at the back of the class doesn’t have a most original, quirky idea to bring to the table? Too often, the fruits of that shy girl’s imagination are kept under lock and key.

Astute teachers will do most anything to shift this imbalanced classroom dynamic. This is where ClassDojo’s “random” feature can make a teacher’s life easier. Emily Wood shares her thoughts on how the randomizing tool has focused and engaged all of her students.

Watch more “Ideas for the Classroom” to uncover other great ways teachers incorporate ClassDojo into their workflow.

One of the best parts of working at ClassDojo is hearing directly from teachers how ClassDojo has been helpful for them and their students.

Every now and again, we hear some stories that we can’t help but want to write them down, and share with others. We’ve been lucky enough to chat with about 30 of these teachers, take some great photographs of them, and post them on our Stories page.

Take a look at ClassDojo.com/Stories, and if you’d like to share your own personal impact story, email us at Hello@ClassDojo.com 🙂

Photograph shown of Phylecia Palmer, a middle school special educator.

Note: This post is Part Three of a three part series, each individually sharing ideas for elementary school, middle school, and high school.

Evan Wolkenstein, high school teacher at Jewish Community High School of the Bay, San Francisco, who blogs his inspired lesson plans with creative comic strips at magnetiCClassroom.com, has the following plans for his classroom to offset the “slide” that happens just before summer vacation:

• Develop a long-term project that involves: a) problem solving b) an interview c) designing a prototype, and d) sharing the prototype with people off-campus. Evan brought his students to a nursing home to show their projects, and not only did they get the benefits of presenting their work to a loving and enthralled audience, but also it opened their eyes to what elders have to give back to teenagers.

• Have students write and work on a speech, starting in January, as “anchorwork” whenever they finish their class-work on any particular day. They can deliver the speeches, one per day, in spring. Use the speeches as a springboard for 10 minutes of discussion.

• Take students outside for discussion. Don’t forget to talk about class norms before you go outside. If you will require books to be open and won’t permit laying down and closing eyes, best to clarify that before everyone runs out the door. Bring your clipboard or tablet / smartphone with ClassDojo to record their conduct. They will see you do this and know that it’s outdoor class day, not recess.

• Choose a topic and “gamify” it – provide a resource with essential questions and information. Let them design a game to test each other, and then throw a “games festival.” Winners get lollipops…and learn the material for the quiz!

• Watch a movie (or 45 minutes worth of curated clips, rather than full films), and form discussion groups. The groups generate material than can be used for the final essay or exam (in which an optional prompt might ask for an analysis or comparison/contrast between the class text and the film).

• Team up with another class or section – offer a chance for the classes to compete, showing what they have learned (or created) to a panel of judges. Watch how fast students who have relational trouble in class become loyal teammates!

Contrary to the myth, the post-spring break segment does not have to be a crucible to slog through. Rather, it’s a time to coalesce the class into a collaborative project that will have the students riding high on successful teamwork.