I remember my struggles as a student who wished to be invisible in the classroom, and grew up thinking that I can never be smart enough as my grades were below average. My teachers did encourage me sometimes, but it didn’t make sense as nothing brought my grades up. I gave up! I didn’t have Mojo as a friend to tell me that if I don’t know it yet, I just have to try harder or try it differently.

I am in love with ClassDojo. Everyone knows it. According to my students, I am the “best ClassDojo teacher in the world.” I shriek out loud when a new video is released, when there is a new update, and I love that this is a tool that I can use with all of my grade one to eight students. In my twenty years of teaching nothing has enhanced and improved my teaching like ClassDojo!

If you’re a teacher, you already know how important it is to establish and maintain communication between school and home. You value parental involvement for field trips, class parties, classroom volunteers, and of course, for supporting your students’ academic growth. If you’re like me, you love when that school-to-home communication is convenient, time-saving, and up to speed with the fast pace of today’s technology-driven world. Sound familiar? That’s where ClassDojo comes in.

You, as an adult, go to Starbucks and pick between the comfy chairs, the small table, the large communal table, or even the high bar where you can stand or sit on a stool. So, why can’t a child make a choice for where they want to work? Where they will work best? Won’t they do better work if they are in control and comfortable?

The key words are: INDEPENDENCE and CHOICE

You may have seen the “no homework” letter I wrote last week. It ended up being shared quickly by thousands around the world when Samantha Gallagher, the parent of one of my students, put it on Facebook. My only intention in writing it was to explain ― to the 21 parents in my class ― that I would no longer assign nightly homework to my second graders, and to explain why I thought it was in the best interests of their children. I had no intention of sparking a worldwide conversation. But I’m grateful I did.

Tasia Fields: “Parents and I have become partners; we’re in it together”

For teachers like Tasia Fields, connecting with parents hasn’t always been easy. Working at a Title I school in Chicago, where four in five students come from low-income families, communication barriers come into play — from language to parents working multiple jobs.

Tasia recently talked to some of our team about how ClassDojo has helped her overcome these barriers and build a classroom community for her fourth grade class.

Why do you love being a teacher?

Education is a real passion for me, so I enjoy all aspects of it. As a classroom teacher, hands down the best part is getting to help kids grow and change over a year — which sounds like a long time, but it’s really not! And the biggest changes aren’t always academic. It can be things like confidence, which is so important. It’s a powerful realization to know you can help create an “Aha!” moment for your students.

Is there a recent “Aha!” moment example you can share?

Yep! There’s a young boy in my class who is so capable of working to his highest potential but somewhere along the line he started to believe he couldn’t. This year, I’ve been encouraging him to go after challenges and push himself. Most recently we’ve been preparing for an exam and I saw he wasn’t sure of himself. But I encouraged him and he did a practice essay for me. I could tell he was nervous — but I loved it! I told him: “I told you you could do it if you practiced!” You could just feel his confidence rise as he started to believe in himself more. The next day when he took the exam he felt prepared, and he did wonderfully.

ClassDojo really helps with this – helping us all talk about these non-cognitive skills that are so critical – like confidence and not giving up. When everyone in my classroom believes these skills are important, and encourages them, students feel empowered to grow.

What does classroom community mean to you?

For me, a classroom community is a group of individuals working together – where there is trust in the environment, it’s comfortable, students are able to struggle and have success, and you have a set of shared values. It’s a community that’s not isolated to the room – it includes parents and other teachers. ClassDojo helps me build this community.

Before you started using ClassDojo, what were some of the challenges you faced in creating this sense of community – are they now easier to overcome?

Before I felt I was limited to a community within my classroom; it stopped at the four walls, and I was the only adult really involved in it. What ClassDojo does is extend the whole feeling of community so it overlaps into other places – parents and families at home, other teachers in the school. That makes us all feel more connected, and trust each other more.

Has forming a relationship with parents been hard?

I teach at a Title I school that is 80% lower income. Work schedules can be really crazy sometimes – so in the past, it has been very difficult. All that changed once I started using ClassDojo. It helps bridge that gap like nothing I’ve ever seen. Parents may not have internet access, but everyone has a smartphone. Because I’m sharing pictures and messages, it helps parents see school as a safe place, and brings them into the classroom experience. Being able to have real, ongoing conversations back and forth with parents really develops personal relationships with them, and helps us operate as a team instead of in silos. It means I’m no longer a “foreign” entity: we’ve become partners, and we’re in it together.

Are there certain features you really love?

The picture messaging capability is amazing – being able to snap a quick picture and send it home. Many parents of my students don’t speak English at home and pictures are a universal language everyone understands. Plus, I love that I can see when parents have read the messages with the ‘read receipts.’ I wear a lot of hats during the day and this way I don’t have to worry about messages reaching or not reaching them.

Have there been any benefits for you personally?

It makes teaching a lot easier for me. There are so many times that parents will send a message that says “thank you!” It’s simple but it really helps me feel that appreciation and support from home that makes a big difference!

What advice would you give new teachers?

Think about your students first – always ask yourself how will your practice benefit your students? Otherwise don’t bother with it. And relax – it’s okay if it doesn’t go perfectly to plan, be flexible and go with it!

Do you think apps like ClassDojo would have made your life easier starting out?

Absolutely! I wish it had been around then – it would have really helped me to bridge that gap between home and school, which would have made a big difference to my effectiveness.

What was the best response you got from a parent to sharing a photo or video?

The best response was, Wow, thank you so much, I love seeing my kid’s work in the classroom! !🙂

From self-confidence and encouraging curiosity to healthy attitudes and life skills, the first teachers to appear in a child’s life are the parents. The educational journey begins almost immediately after a child is born, and learning remains constant from that point on.

Through love, motivation, and encouragement, parents help form the foundation for their child. Kids’ overall character, desire to learn, and interests are great factors in the success and sustainability of their learning.

That said, there comes a time in every child’s life when they must leave the nest to embark on a new experience – to begin school.

School is not only a place where the parent-created foundation and skills are enhanced by formal teaching, it’s a place where new relationships will be born. Two of the most obvious relationships are peer-to-peer and student-to-teacher. But, often times people forget that another pertinent relationship is the parent-teacher dynamic; there is no better combination when it comes to the success of a child’s educational experience.

We hope you and your class enjoyed this year as much as we did. Our team has been reflecting the last few days on what we’ve done well, and what we’d like to do better next year. As we were doing that, we thought students might love the same activity !🙂

You can now download a Certificate of Achievement, celebrating a year well done, as well as an “End of Year Reflection” worksheet. Download now.

We hope your class has fun with this!

We’re excited to announce a big addition to how teachers can give feedback (aka Dojo points!) to students. Teachers can now share feedback with no point value attached, or “zero-point feedback” !🙂 Learn how to get started here.

Like so many other features before it, this one started with thousands of teachers asking for the zero-point option. ClassDojo already had the ability to weight points from +1 to +5 and -1 to -5, so why not 0? It was a fair question!

ClassDojo aims to help teachers create amazing classroom communities with students and parents, and it all starts with a positive classroom culture. So when considering the zero-point option, we needed to ask why and how it would it help create that all-too-important positive culture.

As we saw how teachers used ClassDojo this year, we took note of something: feedback points are just a simple way to communicate. With just a tap, teachers can reinforce school values, classroom expectations, and encourage any skill.

This simplified communication, though, says much more to students than just “+1” or “-1.” Every +1 or -1 comes with an implied message

For example, you might give a Dojo point for “participation,” but what a student hears is more significant:

And a +1 for “Bravery” could mean:

But there are times when giving a point says more than you want, and might even be counterproductive to the community you’re building. For example, teachers often use “needs work points” to say, “Oops, you’re a little off course right now.” But since that message came with a “-1” point value, students might hear, “I’m disappointed in you, and you’re now less valued in our classroom.” Piling on to that, their parents often think, “Uh-oh, I need to step in right away.”

Adding the zero-point option made perfect sense. Teachers need a simple way to let students know they are off-course without making them feel less valued, and keeping parents in the loop without making mountains out of molehills!