Class Dojo is a behaviour management programme for the classroom. Every student in the class is given their own profile and avatar and teachers can award and take away points from the student’s avatar for making the right or wrong choices in class. The points are saved and so the teacher can use the same avatars throughout the year. Parents are also able to access their child’s Class Dojo account through their email. During my guided placement my school used Class Dojo. These were my impressions of Class Dojo: The positives Class Dojo is very visual. My students were able to see how many points they had compared to their peers and developed an element of competition to do better than their classmates. This was good in the sense that the students became incentivised to make the right choices in class. Furthermore, when I used Class Dojo with the interactive whiteboard the students were able to come up to the front of the class and give or take away points from themselves (on my behalf). I liked this element of Class Dojo as it encouraged students to regulate their own behaviour and reinforced the notion that they were ultimately responsible for how many points they got. The negatives I thought that the students in my class became too dependent on Class Dojo. When I praised them for making the right choices, they would often ask me: “Can I have a Dojo point?”. Praise lost its effectiveness as the students seemed largely motivated by getting Dojo points. I thought that quite a few of the students had become extrinsically opposed to intrinsically motivated to make the right choices in class. The problem here is that this is unsustainable, unless the person is continually rewarded for good behaviour throughout the rest of their life. Conclusion On the whole I do think Class Dojo is a great tool for classroom management but it should be used in moderation.
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Paul LArchives
January 2016
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