Class Dojo

This is what the Class Dojo screen looks like.

You're probably saying the same thing my students did when I first introduced this - class what?!

CLASS DOJO!

This software program is an absolute miracle. The website is classdojo.com and this is what it says,

"ClassDojo makes it easy to keep my students alert and on-task."

"Improve student behavior and engagement by awarding and recording real-time feedback."

"Print or email beautiful behavior reports to easily engage parents and staff."

All of this is true and it's wonderful! One of my paras, Lisa, introduced it to me and then I heard about it a training. I realized it was time for a change because my students' behavior was getting disrespectful and I felt like I was losing control of my classroom! Originally I planned on experimenting with it using my 1st and 7th period because they are the easy classes. After ClassDojo was such a hit on Monday with my 1st period, I just decided to use it the next day with my 4th period. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing, but it worked like magic!

In Class Dojo, students get to pick an "avatar" from the monsters category or the critters category. Then they get green (positive) points for good behavior and red (negative) points for poor behavior. At the end of the class, I hit "END CLASS" and the computer will average the scores and give each student a percentage! So now instead of having students keep tally marks to earn battle ship, we track it on the computer and if students reached 80% or higher, they get to play battle ship. I absolutely love it.

I can't emphasize the difference Class Dojo made in my classroom! (I feel like this is an advertisement and I'm trying to sell something to you.) My 4th period was completely on-task starting that very day and it was great to see their faces light up when they received a green point. My 7th period was the most drastic change. They were never horrible kids, but they just talked out a lot and weren't always very respectful.

Well, a few days before I started using Class Dojo, Lisa kept track of their behavior without them knowing. She gave students green and red points and then at the end of the class, she showed me the scores. One student had SEVENTEEN talk-outs. Are you joking me? We were going to show the students, but someone accidentally clicked out of it and then the bell rang. But, because they knew they were being tracked and they knew what Class Dojo was, when I introduced it they were all really excited about it. That student who had 17 talk-outs was an angel! He was going so far as to say "please" and "thank-you" and I watched him take all of the other binders and put them neatly on the shelf while saying "Excuse me" to a student he almost ran into while taking the binders. It was incredible! Lisa and I kept looking at each other thinking, "What is happening in here?!" It didn't seem real, but wow, it was quite the change.

These are a few of the text messages Lisa sent me about it:

"I'm so glad it's [Class Dojo] working! It'll be interesting to see how long the honeymoon period lasts, but I've seen a difference in Hillman's self-contained kids during 2nd and 3rd period because they understand the expectations and we're not even running it during 2nd and 3rd period yet, lol. Less arguing, more raising hands...It's kinda weird!"

To explain this, our self-contained classroom hadn't started using Class Dojo, but those students who had me and had used Class Dojo were acting differently in her classroom as well - even though she wasn't using it! So this amazing program works across the board, which is pretty impressive.

These are what the positive and negative behaviors look like. You can choose whatever you want and then a little pictures goes with it!

The honeymoon period is over, but students are still on-task much more than they were! And it's great because students can see exactly what behaviors they have been exhibiting during class. It's also great because I can plug in my laptop computer to the promethean board, but use my ipad to give students points. So they can see their scores up on the board, but I can be anywhere in the classroom giving them points. Oh how I love technology! Go Provo School District!

-Ms. Damron-

What kind of a teacher am I?

So a month or so back I remember it was kind of a crazy day. It was a Tuesday, so we had a block day (each period was 85 minutes). I have a couple of students in my 4th period who are excellent gymnasts (a boy and a girl). Well, the boy has been asking me all year long if he could show me some of his sweet moves. I haven't let him, but that day I was in a...more carefree mood. The boy and the girl were talking each other up saying who could do a better hand stand. When the break came, and they had pestered me enough, I let them each do a hand stand.
The girl went first and did more than I could, but her hand stand wasn't exactly perfect. The boy laughed a little bit, then stopped when I gave him that "teacher look." When his turn came, he did an excellent hand stand and might have even walked a little bit. It was really quite impressive.
I remember thinking, "I've completely lost control of my classroom." It was really neat seeing what they could do though.

Later that day I was telling my sister this story and she said something like this,

"Today I can choose to fight my students, or I can sit back and let their unique talents thrive."

We both got a good laugh out of it, but she definitely made a point. I love my students and I hope they can all find their talents and develop and strengthen them so that they are never defined by their disability, but rather by their abilities.

-Ms. Damron-

Never give up hope...or chocolate.

I would like to point out that my blog entries are starting to happen more frequently! Aren't you proud of me?

I have a great story for you.

One of the teachers, Mrs. Radandt, has been having a rough few days because of some events that happened that were out of her control. Sadly she got blamed, and she's been having a hard time with it. (To not give away too many details, she was told that she was doing some things wrong, and it made her question whether or not she wanted to be a Special Ed teacher.)

Mrs. Radandt's sad face over her horrible day turned awesome.

Now, Mrs. Radandt is one of the best teachers out there. The kids all love her and learn when they are in her classroom, she works more hours than you even want to know, she is sweet and kind to everyone, and she has helped and mentored me more than you can imagine this year. I absolutely adore her.

Well, a few days ago, I bought a card that says,

Never give up hope (cover)

or chocolate. Never give up hope or chocolate. (inside)

I brought the card around to few different teachers that I know she had told about her situation, and then a few others besides. The chocolate fits Mrs. Radandt to a "t" because she loves chocolate. A LOT.

Sadly, today ended up being particularly difficult because of some interesting circumstances, so it actually worked out that I hadn't given her the card yet. One of our paras, Lisa, came up with the idea to "heart attack" both Mrs. Radandt and Mrs. Zuber. (Mrs. Zuber is the fill-in special ed facilitator while our facilitator is on medical leave.) She cut out a bunch of hearts, and we had students write little notes on them. It worked perfectly because Mrs. Radandt and Mrs. Zuber both had subs today. (They were both across the school in the special ed team room going through special ed folders.)
We spent all day having students write notes, and during 6th period, the speech therapist in the school, Joy Smith, went to the store and bought some chocolate goodies. She also came up with a cute note to go along with it:

There are lots of "Riesens" we love you - your friendship is worth a "million" bucks. After the audit - pure "bliss."

After school, Lisa and I had Erin (Radandt) and Leslie (Zuber) come down to their classrooms.

They were both so surprised! Leslie knew about the card for Erin, but the fact that we heart-attacked her classroom door along with Erin's totally surprised her! (And we all know how much I love surprises!) Erin was almost speechless she was so happy. In fact, she just might have shed a few tears! We had her go into her classroom and she found our little pink bag full of chocolate and the great card we had signed for her.
She was positively beaming and she told us that it was a fantastic ending to a horrible day.
We all ended up talking for way too long after school, but it was worth it to see the joy that came to their faces over seeing what we (and their students) had done for them.

Isn't life just grand sometimes?

L-R: Leslie Zuber, me, Erin Radandt (I absolutely love these two women and I cherish their friendship.)

My partner-in-service, Lisa Vezzani. This woman is amazing.

-Ms. Damron-

It's because I didn't understand.

Howdy y'all!

I felt very humbled today.
I got a new student in my first period Resource Learning class. He's an 8th grade boy who I think is just adorable. He actually just got put into Special Ed, but I think he's needed it for quite a while. He has a rough home life (from what I understand) and he has portrayed some interesting, slightly hostile and definitely non-compliant behaviors in various classes (which is why he was referred for Special Ed in the first place). He hasn't even been in my class for a week yet, but today was the first day we really got to get started on homework.

He was fine until we started doing homework, then I could see some of those non-compliant tendencies coming out. I chose to ignore them and continue as though he wasn't mumbling and grumbling about having to do make-up work.
The thing is...we have less than two weeks left in the term and he as a 10% in his History class and a 20% in his Science class. He's also failing English. Oh dear. I told him that it would be hard, but maybe if he worked really hard he would be able to make up his assignments enough to pass.

While we were walking through the hall I told him I was glad he was in my class so that he could get help. He said something like this,

"I got help all of last year and it didn't work. Teachers even pulled me aside and helped me, but I still failed."

When I asked him about his grades right now and mentioned all the zeros, he said,

"If there's a zero, it's because I didn't understand it."

The poor kid! I realize that I don't know how much of his grades are due to non-compliance and refusing to work/hand in assignments, but at the same time, his sincere and heart-felt statements sounded kind of like a plea for help mixed with a lot of self-doubt. I want to help him so much! He's had a rough bit the last few months, but according to my facilitator, his behavior has improved a little bit ever since he was tested to see if he would get qualify for Special Ed.

I'm really hoping that with a lot of work, we can get his grades up in the next couple of weeks. He's such a cute kid and I know that he just wants to do well.

-Ms. Damron-

So proud of my students.

I had my last ABC (new teacher) training today! I can't believe it's already March. Three more months and I will be done with my first year of teaching. Shut the front door! haha

While I was in training this morning, I was texting one of my paras, and she told me this story:

"So funny story for you...You're not going to believe how amazing your first period is! Your sub did not show this morning. Long story short, I guess Davidson (math teacher next door) let your kids in the room. When Marina (para) went in, your kids were ALL on task and working! They had done math minute, had corrected it, and working on homework. Don't think it gets much better than that, huh?!?"

Then I got this email from Mrs. Zuber, our Special Ed facilitator/teacher next door:

The subject of the email was "good news and bad news."

"First the bad news--your sub didn't show up today. Brett let everybody into your classroom but apparently didn't let the office know that the sub wasn't here yet (he may not have known you weren't here).
The Good news--your students came in, did their Math Minute and everything else they were supposed to do and when Marina and Lisa got there they couldn't believe how well-behaved and "trustworthy" they were--they were sitting there working away. I BELIEVE THAT MEANS YOU'VE TAUGHT THEM WELL!!! They also told the students they would be sure to let you know. They also let the office know your sub wasn't here and Sue was going to take care of it pronto. See you tomorrow, Leslie"

I was just beaming! I'm so proud of my students! Now, I'm not sayinig I'm amazing at all, my first period is fantastic and they do exactly what they're supposed to all the time, but still! Isn't that amazing? They could have just quietly done nothing for the first ten minutes and then played on the computer or something.
A sub didn't show up until 3rd period, but according to my paras, who covered 2nd period as well, 2nd period did great as well. Needless to say, I'm bringing donuts for some ROCKSTAR students tomorrow!

-Ms. Damron-