In order to become more familiar in how analytics can be used in the classroom, please do the following activity:
1) Go to Class Dojo
2) Click on “Login” (in upper right corner) and choose “Teachers” from drop-down menu
3) Login with the email etecubc500@gmail.com and password classdojo
4) Click on the class “ETEC 522 2014“,then “Edit class” (in the upper right corner) and add yourself as a student. Please watch the video if you are having problems.
5) Assign yourself (or others) positive and negative (“Needs work”) behaviours.
6) Click on “Reports” (at the upper center of the screen) to see the classroom analytics for this week or other date ranges. To see an individual student, click on their name on the left menu bar.
Discussion: After playing around with the functions of Class Dojo please comment on one or more of the following questions below. Feel free to explore the rest of the interface and continue to check back throughout the week to see how our class has behaved!
- Which behaviour tracking (positive or negative ) do you find most useful?
- How could the data collected be useful to adapting or creating personalized learning?
- Does the visual representation of behaviour differ from what you might be able to notice in class?
- Is this a useful resource that you could see being used in your classroom? Why or why not?
Please post your response in the Comments section below.
I think this could be a useful tool in an elementary classroom as it would be easy to keep track of student behaviour. I don’t really see much use for it for secondary students. I like the site though, it is easy to use and visually stimulating. I am guessing students and parents would be able to go on and view their progress?
This website seems interesting, however as others have eluded too earlier, the lack of detail in terms of feedback limit the overall usefulness of this website for me personally. If the options for behavioral feedback allowed for the creation of new categories, or a text box for written feedback, then perhaps it could be more suited for my application in a classroom. Just from using the ClassDojo briefly, I would assume that the point of the website is to give very brief, quick, formative feedback/analytics, and so I think it would be better for substitute teachers to use when regular classroom teachers are away? This way, the teacher can get an overall sense of how student behavior is in their absence.
I find the positive and negative tracking exactly the same, and I am not quite sure which is more useful! I do like the positive behaviour, because it reinforces the student success. Negative tracking will just deter the students or discourage them from trying. Well the data collected is useful in personal learning in managing and adapting classroom instruction, expectations and determining overall strengths. If everyone is doing poorly on one assignment, perhaps that is an indication that instruction needs to be modified, whereas if everyone is exceeding, that might also raise concerns. It would largely depend on my classroom, and the results I am trying to determine. Each criterion is very different, so they would have to be very important and meaningful in the study or question you are attempting to solve. In this case, I’m not sure if bullying and disrespect may help me adjust homework and curricular expectations. The two are unrelated. However, it could assist in determining modifications to overall classroom management programs or assisting in developing behaviour modification strategies. This would help in an elementary setting, as well as a secondary setting, but more so in classes that are fluctuating with varying levels of competencies and levels of understanding. Overall, I thought it was a neat activity, and an introduction in the field of analytics!
For some reason, I couldn’t log on to Classdojo on my computer at home so I watched some interesting youtube videos. I like how you can manage behaviours. This would be great for classroom management and behaviour modification. You could really see if your behaviour interventions are working. I would also like this for parent teacher interviews. The only things I would be worried about are security and the safety of my data.
James.
Sorry to hear that James. We hope you have the opportunity to try it in the future (if it’s related to your profession). As for the security of the data, all the private information, it’s pretty much the same as email – you just have to remember to logout.
I could see Class Dojo as a helpful tool especially in special education classrooms or in schools where a large portion of your primary students come to school without the prerequisite behaviours. I also think the program could really help keep you positive – if used with that intent. I used to routinely remind myself to focus on the positive with students (we can all get down on our students) and this would definitely help. That being said, if you focused too much on the negative it could be detrimental to the students. I know many students who will rise to your negative view as well as some families that might punish their child for their “bad” behaviour. I could also see with a new teacher, this could get out of hand, especially when students remind you of their good behaviour and other students bad.
Others have mentioned and I too have concerns with the focus on extrinsic motivation and a reward system that doesn’t move beyond the teacher determining +/- behaviour. We want motivated, self-regulating students. This program would be a start but like any good behaviour mod program, you need “gradual release of responsibility” which I don’t see in this program.
Finally, I like the ability to share with parents but a cavalier attitude towards awarding/subtracting points or a quick trigger finger (as in all social media) could land you in trouble with parents.
I would like to see some additions to this program:
1. Explain the behaviours. What does “participate” look like and sound like? Perhaps they could have videos like their introductory video to clearly explain the behaviour.
2. Provide the ability for the teacher to create activity specific rubrics (group/class behaviour) with a limited timeline, to help students understand how to work together or participate positively for example.
3. Provide the ability for the teacher to create teams, where groups of students earn marks for a group activity.
4. Something they probably wouldn’t do, but provide a way for teachers to slowly, over the course of the year, move away from teacher awarded, external rewards to student self-regulation and metacognition as they learn to manage their own behaviour. In the best of all possible worlds Class Dojo would allow students to track their behaviour and reward themselves, with the teacher able to create hidden notes to compare and share as needed with parents.
Hi Kendra,
Thanks for your review and feedback! We didn’t really get expand on it, but on the ClassDojo home page there is a link titled “Ideas” (http://www.classdojo.com/ideas) and another title “Stories” (http://www.classdojo.com/stories). Some of your points could be answered there. But as for your first point, I think that “participate” would look and sound different according to each class/teacher. I think it’s the teacher’s responsibility to explain (and also use the option to customize) the positive/needs work behaviors. I also like your idea of grouping students together in a team; it would definitely be easier than trying to remember all students to reward (at present you probably discovered that there is only the reward multiple students option)
I have never used ClassDojo so this was a little treat-super cute! While I won’t be able to use this tool in my classroom (my focus is adult ed) I can see how this would be an interesting tool to use in an elementary school age classroom. The maintenance and consistency might get a little unruly but the concept is good. You’d have to be fairly consistent in inputting data otherwise, it would be difficult to explain trends to parents.
I can see a lot of great uses for Class Dojo but I have some concerns about what seems to be its most common functions. I have not used the tool in the classroom but I have seen and used other types of reward systems. In my experience the issues with external motivators present themselves often. Depending on the system or obsessing over the rewards can create new behavior problems and group reporting can create social tension. I still think Class Dojo could have a very positive affect on a class but I think it’s really important do some prep-work before implementing. It’s great that Class Dojo is so easy to customize in order to make it work. I would like to use the mobile app and try using it in a physical education class.
That’s a great idea for use in a physical education class. In my PE classes 50% of their grade is daily participation. They’re marked out of 5 for each day and this program would allow for some hard data to ensure their grades.
I never used ClassDojo before so I was excited to try it. Data more often than not speaks for itself and students can easily visualize their performance relative to the rest of the class. However, I agree with Kuljinder that teachers probably do not have the time to input the necessary data and thereby realize its potential. I can easily imagine situations where a student feels that they deserved a positive award or did not deserve a needs work warning. Putting myself in a student’s shoes, there may also be sensitivity about others earning positive awards. Perhaps Student A perceives Student B as undeserving and concludes that the teacher is not properly using the analytic tool, which may be the case if the teacher has no time to use it. ClassDojo is susceptible to being perceived as ineffective by the class if the teacher cannot afford the time to consistently use it. It is difficult to understand the student perspective of ClassDojo logged in as a teacher. I believe that ClassDojo offers more value if students anonymously rate each other and the teacher simply adjusts those ratings in the interest of fairness.
I thought the same thing – there is always the option to have students involved. There are many things that I know I don’t witness throughout the day and unfortunately ClassDojo is only reflective of the items that we do see. If students were to rate the classmate they sit beside that could allow them to feel a part of the process and to keep it fair.
I had fun tracking how the class is doing as a whole. 88% positive behaviour. Only a few incidents of bullying, disrespect, not turning in homework, etc. 🙂 I don’t expect to use ClassDojo as I’m not a teacher, but I enjoyed the experience.
Interesting that we’re more inclined to give ourselves more positive behaviours. This could be due to the fact that the positive behaviours are listed first. However there are some students who did not experiment with negative behaviours.. Which is something to also look at. Either way a teacher would have to be happy with our behaviour this week!
I use ClassDojo a lot in my class and I just adore it.When I first learned about Dojo, I was not sure if i will use it.My students love the Dojo awards/point system.In my classroom, I try to use Dojo to focus on positive behaviors instead of the negative ones. For example if a student is off task, I try to award the students around him for being on task. It is my hope that by not specifically “calling him out,” he will recognize that he is not on task. This works most of the time. Of course, if that tactic does not work, I do take away points. Dojo also makes a sad sound when points are loss and this almost immediately catches students’ attention. The best part is that it is free and can be used on your tablet or any smart device.
Thanks for sharing your experience Mehdia, I’ve particularly enjoyed hearing how others have implemented these programs in their classroom. I believe it helps with the realism for other people contemplating its use in their practices.
Have you ever used it for communication with parents? If so, what is their reception of the program?
Class DOJO was really fun! This is an excellent idea of educational technology that is simple but effective. For older students, I thought if they could use this for self-task management, that is helpful to learn to be an independent learner.
Great idea Yuki, its always nice to have students involved in their own reflection. This would allow them to connect with the data more seriously. There is of course the opportunity for students to be biased of themselves so this would need to be taken into consideration.
I think all behaviour tracking could be useful, and tracking positive ones could be of value as a form of positive reinforcement strategy for behavioural classroom management. I guess it is extrinsic in nature and also transparent; it could help students to learn how to monitor their own behaviour on a personal level through exemplars. The visual representation might differ from what I would notice in class due to bias, and what I might focus on (I might assign more value to or notice certain behaviours more than others). If students are active participants in ClassDojo then I could see what their perception is, promote self-regulation, etc. This could be a useful resource for elementary level students or for students with special needs at any level. Overall, this could be used on daily/weekly/monthly basis to exemplify what is going on in the classroom and what we need to improve on!
Oh, I’m so glad I explored this, the monster avatars made me so happy! At first, while I thought it was super cute, I thought that a teacher would never use it because it’s just extra work to set it up, log in, and “grade” the class each day, or several times a day. Plus, I sort of wrote it off as an elementary thing (I can’t imagine using this in my Pre Calculus 12 class, ha!). But then I read Anne’s comment on her experience using the tool and I was newly engaged. I went back in, and created a new badge, which made me realize how easy it is to use. While I wouldn’t use it with my senior classes, I would certainly consider using it with my grade 8’s. I think Anne’s idea of using it on a smart board and having students mark themselves present is a fantastic idea. I do like that parents and students can log in to see what’s going on. I agree that the term “bully” is a loaded one, but that can be easily changed. The other thing I noticed while poking around is all of the teacher resources they have available to enroll students, parents, and other teachers. Obviously it helped them with marketing, but it’s smart to create that for the teacher, not enough companies make it easy for teachers to plug their products. So, I’m wondering: If they give this out for free, and there are no ads on the site, how do they make money?
I found this article at EdSurge: Since its creation they have not earned a cent and have raised over $10 million. They believe that by receiving large amounts from investors that they’re going the Facebook/Twitter route. With such a high popularity I would assumes investors would see an opportunity to make money eventually.
https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-03-12-one-billion-points-for-classdojo
Looking at Activity #3 I must say that I really enjoyed exploring the analytic application “Class Dojo.” I see this as a wonderful and useful resource for teachers to use in their classroom to track behaviors for trailering not only instruction formats, but gathering information on students for reporting periods. When I taught Grade one a number of years ago I can see how this application would have been perfect for the class I taught. I think it would be a great reminder for me for tracking behavior and a reminder to try different strategies with certain students and use the feedback to motivate the students in some way where they could see their progress. I think the real magic in Class Dojo is the simple and easy to use interface. There isn’t too much information and it seems very intuitive to use. I see the real value in this application for lower elementary levels with helping students stay on track with their learning and identity students who may need extra support and different strategies.
I loved all of Anne’s ideas on how to use this tool. I think having it open on the smartboard (if you have one) is a great visual way to reinforce positive behaviour. I think it has a lot of potential, especially with students who need that visual to remain on task with their behaviour. I also recognize the potential for some parents to manage their childs’ behaviour with this tool as well. I had a student with autism these past 2 years, and his EA and I would complete a quick behavioural management book at the end of the day and send it home with him. His mom would reward or give consequences based on his week’s behaviour as reported in the folder. Class Dojo would have been a helpful online tool for us and his parents to track his behaviour. I wonder if it could produce a behaviour chart with relation to the calendar year that shows patterns throughout the year? Typically towards the end of a term or around a holiday, negative behaviours increase. It would be interesting to see if Class Dojo could track this and highlight ‘negative’ times of the year as well as ‘positive’ times of the year.
There is a feature that allows you to look at their behaviour for either a specific week, month (s), or the whole year. So you would be able to chart specific times that behaviour either improved or worsened.
Loved this Analytic program, it was simple, easy to use and visually great! Easily navigable and I liked how you can customize the learning behaviours and icons for each student. Great tool I think predominantly for elementary students. I wonder how receptive high-school students would be with this system. I think they would find it interactive and fun but it would give them a basic understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. I also liked that the ClassDojo also offers a way to track student attendance and let parents interact or see their child’s progress. I especially liked the avatars used as students could pick these. Great supplement as a formative assessment or to let students know they are on track with a particular task or assignment. Thanks for sharing this Analytics program!
I thought the same thing. I know a lot of my secondary students would really not care if they received positive or negative behaviour feedback (at least until mom and dad found out). But I do think there are other ways to use this other than behaviour analysis. While the interface is easy to use in its form, it can be customizable to your needs. Whether they be behaviour analysis or not.
Wow! I wish I had a tool like this when I was teaching. The simplicity of it is brilliant, but this is the kind of data that teachers need when they are talking to parents. Teachers could always say “I noticed…” or “Johnny seems…” but now the data is there to back it up and the discussion can move right to solutions. Neat!
ClassDojo is free and the simplest behavior-tracking analytics that may work for basic learning environments (elementary).
It lacks automation and deep advanced analytic for use in PSE, preferably online environments. At elementary levels, it may be useful to timely and effectively inform and engage parents in their child’s development, and to enhance intrinsic motivation for learning and class participation. All in all, ClassDojo helps making classes less disruptive and creates a more positive learning environment.
I like the basic idea of CLassDojo. It certainly allows teachers to track student behaviour more accurately if they wish to do so. The analytics at the end of every week could be extremely useful to reflect upon and could also be used as a conversation with a student and or parents if things are not going well or even if they are going well. It also seems to be very easy to collect the data for the teacher.
I think the drawbacks to the system are the fact that the behaviours are not detailed enough and the ability to provide more detailed information is absolutely necessary (not sure if this can be done or not). I noticed someone posted that they agree upon the behaviours at the beginning of the year so I would assume that this can be done. I think that this is only a starting point for conversations around student behaviour/performance and not certainly not the end of any data collection that is needed.
Chris
Hi Chris,
Yes, you can customize what the behaviours are for both positive and negative ones and also edit the image for each one. You can add more behaviours as well so that there are more for you to choose from.
Ashley
This was a fun activity and I like the little avatars! I thought that the positive reinforcement was really great. It feels good to get all of those numbers when you are doing well. It also makes it a bit competitive when you can see everyone else. I thought that the negative ones were a little harsh, and it would not feel good to see the number going down. I could see it working well in a class. I think I might try it using only positive reinforcement at first and see how that worked and then bring in the negative behaviours if I felt it was necessary later. I would be interested to know how the behaviour changes based on this. I also could see this motivating students because parents could go in and see it.
I like the flexibility of the program. While the negative features are there – everything is customizable to your needs. Learning analytics is centred around trying to find an answer to a problem or question you are trying to solve. If you want to focus more on positive encouragement then the negative aspects are not necessary.
As a teacher that uses Classdojo in my classroom, I can speak to how it is used with students. At the beginning of the year the students and I determine which behaviours to include in both the positive and negative areas. I only use the thumbs up and thumbs down pictures to make it easier. After we have determined as a class what it means for each behaviour, I set it up on our classdojo. I have classdojo set up on my Smartboard so that it is visible all day, this also makes it easy to administer the points as they are happening. Classdojo also has a mobile app that I have downloaded to my phone so that I can keep track when we are not in the classroom, such as assemblies, outside or in the gym. Creating the behaviour parameters is similar to creating the class rules at the beginning of the year, and the students are more apt to engage if they have had some participation in setting it up. Also, one of my class jobs is Sensei and that student is responsible for rewarding positive points for specific things like doing a class job, being on time, helping others, etc.
I also use it for attendance. I have it up on the board before the students arrive in the morning and I mark them all as absent. As they come into the classroom, the students click on their name to mark themselves present. Then I just have to look at the screen to see who is not at school that day. There is also a designation for late which can be noted too.
As I noted in an earlier post, I have used the data from the program with the students during our data management unit. The students used their own data to track their progress over the first term, and then compared their data to other students in the class, or the class as a whole. I have not had any parents ask to see the data, but I did have a few sign up using their parent code.
Another way I have used Classdojo in class was to keep track of our book challenge. Each student challenges themselves to read a certain number of books in a term. As a class we determine the parameters for the challenge (such as chapter books, at least 100 pages, at the student’s reading level) and record the number of books each one of us thinks they will be able to read during the term. As each student finishes a book, they give themselves a positive point on the book challenge screen. This allows them to keep track of their books read, and see where they stand in relationship to the rest of the class.
Anne,
Thank you for your thorough explanation of the program and classroom applications. You have answered many of the questions I had about its use. I was not aware of the level of customization possible to make the platform more relevant for each group of students.
Thanks for sharing your experiences Anne, it’s always nice to hear a first hand account of someone who has been able to successfully implement programs into their classroom. What a fantastic idea to use it for a book challenge as well – a nice visual to remind them to keep reading.
I really enjoy how you’ve made your students an integral part of the process. They are active participants/reviewers of the data and I think thats helped lead to your success.
HI Anne,
Really liked your idea of using ClassDojo as a way of assessing your students literacy. I would love to use it in this way with ELL learners. Visually easy for them to see and great for beginners! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Anne!
Brilliant way to use technology to engage young students. Thanks for sharing all your great ideas.
I love it. Thank you for giving us the chance to use it 🙂
I like the teamwork badge
We can identify problems that are different for each student and help in solving them. We can also build on the positive skills and improve them
It is accurate yet the system allowed you to add other badges
Yes it is fun for the kids and useful for the teacher to get the classroom behaviour organised. Even though it looks in its design it can be used for K1 & K2 yet if the student still cannot type he or she will not be able to use it
Absolutely! It’s a fun/new twist on classroom management. There are plenty of customizable options and the teacher can select what they want to do with the program. Perhaps they share it with their students and parents or perhaps they just use it for their own personal information/reflections. In a classroom you’re going to be aware of those students who talk out of turn or don’t hand in their homework, but I do like that it also focuses on positive behaviours. We know that we have students who work hard and stay on task but we don’t always have a visual/reward for that.
Although I find the program interesting, I agree with the previous comments. In terms of an analytic tool, it lacks detailed information. Many of the terms could be misleading and as both a parent and teacher, I would want more details about the behaviour. More information is required in order to understand the context of the situation and assist with the implementation of measures to support the students. As a teacher with a class of 30 students, I would not have time to run to my computer to consistening input information about postive and negative behaviours. For this reason, the data would not be accurate. For an educator who chooses to use the program, how would they use the data generated? How would this be communicated to parents?
I completely agree with you, while any program will have its benefits, there are always shortcomings. Having the time to input the information manually does take extra time that does not always exist. I remember when I was in elementary school we had a list of class rules, and if that rule was broken we had to stay in and copy down a paragraph punishment in regards to that rule. Each week the teacher would assign a student to look after a class clipboard and would copy down the rule numbers beside someones name when the teacher asked them to give “Steve” a 3. It’s a similar non-technological program to Class Dojo.
Alternatively if a parent does have a question about behaviour pointing them towards the statistics might not be concrete evidence.
I believe that Kuljinder raises a valid point that many of these terms would need to be clearly defined by the teacher and communicated to students and parents.
I actually find it kind of interesting that the avatars represent little monsters or odd hybrid animals lol. I think that data collection can help to create adapted or personalized learning in the sense that some students need more time than others to perform activities and perhaps those with negative behaviors might benefit from an adapted plan to keep them engaged and busy. There’s the potential with reports to see how different approaches may increase or decrease certain kinds of behaviors and practice (although there’s the missing element of what’s going on at home and in students personal lives). I’d be curious to see how students parents would react to their child having negative reports. I imagine that some would be responsive to this and perhaps speak to their kids, however there’s the potential for this to have a negative impact for some. As I don’t teach at a K-12 level, I wouldn’t use this. If I did, I’d appreciate something that has more descriptive attributes for effort and progress. It might just be me, but it ‘feels’ a bit to behaviorist.
I thought the avatars were cute! I didn’t really realize until you pointed it out that they were “monsters.” I suppose there might be some sort of symbolic meaning there..
I agree, there is always the option to see behaviour patterns in regards to certain activities. Perhaps one student is receiving more negative behaviours when they are required to work alone, but receive more positive scores when they are working in groups. This could help to create a more personalized learning system.
Bobbi, thank you for pointing out that the avatars are little animals/monsters, very interesting! You can change them to anything you want, such as images of the students, so they don´t have to stay as monsters!
I liked this application, thanks for sharing 🙂
I think there needs to be a lot of preparation before using this application. For example, the terms (bullying, off task, persistence, etc.) need to be defined clearly. A term like bullying can be used loosely, so students must have a strong understanding of what bullying entails. I played around with that one…I’m not a bully, I just wanted to see what it showed up as when I clicked it a few times…
I think this would be a valuable tool to use when parents come in and have questions or concerns on their child’s behaviour. However, I am wondering how realistic this app is. Does a teacher really have enough time to do this? Can the teacher remember the award for each student? How many times does the teacher input behaviour? I think it could be a useful resource but I’m wondering if it is practical.
I think you raise some excellent points. The terms on this program are very general – but there is always the flexibility to make them your own. While there are some predetermined settings, there is the option to customize your own to make it fit to your classroom needs. However, defining those terms with parents and students will have a greater impact than just starting to use them. This way the student understands what it means and becomes an active participant in these definitions.
I think it can be a valuable tool to show parents where their child stands in terms of behaviour in the class. While it has its limitations (perhaps you don’t see all behaviours and will only record the ones you see/remember) perhaps the visual and statistics can have more impact than just communicating to a parent with words.
I agree completely, the avatars are cute. 🙂 I was automatically assigned the most nerdy looking little monster, which I felt compelled to change to the blue one instead lol. I call them little monsters because they totally remind me of characters from Monsters Inc. Like Kuljinder I had some concerns about the labeling of “bully” and how a student or parent might react to this. There’s a few shades of grey here as it’s really hard to categorize behavior and intent. I do think this would be a fun tool to try for younger students though. Also from a venture perspective, it offers a unique feature of connecting this sort of reporting directly to parents.