Wednesday 6 April 2016

Class Dojo and Y9 Social Studies

For a couple of weeks I aas wondering what had gone wrong in my class. They were beautiful and focussed and then something happened.

I think with the crazy behaviours from students I had gotten used to the level of crazy and hadn't brought it back down to normal. Well at least my normal level of crazy.

Over the weekend I had been pondering it and realised a little lately that I hadn't been using Class Dojo. Why? I'd just forgotten and worse - I'd been using it with the Y10 Extension class who don't actually need it. This Y9 class does.

We started powering it up. Just like I do with the clicker with Mia. I noticed as many positive behaviours as possible in a short amount of time. I didn't give poins to those who asked. I gave points to those they nominated. I focused on the good behaviours, ignored the bad. Focused on the quiet workers who had smiles on their faces.

Then when those who were showing bad behaviours more often than good began to show an interest, we discussed the behaviours we need to be looking for. We changed the behaviours as per what they suggested needed work on. I also added the KCs. I need to identify from the ones they've suggested which ones fit inside our School PB4L values. Usually I would write Heights, Wisdom, Honour and Success as behaviours - but for now it's nore powerful having student selected behaviours as they're more likely to pull each other up and notice when they're not being onto it.

I just had a thought that perhaps creating a poster of all positive behaviours I'm looking for in class might be helpful - however, it also might mean that they start playing the game in a bad sense - that they work the system rather than intrinsically want to try to change their behaviours to improve their learning.

Anyway. Day One after Dojo and I feel way less stressed about the class. They're actually doing some pretty cool work too. New Settlers to Aotearoa booklets and using their knowledge and info they're gaining from tablets and the internet :)

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