Week 8: Classroom Management App

One of my personal goals for this summer was to invest time in finding awesome Apps to use next year with our classroom iPads. I found a great one for classroom management through edutopia.org. I've never really had an issue with classroom management overall, what I have been finding myself struggling lately with is when it comes time to doing report cards ever quarter. For each one of our classes we have to assign a letter grade for behavior. In the grand scheme of things that doesn't seem too bad because typically one would only have a student in one class maybe two. This past year I had a class of sixth graders that I had for three different classes, therefore I needed to assign them three different behavior grades. Like most middle schoolers, not all of them behave the same way for one class compared to another. It all depends on a variety of factors such as subject matter, time of class, what class it follows, who they sit by, etc. I wish I would have came across the ClassDojo app during the school year.

On this app you add your classes and students, every time that they negative point every time that they are talking out of turn, off task or unprepared for class. You can also reward them positively for being on task, working hard, participating in class discussions, etc. I think this would work great because it is a running tally (I'm horrible with writing things down on a post it and then losing it)rather than just trying to recall the past quarter on the night before grades are due , while my 7 month old crys because his gums hurt from teething. Another handy aspect of this app is that the teacher can email parents about their childs behavior at any time.

Awesome find and I can't wait to share it with my fellow staff members.