Class Dojo: Who's the Master? You are!

I couldn't help referencing The Last Dragon, a martial arts flick from the eighties (and one of my favorite movies), but using classdojo.com actually makes me feel like I am more of a master of student behavior in my classroom. This program, visible to students when I show it on my Promethean Board, allows me not only to reduce negative behavior, but also to increase positive behavior, especially when I customize my  Dojo behaviors to match the behaviors outlined in the participation rubric (see the post, Level Up Participation, if you are interested in the participation rubric), It has changed the way students participate in my class.

Here's how I do it: I first explain my expectations with students, and I give them a goal for earning points (Ex. students should earn twenty points over a three-week period.) Then I display the screen daily; students gain or lose at least one point per day for being on task but must go beyond the basics at least five times to gain all of the required points. Point gaining opportunities include volunteering, making thoughtful comments or asking relevant questions in discussion, answering questions correctly, and helping their peers. I have seen a noticeable improvement in the number of volunteers in class, and it has done wonders to open up a class that is normally very quiet. Mrs. Kirby has academic language as a positive behavior and has noticed improvement in the quality of language used in discussion. I can't wait to add that one. The best thing about it is you can customize it to meet your needs. Thanks to Mrs. Wagner for sharing this one with the rest of English Department.

Top Reasons to Love Class Dojo
1. It's free!
2. It's customizable so you can use it in the way that works best for you.
3. It provides both positive and negative reinforcement for students
4. It's visible reminder to students each day.
5. It's easy to set up and manage
6. It provides documentation for behaviors
7. There's an app for that!
8. The app is free too!
9. It encourages active learning and thoughtful discussion
10. IT HELPS ME ADDRESS LITERACY STANDARDS FOR SPEAKING AND LISTENING!

If You Like Mirror, You'll Love Doceri

This is how Mrs. Foster Describes it:

 

 It is an app and software has to be downloaded onto your desktop.  It's free (Janet thinks it's a free trial that never expires.).  Doceri allows you to control your desktop with your iPad.  It allows me to walk around the room and teach.

 

From my understanding it does the opposite of Mirror: Mirror allows what is on your Ipad to show on your desktop. Doceri allows you to control your desktop from you Ipad. This will work really well with Class Dojo. I can't wait to try it!

Quality Core Toolkit Strategy #1 - Muddiest Point

Quality Core, an organization associated with ACT and responsible for writing End of Course tests, publishes a booklet called The Educator's Toolkit with strategies that any teacher in any course can use to facilitate higher level thinking. From time to time I will post strategies from this book and label them QC toolkit strategies.Here is strategy number one.

We have often heard it said that formative assessment and teacher feedback are key for student growth. Muddiest Point (Angelo& Cross, 1993) is a quick formative assessment that allows students to self-monitor comprehension and allows teachers to discover what students misunderstood about a concept or process. The assessment is simple: each student describes a concept from the day's instruction he or she finds "muddiest," or least clear. The points that students identify can then be used to construct a portrait of a class's understanding and identify areas of reteaching allowing the teacher to give feedback or reteach in a timely manner. This works very well as a closing activity or as an Exit Pass that students give to the teacher as they leave the classroom.

Quick and Easy Questioning

Adding rigor to our classrooms has a lot to do with asking the right kinds of questions. Moving beyond recall and literal understanding questions is essential if our students are going to become the critical thinkers that college and the work place require. This outline, submitted by Mrs. Green, explains the three levels of questioning and provides examples of questions in each level. Rigorous classrooms ask significantly more level three and level two questions than level one. After reading the descriptions below, reflect on the level at which you ask most of your questions.Then consider ways to move level one questions to levels two and three.

Classification Scheme for Reading Questions
 
I. Literal Level (What it says)
These questions only require the reader to find the answer in the reading material and to recite the answer word-for-word as found or to translate the answer into one’s own words, as in:

• Direct factual questions in which the fact is given in the selection read
• Quoting the author or character in the selection
• Explaining in own words the meaning of technical terms and vocabulary word 
• Explaining in own words the meaning of a sentence or phrase 
• Listing the events that happen in a story as a basis for constructing a plot line 
• Consulting a dictionary for a definition

Sample questions: Where did David first see Norah? What does Paul steal?

II. Inferential Level (What it means)
These questions require the reader to go beyond what is written and to supply missing information or to make leaps of understanding based on the evidence in the reading and one’s own experience. At this level students discover the unstated relationships among the person, events, or ideas in the story or text. Examples are:

• Identifying the component parts of a given communication and/or determining relationships among the component parts as in:
  o Identifying assumptions or conclusions in a given communication
  o Making inferences, conclusions, or implications
  o Identifying relationships, as in:
• Cause and effect
• Sequential
• Logical
• Past-present
• Main ideas and details
• Central theme
  o Making comparisons based on analyses of relationships or other influences
  o Recognizing characterization or use of literary device
• Composing a unique communication which brings together ideas from one’s previous experience, as in:
• o Applying principles or ideas in a communication to a real life situation
• o Writing an original poem, essay, or story
• o Relating a personal experience
• o Suggesting original solutions to a problem

Sample questions: Why does David feel such an attachment to Rosemary? In what way is Caroline a dynamic character? What role does David’s camera play in the story (symbolically)?

III. Evaluative Level (Why it matters)
These questions require the reader to judge a given communication based on standards or criteria. This includes evaluating the merits of a given communication according to standards of accuracy, authenticity, relevancy, completeness, practicality, reasonableness, logical consistency, trueness to reality, morality, and beauty.

Sample questions: Do you think if Phoebe had been kept by the Ashers and raised as one of them that her quality of life would have been the same? How would the novel be different if it had been told by, say Caroline, instead of David?

**Sample questions are taken from The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.

Quick Link to Lots of Good Strategies

All of the talk about rigor and relevance and the strategies we can use to help our student attain reading goals reminds me of the secondary Alabama Reading Initiative training from our former reading coach, Alycia. For years AHS has been implementing best practices in literacy with before, during, and after reading strategies in all courses not just English Language Arts. When a person, or group of people, have been doing something for so long, it is easy to forget some of the really great lessons done "back in the day," so in case you need to be reminded of Alycia's ARI training or you are just looking for some effective reading strategies, here's a link to a list of strategies you can re-introduce to your lesson plans. If you can't decide where to begin, choose one strategy at random every week and find a way to incorporate it into your lesson plans. I really like how this site provides a brief overview, a numbered list of procedures, and even examples if you need them.

Feel free to visit again and comment on the strategies that you used. We all want to know what works!

http://www.learningpt.org/literacy/adolescent/strategies/prep.php