Last year, a parent recommended I try using Class Dojo as a way to keep families involved. I had never heard of the app and assumed it wouldn’t work for my class, but I tried anyway and ended up loving it. I don’t use Class Dojo the way my general ed teachers do, but it works well for my classroom. See 3 ways to use it in self-contained classrooms below!
Use It To Create a Classroom Culture
When students are in a self-contained classroom, especially one not linked to an inclusion class, it can be easy for parents to miss out on traditional aspects of a classroom. It is always important to me to try and share photos a couple times a week of something class-wide. This helps parents feel like their son and daughter are part of an actual class-which is a major step in making your classroom an inclusive place! I love to share photos, and I will also share announcements that apply to the whole class. See examples below!
Use It To Share Student Information
This is my number one use of Class Dojo. I love using this app to share photos from class. I truly feel that pictures share the most information. Why just tell you about your daughter’s progress with her counting goal when I could snap and share a photo of her completing a counting activity? You can even record and send short videos-a great way to show off fluency skills. I also love using the message feature. This allows me to get really important information from parents without having to share my cell phone number. A mom can tell me her son didn’t have time to eat breakfast and is hungry, and I will get a notification on my phone before he gets off the bus. See examples below-yes, my dog is playing “Matthew” in the photo 🙂
Share Important Skills
I have not used Class Dojo for this aspect before, but I got the idea while writing this blog. How cool would it be to use this feature to share information on communication and behavioral skills? If I had a student who was using Zones of Regulation to help him calm down, it would be awesome to click a button and let his mom know he used the Zones successfully. There is also a notes section I can add if I need to share more information! It is an easy way for me to share information and keeps the parents in the loop. I have already reached out to my own class to see if they are interested in setting this feature up and I hope to roll it out in my own Class Dojo app as well!
I hope this helped spark some ideas on how you can use Class Dojo in your classroom!