Ask the Experts: Apps for Classroom Behavior Assessment
July 1, 2016

Do you use any apps to assess classroom behavior?

I’ve just been turned on to Class Dojo, which is a free behavioral-modification and quantification app for either your phone or tablet.

With Class Dojo, you input your class roster, give each student a cute monster avatar and then give or take away points for certain behaviors you’d like to focus on. These could be work habits, positive group interactions or trying new ideas. Students can then “cash in” their points to earn some type of reward.

Many teachers recommend projecting Class Dojo onto your board, so your students have constant feedback on their behavior—especially those dancers exhibiting the character traits you want to highlight.

The app has other helpful functions, too, such as the random selector, which picks students to answer questions. (My seventh-graders love to “lawyer” me on my decisions, but they accept any type of computerized, random selection as the law.) Class Dojo can also track attendance, hours put in on a project or assignment completion. You can run a report whenever you want, and you’ll have hard numbers that show how each student measured up—adding a bit more objectivity to behavior assessments.

Barry Blumenfeld teaches at the Friends Seminary in New York City. He is an adjunct professor at New York University and on faculty at the Dance Education Laboratory of the 92nd Street Y.

Photo courtesy of Barry Blumenfeld

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