One of my New Year's Resolutions is to be a better blogger in 2015! Parents, if you have topics you would like for me to write about, please email your ideas!
One new thing we are doing for 2015 is changing the way
Class Dojo is used. I want students to focus on certain "mindset" behaviors and ways of thinking so that they can develop into students who really know how to learn and focus on "growing their brains". So I am changing most of the
green points in Dojo to those behaviors. We have Good Choice which is still a general positive behavior point. Now I have added Relationships which is for helping someone else respectfully and without just giving them answers. This also includes working well in teams and with partners. There is Path Finder which is for kids making connections between ideas and sticking with hard tasks until they find their way through. Taking a Risk is for asking good questions and taking a shot at answering something even if they may be wrong. Fail Forward is for sticking with something when they don't succeed and keeping a positive attitude. Extra Mile is for precise answers, elegant solutions, and great detail in their work. We have an Achievement point for reaching a new level or mastering something in class. There is the group Hallway point for times when the whole class has moved through the halls walking quietly so that we respect other classes who are learning. All of these should help students remember that being a quiet compliant student is not our end goal in school - that learning is about their effort and attitude and doing their best to make their brains grow all the time!
Our
red points are still focused on behaviors students need to avoid: Talking Out of Turn, Wasting Time, Being Unprepared, Misusing Equipment, Disrespect, and Physical Aggression. These points will allow me to track problem behavior and help parents know about any problems in class. If you have not signed up to follow your child's behavior on Class Dojo, just send me an email and I will provide you with the information on how to do that!
I am also going to reset points weekly because students with the most points are going to have first choice of available materials for our special Friday afternoon
Create Time. Create Time is going to be a way for kids to have some choice about an activity they would like to spend more time on in class. They may choose something with an engineering focus like building with various materials or building sets we have available or tinkering around to make something new they want to design. They may choose to create art or stories or books either on paper or electronically. They may choose to do some research on a topic of personal interest and find a way to share what they learn. They may want to create a coding project. Or there may be other ways of creating something that they think of. Our time on Fridays will start with a 10-15 minute time to plan what they will work on and review some expectations for the time. Students will have about 45 minutes to work on their project and then we will post their work on the student blogs. They may have photos and they will definitely write about what they did and how it went. Students may want to continue a longer project the next week or try something different. I anticipate that this will make a great and exciting end to our week!
