Curriculum Design

Well, I have to admit, Susie and I have lots in common.  I too have found and created great lessons only to misplace or loose them.    But, not now!!!  Susie should take a lesson from me.  I am now curating lessons on My Big Campus.  I also have a killer Symbaloo e-learning account ready to start the school year.  I have been using Pinterest for several years and have found it very helpful in my personal and professional life.

I plan to have students curate their own information on their personal Pinterest and Symbaloo accounts this year.  I want my students to become as comfortable with these tools as the 7th grade girl was in our video.  I want them to color code websites for math and language arts as well as health on Symbaloo.  I also plan on my students using Pinterest accounts to pin their ideas for games, activities and crafts that could be used in the classroom.

Let the fun begin!!!

Adaptation and Engagement

Wow!  Dan Pink is quite the motivational speaker.  He can really get you fired up.  He makes total sense, but my question is...How do you help students find what is important to them and help them to become self directed in their interest?  Intrinsic Motivation is built within everyone.  You see that from an early age when a toddler tries to get their own way by throwing a "fit".   What happens when their autonomy, their desire to direct their own lives, leads them to not desire to be in school or to study the subjects the State as deemed necessary?

I can't imagine that just making assignments on My Big Campus and giving the students the freedom to do them at their own pace is really going to motivate my kids.  As a teacher of MOCD special needs students I don't believe my kids have the degree of maturity needed at this level to make all those decisions.

I think I could try using  personality test and interest surveys to help students discover their passions and then guide them as they pursue their own interest in accordance with our lessons.

 One project I am using this year is related to service to others.  We are making quilts and pillowcases to donate to the Linus Project.  In the project I will all autonomy through the freedom of letting them choose, quilt or pillowcase, boy or girl, young or older child and colors.   As we repeat the project I am letting them practice for mastery in their skills levels.  The sense of purpose they receive when they take pictures of themselves with their projects as we pack them up and send them off will hopefully be priceless.

I believe we have a small group of students who use Intrinsic Motivation to guide themselves and a large group of students who need to be guided.  Helping students develop these Intrinsic Motivations skills will be a challenge in itself, but well worth the effort for them and our society.

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I have chosen to use the Class Dojo in my classroom for this coming school year.  http://teach.classdojo.com/#!/launchpad
This program helps to monitor students behaviors and allows parents to view student behaviors at home online or on cell phones.

www.teach.classdojo.com/iso
www.teach.classdojo.com/android

1. I will send an invitation through Dojo and an introductory letter to the parents before the start of school and explain the Dojo program to them.  I will encourage them to access the website by ios or android apps.  (giving them the addresses)

2. I will use the introduction video provided by the web site to introduce Dojo to the students on the first day of school.

3.  Each student will be given the access code to the site and we will go over how the program works.  Discussing each area of behaviors to be evaluated all day every day.

Following Directions

On Time Behaviors

Being Kind to Others

Being Respectful

Following Good Personal Hygiene

Completing Work in a Timely Manner

4.  Each student will be given their personal code and then allowed to change their character to their liking.

Students will be able to access Dojo during the school day from their Symboloo page and see where they are needing to improve.

Behaviors in the classroom will be tied to rewards.  Each Friday there will be a craft and cooking time that matches our monthly theme.  Students will need to receive at least a 75% on their personal behavior to participate in the activities.  The % needed will increase as the school year advances because behaviors should be advancing to the positive.

Using the Teacher Dojo will also replace the way I have home contact with many of my parents.  I will be able to send direct e-mail messages to each parent that has internet service.  Of course, if parents do not have access to the site I will continue to use the daily contact by way of the school handbooks.

I am excited to use this site and have even sent the information to three other teachers in our school system.  One has already contacted me and thanked me for the information and she plans to use Dojo for student behaviors too.

Here is a testimony from a high school teacher who currently uses Teacher Dojo.

missmorgan810

12d

My experiences have been very similar to those who have already posted:
Initially, I disregarded ClassDojo as a childish app that my high school students would not only dislike, but also resent me for even trying to use. As the year came to an end, I reflected on my teaching practice and realize some of the random students I would call upon would would simply respond with "well my partner didn't say anything" or "I don't know". I realized I needed to set up some kind of a system for keeping track of classroom participation and ClassDojo was recommended to me by a fellow teacher.
After my first attempt at using it during Summer School, I realized that I had been completely wrong about the way my students would respond to the app. Within minutes, my students were hooked. They feared the ding of a negative point and celebrated when the received the ping of a positive point. They worked together in pairs or groups to ensure that no one would get a negative ding when they were called upon. If they saw behaviors I did not like, they would recommend docking that person a point. Suddenly the students were accountable for their behavior and the classroom dynamic quickly changed. Of all the classroom tools I tried out, students indicated that ClassDojo was one of their favorites.
ClassDojo allowed me to customize the behaviors I wanted to see, including ones aligned to Common Core standards. I gave students points using classroom vocabulary, asking higher level questions, answering in complete sentences, justifying answers, etc. With this success, I decided to try out the option of letting students log in to customize their monsters and check in on their points, something I figured they wouldn't care about. Immediately I caught students checking on their points on a regular basis and customizing their little monsters. They were insulted that I did not give them access to these features on the first day:

Screenshot_2014-06-23-13-27-20-1.png720x700 51.4 KB

Needless to say, ClassDojo is know an app that I will fully utilize next school year with my high school students. As Mr_Freeman mentioned "It doesn't matter if they were 19 years old or 50 years old, they loved playing with their avatar and seeing their points being displayed during class."
If you can learn anything from my experience, do not underestimate ClassDojo's ability to engage high school students.