Bloglovin and Class Dojo vs. Clip Chart

I'm linking up to to Tori's Teacher's Tips for blogs joining Bloglovin'.  Please click on the button in the top right to follow me on Bloglovin'!

Check the linky out here.

Personal Life Break - my wedding pictures

Back to Teacher Talk
As for everything teaching, I'm following Made-It Mondays, but I feel so swamped to even create something.  I know I want to return to my clip chart. 
 
Despite the fact that the clip chart worked for me for a year and a half, this past semester we needed a change so my class and I did Class Dojo. Check out a pretty good post explaining it here.  My kids did love Class Dojo, but by the end of the year my class and I decided that we ultimately preferred the clip chart and since I'm looping they would rather do that. 

This is how I did Class Dojo..
We brainstormed what to earn points for and what to lose points for together.  This was a great conversation.  It was extremely easy for me to use my IPHone to give or take away points throughout the day no matter where we were in the building (hallway, cafeteria, class, etc.) because I only needed my IPHone.  It also worked wonders because when they saw me pull out my phone, they knew and they tried hard to look good!  The problem for management was it was so easy to give and take away points that it was hard to set warning limits.  I found myself giving a them away too loosely and taking them away too harshly.  With the clip chart it was easy for them to see - yellow (warning), orange (5 minute recess reflection), red (office/phone call home).  But with class dojo it was hard for me to set a limit for how many points because they were all at different amounts.  I couldn't say if you have -5 you get a detention because by the end of the week they could've racked up 40 and even if they were having an awful day they couldn't get down that far.  So it was definitely hard to keep track of what they were losing.  I thought about resetting the points everyday, but that didn't go along with the class wanting to accumulate them to earn prize tickets or Fun Friday time.  My class decided to accumulate points for a week and then turn them in on Friday.  Well enter the next problem - for some of my students who make poor decisions by Wednesday they could have -20 points - what incentive do they have to try.  It's reminiscent of the card system when they were already at the red card by 9 a.m.    The other issue is that while I had it on the smartboard so they could hear the "dings" and "dongs," I couldn't always be showing it because well I have the use the smartboard to teach!!!!  So the problem is that students couldn't always see their scores during a lesson, so then you'd constantly have students asking how many points do I have?  While I love that they were interested in their learning, this at times became annoying.  My final reflection is that the numbers and point system made it too much of a competition and less about intrinsic values.  So I'm returning to the clip chart, but not just any clip chart.  I made this one and ordered it from Vistaprint last night. 

I'm exceptionally  PRINCIPLED

I'm extremely RESPECTFUL

I'm very COOPERATIVE

I'm  BALANCED

I need to REFLECT

I need to make a CHANGE

I need a new PERSPECTIVE

It is not original at all - it's from this website.  Ms. Twist's Classroom 

It's made to go along with our IB/PYP school framework.  Are there any other PYP school teachers out there?  Anyway, I'm hoping that we will be able to get back to where we were last year with the clip chart.  But there is always one thing I struggle with - how do you document student behavior on the clip chart and do you have a reward system?

Let me know!