ClassDojo is an online behavior management platform that give teachers the ability to track and record student behavior, produce student portfolios and partake in school-to-home classes. Students are encouraged to participate via Dojo Points, which are rewarded based on their conduct in the classroom. Teachers across the country have praised ClassDojo for helping them to provide parents with current information on their child's progress as well as classroom activities. It's important to note that ClassDojo provides 3 different interfaces depending on the type of user that is accessing it: teachers, students and parents.

Class Dojo has a user base of over 35 million people across 170 countries. It's been regarded as the number one classroom management system in the world. The founder of ClassDojo proclaimed that the company's primary goal is to help students make more positive behaviors in class, as well as to help teachers communicate with parents about their child's development in school. The company also proclaims that the product's functionally is more geared towards classroom culture and less than classroom management. Meaning, the main idea behind ClassDojo is to encourage positive behaviors as opposed to discouraging negative behaviors.

Features and Benefits

As mentioned, the features that a user is able to take advantage of is based on whether or not they are a parent, student or teacher. Based on the fact that the software is a classroom management program, most of the features that the platform provides is exclusively reserved for teachers. Teachers are able to use ClassDojo to encourage positive behaviors as well as to strengthen lines of communication from school-to-home. This is done via its Dojo Point system which gives parents an accurate idea of how well their child is performing and a messaging system that connects parents to teachers. ClassDojo also provides teachers with an abundance of teaching resources such as video tutorials for parents, back-to-school presentations, parent letter templates and cheat sheets to help parents get up to date with the basics of the software. Teachers also have access to exclusive classroom related décor that they can print and display throughout the classroom. For teachers, the process of becoming enlisted with Class Dojo starts from the main website where they curate their own profiles. Once a profile has been completed and passes verification, teachers provide a name for the class, assign it a grade level and establish 'Class Values'. Class Dojo features six existing class values that teachers can choose from which are:

• Helping Others
• Participation
• Perseverance
• Teamwork
• Working hard
• On task

Teachers can choose one or a combination of class values or create their own unique class values based on the classroom's needs. Once class values have been created, teachers assign Dojo Points to each value and students can score anywhere from 1-5 points for positive behavior said value or -1 to -5 for negative behaviors. ClassDojo proclaims that this point system encourages positive behavior in the classroom since children will become aware of the fact that parents are able to see a child's progress in regards to the amount of Dojo Points they accumulated in a set of class values that the teacher established.

As far as student goes, their process starts on any device they choose. Upon registering, students are able to choose what's known as a Class Dojo 'monster' which is essentially a profile picture for their own personal profile. Students are able to see the amount of Dojo Points they've gained or lost and an overview of their progress. It's important to note that students can only see their own points. ClassDojo provides students with learning resources which were created to help facilitate character development such as lessons on perseverance and teamwork. It also gives students the ability to delete information as they see fit and will automatically delete student accounts after 365 days of inactivity.

Parents can access the platform by going directly to the company's website or by downloading their app in the Android and iOS app store. Upon registering their account, parents can then access behavioral information on their children, across various classrooms via adding the assigned unique access code that each classroom is given. Similarly to the interface that teachers have access to, parents can see a circle graph which provides a breakdown of their child's behavior.

Pros

• Improves Parent-to-Teacher Relationships - ClassDojo can help to close the feedback gap between parents, students and teachers. It provides teachers with an opportunity to quickly document positive and negative behaviors as they occur. This gives teachers the ability to gather a vast amount of data about students as to which they can provide instantaneous feedback such as noticing that a child has been increasingly disrespectful.
• Tailored For Younger Children - Teacher resources, behavioral tracking and it's design seem as if it was tailored for elementary school classrooms.

Cons

• Naturally, parents are concerned about the data that ClassDojo gathers on each student. As such, most parents would want to get a clear understanding of what their privacy policies are. Unfortunately, as is the case with most company's privacy policies, their privacy policy is filled with difficult to understand legal terminologies.
• No Search Tab - In today's world, most messaging apps come with a search tab that you can use to pinpoint a specific topic within the history of the conversation. Unfortunately, with ClassDojo teachers have to look through their entire feed of messages to pinpoint a specific topic.

Conclusion

Even though ClassDojo was relatively unknown before the onset of the pandemic, it experienced accelerated growth during 2020 and proclaimed that for the first time in its history it was able to generate revenue. When you look at the extensive amount of features that it provides to teachers, students and parents alike, plus its focus on encouraging positive student behavior while facilitating a structured virtual learning environment, the fact that they went from earning zero revenue to over $17 million in 2020 comes as no surprise.