Creating Safe, Challenging, and Joyful Elementary Classrooms and Schools

Responsive Classroom

What is Responsive Classroom?

• A way of teaching that emphasizes social, emotional, and academic growth in a strong and safe school community

• Continually refined to meet schools’ needs

• Consists of practical strategies for helping children build academic and social-emotional competencies day in and day out

• Increases student engagement and academic progress, along with fewer discipline problems

• Another way to present Character Education to students

Responsive Classroom Guiding Principles

• The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum.

• How children learn is as important as what children learn: Process and content go hand in hand.

• The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.

• To be successful academically and socially, children need a set of social skills: cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control. These form the acronym CARES.

• Knowing the children we teach—individually, culturally, and developmentally—is as important as knowing the content we teach. Knowing the families of the children we teach and working with them as partners is essential to children’s education.

• How the adults at school work together is as important as their individual competence: Lasting change begins with the adult community.

Outcomes

• Increase social skills and academic engagement

• Establishes positive classroom climate

• Increases learner investment and independence

• Decreases disruptive behaviors

Classroom Practices

• Morning Meeting • Rule Creation• Interactive Modeling• Positive Teacher Language• Logical Consequences• Guided Discovery• Academic Choice• Classroom Organization• Working with Families• Collaborative Problem

Solving

Morning Meeting

Gathering as a whole class each morning to greet one another, share

news, and warm up for the day ahead

Key Elements of the Morning Meeting

• Greeting• Sharing

• Group Activity• News and Announcements

Greeting

Children greet each other by name, often including handshaking,

clapping, singing, and other activities.

Sharing

Students share some news of interest to the class and respond to each

other, articulating their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in a positive

manner.

Group Activity

The whole class does a short activity together, building class cohesion

through active participation.

News and Announcements

Students develop language skills and learn about the events in the day

ahead by reading and discussing a daily message posted for them.

Rule Creation

Helping students create classroom rules that allow all class members to

meet their learning goals

Teaching Positive Behavior

Proactive Discipline

• Design curriculum and classroom around knowledge of children

• Teach positive behaviors- Modeling - Practice and coaching (teacher language)- Reflection

Reactive Discipline

• Logical Consequences

Proactive Discipline: Rules

• Establish a calm and orderly classroom routine.

• Share hopes and dreams for the year.

• Generate rules together.

• Work with children to consolidate the rules into three to five general rules, stated in the positive.

• Invite children to write the rules on poster board and display in one or more prominent places.

• Make rules meaningful through discussion, modeling, and practice.

• Revisit the rules as needed throughout the year.

Interactive Modeling

Teaching children to notice and internalize expected behaviors through

a unique modeling technique

Positive Teacher Language

Using words and tone to promote children’s active learning and self

discipline

• Reinforcing Language: Naming strengths

• Reminding Language: Helping students remember expectations

• Redirecting Language: Giving clear, non-negotiable instructions

Reactive Discipline: Logical Consequences

• Reparation: “You broke it, you fix it”

• Loss of Privilege: “If you are not responsible, you lose a privilege”

• Positive Time-Out

Responding to misbehavior in a way that allows children to fix and learn

from their mistakes while preserving their dignity

Guided Discovery

Introducing materials using a format that encourages creativity and

responsibility

Academic Choice

Increasing student motivation by differentiating instruction and allowing

students teacher-structured choices in their work

Classroom Organization

Setting up the physical room in ways that encourage independence,

cooperation, and productivity

Working with Families

Hearing families’ insights and helping them understand the school’s

teaching approaches

Collaborative Problem Solving

Using conferencing, role playing, and other strategies to engage

students in problem-solving

School wide Implementation

After incorporating Responsive Classroom practices into classroom

teaching, schools are often motivated to extend the principles of the

approach to areas outside the classroom. They plan lunchroom and

playground procedures, all school events, and other aspects of whole

school life to ensure consistency in climate and expectations between

the classroom and the larger school.

Research on Effectiveness

Six key findings about children and teachers at schools using the

approach:• Children showed greater increases in reading and

math test scores.• Teachers felt more effective and more positive

about teaching.• Children had better social skills.• Teachers offered more high-quality instruction.• Children felt more positive about school.• Teachers collaborated with each other more.

Ways to Learn about the Responsive Classroom

ApproachProfessional Development

• One-Day overview• Week-Long Institutes• Follow-Up Consultation• School wide Consultation• Responsive Classroom Schools Conference

Publications• Books and DVDs offering practical information for

teachers and administrators• Free quarterly newsletter with articles written by

teachers for teachers• Website with hundreds of free articles on a wide range

of education topics

To learn about these offerings, visit www.responsiveclassroom.org

or call 800-360-6332.

“Without understanding and addressing the social context we are likely

to simply keep changing the academic content over and over without

seeing the desired result.”—Chip Wood

“I’ve learned that children do break rules; it is a developmental fact, but

deep inside each child is trying to be good… The key is giving the

students the opportunity to learn self-control.”—Melissa McCarthy

“It is difficult to conceive of children developing high self-esteem andresilience if they do not possess self-control.”

—Robert B. Brooks

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”—Albert Einstein

“…learning is possible only after students’ social, emotional and physical

needs have been met.”—CASEL

“By separating emotion from logic and reason in the classroom, we've

simplified school management and evaluation, but we've also thenseparated two sides of one coin—and lost something important in

theprocess.”

—Robert Sylvester

“One teaches best by listening and learns best by telling.”—Deborah Meier

“Children not only need to know the isolated facts; they need to see

connections that bridge the disciplines and discover how ideas are

connected. Without a comprehension of larger patterns, we prepare our

students not for wisdom but for a game of Trivial Pursuit.”—Ernest Boyer

“The Responsive Classroom approach provides prime evidence that

social and emotional teaching strategies, when well constructed, lead to

improved classroom behavior and academic growth.”--Roger Weissberg