Transcript Morning Meeting: “A Powerful Way to Begin the Day”

Responsive Classroom
Creating Safe, Challenging, and Joyful Elementary
Classrooms and Schools
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
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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
Responding to misbehavior in a way that allows children to fix and learn
from their mistakes while preserving their dignity
• Reparation: “You broke it, you fix it”
• Loss of Privilege: “If you are not responsible, you lose a privilege”
• Positive Time-Out
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 Approach
Professional 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 and
resilience 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 then
separated two sides of one coin—and lost something important in the
process.”
—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