Responsive Classroom Fosters Classroom Families
LEver since I was a little girl, I dreamt of creating a classroom family with my students. Of course having 5th graders my first year, they laughed at me. However, by the end of that year they were calling our games “family time”, having group hugs, and writing me letters that were signed “family forever”, (that made me cry!) Every year I want to reflect on how I was successful in creating such an inclusive environment! I have been successful creating this same family feeling in 2nd and 4th grade as well. Responsive Classroom is what what I think is mostly to thank for that and also my incredible students! I believe that this foundation of prioritizing how children feel in my classroom is what sets the stage for what they will do in my classroom.
The major contribution of creating this strong social and emotional foundation is infusing what I learned from the Responsive Classroom teaching approach. “Responsive Classroom is an evidence-based approach to education that focuses on the strong relationship between academic success and social-emotional learning (SEL). The Responsive Classroom approach empowers educators to create safe, joyful, and engaging learning communities where all students have a sense of belonging and feel significant.”
Responsive Classroom strives to integrate social emotional development with academic learning with a few main practices, I will share more about them with you!
Interactive Modeling
I use interactive modeling to teach ALL of my expectations at the beginning of the year. I also use it when the kids start to “forget” our routines in the middle of the year or after a long break. This helps to refresh their memories. The engaging nature of this method doesn’t make them roll their eyes hearing how you expect them to turn in their papers in certain bins and doesn’t make you feel like a broken record! WIN WIN!
What does this look like?
An example of how this looks is if the teacher models how they expect the students to get out and put away their math manipulatives. The teacher will just state that is what they will be showing them. Do not narrate what you are doing. Let students use their observation skills! After modeling ask, “What do you notice?” Students will notice all of the little details about what you did! It is amazing! For younger students I have found that chunking of small steps in the procedure or multiple demonstrations helps them to notice all of the aspects of what you expect.
After this, the real fun begins! Let the students be the actors and actresses! They will love trying to replicate what you did and provide each other feedback. This appeal to their social and emotional part of their brain will activate their memory of the expectations. Make sure it is a time that mistakes are learning opportunities not corrections, praise what they do right.
Even though this seems time consuming and silly to do this multiple times, but muscle memory is so powerful. Allowing students the opportunity to act it out themselves and get feedback is a meaningful experience they will internalize. The experience of learning about this together will also foster the feeling of a cohesive team. This is done by learning how to work together in the classroom, rather than being told what to do. This is subtly setting up the inclusive family feel of your classroom! 🙂
Try it and let me know how it goes!! I am no expert, but just a huge fan of Responsive Classroom. I am happy to answer any questions you have!
More Blogs about Responsive Classroom
Click on the links below to check out my other blogs with more Responsive Classroom practices I love!!
Logical Consequences
Quiet Time
Choice Learning
Energizers
Closing Circle