SLIDE 14 9/30/2019 14
Responsive Classrooms: 7 Essential Principles
- 1. Equal emphasis on the social and academic curriculum;
- 2. Focus on how children learn as much as what they learn;
- 3. View that social interaction facilitates cognitive growth;
- 4. Emphasis on cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-
control as critical social skills for children to learn;
- 5. Emphasis on teachers’ knowledge of children’s individual, cultural, and
developmental characteristics;
- 6. Focus on understanding of children’s families; and
- 7. Attention to the way in which adults work together within a school
(Northeast Foundation for Children [NEFC], 2003).
Responsive Classroom Practices
(1) Morning Meeting—a daily meeting to create a sense of community in the classroom with time for sharing, games, and planning for the day; (2) Rules and Logical Consequences—consequences that follow logically from the misdeed (e.g., “You break it, you fix it”), that are developmentally and individually relevant to the child, and that rely on a trusting and positive relationship between the teacher and the child for their effectiveness; (3) Co-creation of rules and expectations— specifically, teachers and students develop several, positively worded rules in the beginning of the year; and (4) Shift in teacher language from “praise” to “encouragement” such that teachers comment on children’s effort and learning process, not only products
Teacher Student Relationships are Central
TSRs that are structured and positive are associated with increased school engagement (Roorda et al., 2017), executive functioning (Vandenbroucke et al., 2018), overall mental health (Wang et al., 2013), use of active coping strategies (Zimmer-Gembeck & Locke, 2007) TSRs are also associated with lower levels of externalizing behavior problems (Lei et al., 2016) and can reduce the effects of bullying (Elledge et al., 2016). These outcomes are particularly strong for youth at-risk (e.g., those who have experienced adversity and who are emotionally vulnerable.
Discuss
How do you define a “relationship” with a student? How are positive affective relationships developed and fostered? How do you develop relationships with harder to reach students?
