Having a Responsive Classroom, by Paige Humes, 3rd grade teacher at Southside Elementary

            With all the changes in education and the continual testing and revising of standards, it is easy to forget what really matters in the classroom- relationships. Relationships are built through daily actions in the classroom and giving students a voice in their learning. The responsive classroom is a way of teaching that involves all aspects of learning including social, emotional, and academic growth in a strong and safe school community. The Responsive Classroom approach incorporates the students’ social and emotional growth into their academic learning, with the idea that children learn best through social interaction and when they are explicitly taught social and emotional skills incorporated into their academic lessons. This approach offers many strategies to engage students in your classroom and will promote a positive classroom environment. I have listed 10 strategies below that are easily implemented in a responsive classroom.

1. Morning Meeting—gathering as a whole class each morning to greet one another, share news, and warm up for the day ahead.

2. Rule Creation—helping students create classroom rules to ensure an environment that allows all class members to meet their learning goals.

3. Interactive Modeling—teaching children to notice and internalize expected behaviors through a unique modeling technique.

4. Positive Teacher Language—using words and tone as a tool to promote children's active learning, sense of community, and self-discipline.

5. Logical Consequences—responding to misbehavior in a way that allows children to fix and learn from their mistakes while preserving their dignity.

6. Guided Discovery—introducing classroom materials using a format that encourages independence, creativity, and responsibility.

7. Academic Choice—increasing student learning by allowing students teacher-structured choices in their work.

8. Classroom Organization—setting up the physical room in ways that encourage students’ independence, cooperation, and productivity.

9. Working with Families—creating avenues for hearing parents' insights and helping them understand the school's teaching approaches.

10. Collaborative Problem Solving—using conferencing, role playing, and other strategies to resolve problems with students.

With these strategies in place, students are able to take more responsibility of their own learning, which in turn allows them to feel like an important part of the classroom community. Teachers become facilitators and guide students in working collaboratively in their learning. The responsive classroom has been researched and studied by many universities and high achieving people. Their findings all point to the idea that children in classrooms where teachers were using the approach had higher test scores in reading and math, better social skills, and a more positive outlook on school. It is important to remember that your relationships with your students is one of the most important aspects of your classroom. In 20 years they will remember you not by how high you made their test scores, but by the impact you had on them everyday they walked into your classroom.