The Responsive Classroom approach to teaching is comprised of a set of well-designed practices intended to create safe, joyful, and engaging classroom and school communities. The emphasis is on helping students develop their academic, social, and emotional skills in a learning environment that is developmentally responsive to their strengths and needs (Responsive Classroom, 2018).
At Griswold School, we utilize this research-based approach to enhance our classroom and school communities. One example of this work is through a daily classroom Morning Meeting, where students engage in greetings, messages, sharing, and games to connect to classmates and have shared experiences as they grow and learn together.
Other aspects we focus on include teacher language, interactive modeling and learning, and logical consequences. All areas of responsive classroom work to integrate academic and social-emotions skills to create an environment where students can do their best learning.