Responsive Classroom

A Social Curriculum

From their website http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/

Approach to Teaching and Learning

The Responsive Classroom approach to teaching and learning fosters safe, challenging, and joyful classrooms and schools, kindergarten through eighth grade. Developed by classroom teachers, this approach consists of practical strategies for bringing together social and academic learning throughout the school day.

Since 1981, thousands of classroom teachers and hundreds of schools and school districts have used The Responsive Classroom approach to help create learning environments where children thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. In urban, rural, and suburban settings nationwide, educators using these strategies report increases in student investment, responsibility, and learning, and decreases in problem behaviors.

Guiding Principles

The Responsive Classroom approach is informed by the work of many great educational theorists as well as the experiences of exemplary classroom teachers. There are seven basic principles underlying this approach:

The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum.
How children learn is as important as what they learn: process and content go hand in hand.
The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.
There is a set of social skills children need in order to be successful academically and socially: cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control.
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 inviting their participation is essential to children's education.
How the adults at school work together is as important as individual competence: lasting change begins with the adult community.

Teaching Practices

The Responsive Classroom approach includes the following teaching strategies and elements:

Morning Meeting: A daily routine that builds community, creates a positive climate for learning, and reinforces academic and social skills.
Rules and Logical Consequences: A clear and consistent approach to discipline that fosters responsibility and self-control.
Guided Discovery: A format for introducing materials that encourages inquiry, heightens interest, and teaches care of the school environment.
Academic Choice: An approach to giving children choices in their learning that helps them become invested, self-motivated learners.
Classroom Organization: Strategies for arranging materials, furniture, and displays to encourage independence, promote caring, and maximize learning.
Family Communication Strategies: Ideas for involving families as true partners in their children's education.

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