Morning Meeting
This is the first component of a Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting and helps create a welcoming sense of belonging.
What is a Greeting?
Instead of just telling students how to behave, Interactive Modeling always begins with this specific action by the teacher, showing students exactly what the expected behavior looks like.
What is modeling the behavior? (or demonstrating the behavior)
Rather than handing down a pre-made list of classroom laws, Responsive Classroom dictates that rules must be co-created with students, rooted directly in these personal, student-generated goals for the year.
What are Hopes and Dreams? (or Learning Goals)
This specific type of teacher language uses a neutral, objective tone to state clear facts about what a student is doing well, rather than using generic praise like "good job."
What is Reinforcing Language?
The core philosophy of Responsive Classroom states that this type of curriculum is just as important as the academic curriculum, and that the two cannot be separated.
What is the social-emotional curriculum?
This specific component merges academic and social-emotional learning by anchoring the day's curriculum, previewing the schedule, and giving students a written interactive task to complete upon arrival.
What is the Morning Message (Message)?
Immediately after the teacher models a behavior, they ask students this specific question to ensure students focus on the exact, positive actions they just witnessed rather than what not to do.
What is "What did you notice?"
This specific type of logical consequence is used when a student loses emotional or behavioral control, giving them a brief, non-punitive break to regain composure before quietly rejoined the group.
What is Take a Break?
When a teacher needs to stop a dangerous behavior or reset a chaotic room immediately, they use this brief, direct, and authoritative language type that states exactly what to do.
What is Redirecting Language?
According to the approach, how we teach is just as important as what we teach, but this third element—concerning the physical and psychological safety of the classroom—is equally critical.
What is the learning environment?
Every single student has a turn to safely speak without interruption or cross-talk during this part of the Morning Meeting.
What is sharing?
Unlike traditional modeling where only the teacher demonstrates, this step of Interactive Modeling requires this crucial step to let the class observe a peer successfully practicing the routine.
What is having a student model the behavior?
When a student damages property or hurts someone's feelings, this specific category of logical consequence is used to give the student an opportunity to fix their mistake and heal the relationship.
What is You Break It, You Fix It?
This type of open-ended language is used before a task or transition to help students visualize their own success, think critically, and activate their existing knowledge.
What is Reminding Language?
To create a safe and collaborative environment, Responsive Classroom asserts that the greatest cognitive growth occurs through this type of interaction, rather than through passive listening or isolated work.
What is social interaction?
In this portion of the Morning Meeting students can be challenged physically, mentally, or through cooperative problem solving and or curricular awareness.
What is the Activity?
Before a routine is considered fully taught, this step requires this group action to give everyone immediate muscle memory and physical practice with the new expectation.
What is having the whole class practice?
If a student misuses a classroom tool or fails to follow expectations during an activity, this type of logical consequence temporarily stops them from participating in that specific privilege until they can show readiness to try again.
What is Loss of Privilege?
To foster intrinsic motivation and critical thinking, Responsive Classroom advises teachers to replace personal approval phrases like "I like the way..." with questions that begin with these two specific words.
What are "What" and "How"?
Represented by the acronym CARES, these five specific social-emotional competencies form the ultimate goal of the Responsive Classroom approach: Cooperation, Assertiveness, Responsibility, Empathy, and this final trait.
What is Self-Control?
The primary purpose of Morning Meeting is not simply to start the day, but to intentionally build this among students.
What is classroom community?
These are 5 of the many things that a teacher might demonstrate in his or her classroom.
What is...?
To prevent consequences from feeling like punishments, teachers must avoid sarcasm and anger, instead delivering them with these Three Rs: Relevant, Respectful, and this third attribute.
What is Realistic?
When using Reminding or Redirecting language, teachers must state the behavioral expectation in this specific grammatical format, rather than framing it as a question or an option.
What is a direct statement?
This fundamental tenet of the approach states that knowing these two things—the specific students you teach individually, and this developmental milestone timeline collectively—is just as important as knowing the content you teach.
What are the children's cultures/interests and their developmental stages?