Graduation Date
5-2018
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department or Program
Education
Department or Program Chair
Elizabeth Truesdell PhD
First Reader
Jennifer Lucko, PhD
Second Reader
Jacquelyn Urbani, PhD
Abstract
Research has shown that students who are given social and emotional tools to work with in their school day are better able to learn in all subject areas (Kriete & Davis, 2014). Responsive Classroom offers a program which includes Morning Meeting as an opportunity to teach social and emotional tools. This is a qualitative research project that utilized case study with action based research. This research revealed that Morning Meetings impacted classwork productivity because they helped to identify and meet students’ social and emotional needs, which created a sense of belonging and connection. This provided teachers with vital information for targeted intervention and led to an increase in classwork productivity. In addition, classroom rules helped to build trust by creating safety in the classroom and provided teachers with a way to implement a positive behavior plan through positive language built around the classroom rules which led to an increase in behavior.