Product Overview
Research and experience tell us that the way a learning environment is set up plays a major role in students’ learning and behavior. To use the analogy of a radio broadcast, the best, most sophisticated and technically refined transmissions (i.e., your curriculum and pedagogy) will not get through to students if the power switch on their receptor (i.e., the radio) is off. The learning environment, namely the culture and climate of your classroom, strongly influences whether that switch is on or off. Creating a place where students feel social and emotional safety and encouragement is the best way to optimize learning.
This guide explores what it means and what it takes to have a positive classroom climate and culture as well as what stands in the way of achieving this goal. It identifies strategies for interacting with and engaging students to cultivate an optimal classroom environment for their emotional wellbeing and their learning. It also includes reader exercises, a list of classroom climate red flags, and a checklist of culturally responsive strategies that nurture the development of students’ social-emotional competencies.
Maurice Elias, Ph.D. is a professor in the Psychology Department at Rutgers University, director of the Rutgers Social-Emotional and Character Development Lab, and co-director of the Academy for Social-Emotional Learning in Schools, which offers certificate programs in direct instruction and school leadership relating to SEL and character development for educators and student support professionals in school and out-of-school settings. He has received the Sanford McDonnell Award for Lifetime Achievement in Character Education and the Joseph E. Zins Memorial Senior Scholar Award for Social-Emotional Learning from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). Prof. Elias is on the leadership teams of SEL4US and SEL4NJ.
Dr. Elias lectures nationally and internationally to educators and parents about students’ emotional intelligence, school success, social-emotional and character development, and youth purpose. He is the author of numerous books, including The Joys & Oys of Parenting, Nurturing Students’ Character: Everyday Teaching Activities for Social-Emotional Learning, Boost Emotional Intelligence in Students: 30 Flexible Research-Based Lessons to Build EQ Skills, and Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators.
