Morning Meetings for Special Education Classrooms

101 Fun Ideas, Creative Activities and Adaptable Techniques

Dr. Felicia Durden, Ed.D.

• Publisher: Ulysses Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781612437026
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Classroom Management

A complete guide for improving the focus and engagement of your special education students by starting the day off right Use a morning meeting to jump-start your students' day! This simple but effective classroom technique has been proven to help students learn better, build friendships, improve behavior and gain confidence.Offering fun games, great songs and other engaging activities, this book's 101 ready-to-use ideas are sure to help your students experience remarkable progress in: • Math and reading
• Team-building
• Planning and communication
• Science and technology
• Goal-setting
• Organization
• Problem-solving
• Role-playing
• Fulfilling a classroom job
• Creative arts

Chapter 1

Why Morning Meetings?

Often, teachers feel that morning meetings are a waste of instructional time. Actually, the contrary is true. When students start their day on a high note they will have fewer behavioral issues, which are real time-wasters.

I have seen the morning meeting implemented in special needs classrooms across the United States. It can be utilized in self-contained models for students with varied needs. It can also be used in all grade levels. One of the underlying benefits of the morning meeting routine is that it provides a sense of belonging for students. When students join the morning meeting, they are asked to participate in the learning process; this immediately makes them feel like they belong and have an important role in their learning process. It also helps them feel like part of something bigger than themselves. They start to see that the classroom is theirs and that the learning revolves around all students.

This is an important leveling tool that teachers can benefit from when they implement the morning meeting routine in their classrooms. The days of the teacher being the sage on the stage, or the ruler of the roost, are over. The sage on the stage premise promotes the idea of the teacher being the dominant figure in the classroom who takes sole responsibility for what happens there. The paradigm has shifted in the twenty-first century classroom, where we now see the importance of having students guide the instructional process and be active participants in their own learning. With this idea in practice, students are part of the discussion, have classroom jobs, vote on classroom issues, and help and guide one another in their learning. All of these twenty-first century skills are highlighted in the morning meeting routine.

Today’s classrooms are inclusive places of learning, where teachers serve as facilitators of the learning.

Teacher as Facilitator of Learning

As a facilitator, your job is to make the learning process accessible and stress-free for your learners. Facilitation means you provide students with the tools to be problem solvers and self-dependent learners. It does not mean making the curriculum unchallenging or providing low levels of rigor in the classroom. Students should be able to meet the expectation levels that you set for them. As the facilitator of the morning meeting, your job is to provide kids with the tools they need to maneuver the school day by starting it off with a positive routine.

What Constitutes a Good Classroom Environment for Learning?

Classroom environment has been shown to be pivotal in student achievement. Students thrive in classroom environments that are safe, inclusive, orderly, attractive, and comfortable.

Safe Classroom Environment

A safe classroom environment is one in which students feel physically, emotionally, and socially secure. These classroom environments have a positive tone, and students feel that the adults in the classroom care about them and their needs.

Physical safety is accomplished by establishing classroom rules and expectations of behavior. When you model the appropriate ways to solve conflict, talk to others, and disagree, you help students learn the skills they need to ensure they feel safe and secure.

Emotional safety is accomplished by ensuring students don’t endure undue emotional stress. Today many of our students come to class with a lot of outside issues from home. These issues can trickle into the classroom and cause emotional stress. As a teacher, you can curtail emotional stress by getting to know your students and having authentic conversations with them about their lives. This book will outline several getting-to-know-you strategies that you can easily implement during your morning meeting routine to help ease emotional stress.

Social safety is also important in the classroom. Students need to feel free, when appropriate, to interact with their classmates, teachers, and other adults inside and outside of the classroom. Social safety is threatened when students do not feel that they have a voice or that they belong to the group. To combat these fears and develop social safety, students need opportunities to talk to their classmates and build teams. In the upcoming chapters, you will learn numerous team-building, social networking, and classroom inclusion strategies to help students feel socially accepted and enjoy contributing, which are necessary parts of the classroom environment.

The morning meeting offers a plethora of opportunities to help build a sense of security and safety in the classroom. Taking the time to get to know your students and having them take time to get to know one another will accomplish this.

Inclusive Classroom Environment

An inclusive classroom environment is one in which every student has a part in the learning process and is considered an equal contributor to the learning. Inclusive classroom environments have been shown to foster greater student academic growth than non-inclusive classrooms. “Inclusive” refers to making the learning connected to student interest and providing opportunities for students to engage. In an inclusive environment, teachers see to it that all students participate.

Taking Student Interest into Account

Students have been shown to learn at greater levels when they are exposed to content that has meaning for them. Think about your own learning experiences. Did you do better in courses that you had an interest in? I know I did better in courses that interested me. I’d be far more engaged in a sewing class than in an auto mechanics course. These two examples may be far out there, but are they? With the morning meeting routine, you can find ways to take student surveys on activities or themes that your students have interest in. There are many strategies shared in the book on how to use trade books and literature to teach concepts and skills. When selecting the books or passages that you want to share, think inclusively and provide materials that your students will have a special connection with.

Orderly Classroom Environment

Chaos reaps chaos in the classroom and in any work environment. Students do not thrive in a chaotic environment and, in fact, are more likely to act out aggressively or become introverted when they are victim to chaotic learning environments.

An orderly classroom is pivotal if you are going to use the morning meeting method there. An orderly environment will ensure that your morning meeting routine flows, and is well planned and executed. The upcoming chapters share numerous strategies regarding ways to set up your morning meeting area and to run your morning meetings to create an orderly routine that is predictable for students.

Attractive Classroom Environment

An attractive classroom helps students acclimate to their learning environment. Do not feel pressured to make your classroom look like something out of a designer magazine, but do take the time to spruce up your room and make it attractive and warm. Think about the colors that you are using in your classroom. Red, yellow, and other very bright colors can make students agitated and distracted. Try to use colors from nature, like green, blue, and brown in your morning meeting area. These colors have been associated with creating a sense of calm and well-being in the classroom. Also, watch the clutter. We all have so much stuff these days. Although it is wonderful that we have so many resources to provide for our students’ needs, it’s important to make sure that you organize those materials in a way that ensures your classroom remains orderly and clean. This will help cut down on student anxiety and stress, which you want to avoid. Students learn a lot about their own orderliness from the school environment.

Comfortable Classroom Environment

Having a learning environment that is comfortable is another important step in preparing to implement the morning meeting routine in your classroom. By comfortable I refer not only to physical comfort by having the classroom clean and orderly, but also social comfort by allowing students the ability to express their thoughts and feelings without distractions. Students should feel comfortable during morning meeting to ask questions, share opinions, sing, dance, and act silly. This book is full of exciting strategies you can use to enhance the fun and comfort your students will thrive on.

The Responsive Classroom Philosophy

One of the founding principles behind the morning meeting method is the responsive classroom philosophy. The responsive classroom philosophy is based on the link between academic achievement and social and emotional learning. The responsive classroom philosophy was developed in 1981 by a group of educators who saw the need to embrace social and emotional learning to meet the needs of students. The four components of the responsive classroom method are engaging academics, positive community, effective management, and developmental awareness.

Engaging Academics. When teachers develop engaging academics, they take into account student interests when creating assignments. This is accomplished during the morning meeting when teachers provide opportunities for student choice and student input in the topics that are presented.

Positive Community. The morning meeting is all about students. Without students there would be no morning meeting. This is very significant in building a positive learning community.

Positive communities are ones where students have voice and feel safe and secure in their learning environment. During morning meeting, students work with different partners to share the learning experience and build positive relationships. Students also have a clear feeling of belonging to something that matters.

Effective Management. One of the most important things to remember before implementing the morning meeting is that you must have structures in place to maintain order. The morning meeting is a time to engage in conversation and explore different learning activities. This cannot be well-executed without maintaining a sense of order and routine.

Developmental Awareness. As I have reiterated, morning meeting is for and about kids. When working with students with special needs, it is imperative the activities are developmentally appropriate and manageable so that all learners can engage in the activities. Each strategy has a suggested modification and a tip so that all students have the opportunity to participate. This is the most important tenet of the responsive classroom philosophy.

Morning meetings are the building blocks of the responsive classroom philosophy. They have their own morning meeting framework that includes many of the same structures that are presented in this book. One additional practice that the responsive classroom model supports is implementing a closing meeting, which I will discuss in the final chapter of the book as a way to keep your morning meeting fresh and alive.

Why Focus on Social and Emotional Learning?

The activities and structure of the morning meeting have a direct correlation with social and emotional learning, which have been linked with easing anxiety for students with special needs.

Students tend to be happier and more ready to learn when they are in classrooms that use the morning meeting. Often, children with special needs suffer from anxiety or have problems with transitioning throughout the day. We have found that when these kids are in classrooms that use morning meetings, they are less agitated and have more success. In a research study titled “Efficacy of the Responsive Classroom Approach: Results from a Three-Year, Longitudinal Randomized Controlled Trial,” researchers found that schools that focus on social and emotional learning have higher academic results than those that do not. Research also has indicated that students with special needs do much better when this model is implemented in their program.

It works, because we all need to feel accepted and welcome. Morning meetings serve as a way to provide a sense of connection for your students. Often, students with special needs require time to assimilate to their surroundings. Research has found that when kids feel connected, they are far more successful in their learning routines. The morning meeting is an awesome way to bridge this gap.

Special Needs Populations and Morning Meetings

Having a morning routine that includes coming together as a class to discuss the schedule for the day and teach essential skills is a great way to create an inclusive learning environment for your students. Students with special needs are especially in need of structured environments that are predictable and well-managed. They also thrive in environments that foster inclusion and celebrate diversity.

There are numerous benefits in using the morning meeting routine with your special needs students. In this section, I will discuss specific ways to ensure students with disabilities are given an opportunity to thrive during the morning meeting routine.

Cognitive Deficits. Students with cognitive delays benefit from the morning meeting routine because it is a time when they can be successful in the classroom. They are able to participate in the singing and movement activities as well as many of the other routines.

Processing Deficits. Students with processing deficits are typically classified as having learning disabilities. These students benefit from the morning meeting routine because they will receive intense instruction that is spiraled and differentiated. When you design your morning meeting mini lessons, you can target the lessons to focus ...