Cultivating a Healthy Classroom Climate

Greenwood students have their usual Wednesday morning routines. Grade 7s and 8s are over at Davisville Public School for our Reading Buddies program. Some of our highschoolers prepare nutritious lunches in the Lodge as part of our ongoing partnership with Youth Without Shelter’s Brown Paper Bag Lunch program and our new Sandwich Sisters program with Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre. Others are at school early, doing some work or catching up with friends. But what do Greenwood staff do in the morning hours before school starts on Wednesdays?

For teachers, Wednesday mornings are a time to engage in professional learning and development in order to continually grow their teaching practice to best support their students. At 8 a.m. on February 22, we will welcome Jennifer Gonzalez to lead an hour-long learning session. Teachers are thrilled to have Jennifer join us as she is well known across the teaching profession for supporting educators towards achieving excellence.

Jennifer is a National Board Certified Teacher, author, and editor-in-chief at Cult of Pedagogy. She studies and researches topics such as teaching methodology, classroom management, learning theory and educational technology. Jennifer brings her expertise about classroom climates to this highly anticipated PD session.

In this session, Cultivating a Healthy Classroom Climate, Jennifer will present how to assess the classroom’s emotional climate in order to improve students’ motivation and success. Five major factors impacting the classroom climate will be examined: teacher mindset, relationship building, academic safety, inclusiveness and classroom design. Jennifer will also offer specific solutions on how to enhance each area.

Needless to say, we’re very excited to apply our learnings from this session in order to help our students achieve their best in the classroom.