The Engagement Classroom Model that we implement is three things:
1. Increasing a child’s engagement
2. Increasing a child’s independence
3. Increasing the child’s social interactions
These three things allows a child to be successful now and later in life. We use the terms incidental or intentional teaching, so even though we are play-based, learning is very intentional and we are taking those teachable moments and the teachers are expanding on it. The teachers utilize zone-defense that allows the classroom to stay organized and learning is taking place. The Engagement Classroom Model also decreases those transition/wait times. So, for example when you line up to go to the playground, there can be a lot of wait time, but with this engagement model, our staff has strategies to decrease that wait time making transitions easier for the children.
We also implement integrated therapy, which allows the therapists to go inside the classroom and work with the staff members, so the staff members are imbedding interventions all day within all the routines. So, they are getting interventions 8x greater than if they were receiving specialized services only 2x a week.