Classroom Management & Discipline Discipline
Schools today are tasked with the challenge of supporting students’ academic, social, and emotional development while maintaining safe and respectful learning environments. Two widely recognized approaches to meeting these goals are Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and the Responsive Classroom approach.
Both emphasize proactive discipline and the teaching of positive behavior, and both aim to create school climates where students can succeed. Yet questions often arise: Are PBIS and the Responsive Classroom approach compatible? Must schools choose one or the other? To answer these questions, let’s take a closer look at both approaches.
PBIS is a three-tiered framework that helps schools organize systems of prevention and intervention:
The framework emphasizes prevention-oriented strategies, explicit teaching of expectations, data-driven decision-making, and a continuum of supports. Importantly, PBIS does not mandate one specific method of reinforcement. However, in many schools, PBIS has come to be associated with token economies—students earning tickets, coins, or “bucks” redeemable for prizes. While these reward systems can initially motivate behavior, they risk creating dependence on external incentives rather than helping students build intrinsic motivation and authentic self-control.
Responsive Classroom is a student-centered, evidence-based approach that integrates social, emotional, and academic learning. It provides concrete strategies across four key domains:
Through practices such as Interactive Modeling, Morning Meeting, Responsive Advisory Meeting, interactive learning structures, Academic Choice, and positive teacher language, Responsive Classroom equips educators with tools that build intrinsic motivation. Students learn not only what positive behavior looks like, but why it matters, which helps them develop the skills and self-awareness to manage themselves responsibly over the long term.
Despite differences in practice, the two approaches align in important ways:
Because of these shared principles, many districts use PBIS for system-level organization while relying on the Responsive Classroom approach for the practical, classroom-level strategies that make those systems work.
The most significant difference lies in how each approach reinforces behavior:
PBIS and the Responsive Classroom approach share the goal of creating safe, supportive learning environments. Where they differ is in what drives student behavior. PBIS, as often implemented, relies on external rewards, which may achieve short-term compliance but overlook deeper growth. The Responsive Classroom approach provides strategies that nurture intrinsic motivation, helping students build the self-control and sense of responsibility that serve them well beyond the classroom.
These differences do not have to be contradictions. Paired thoughtfully, PBIS offers a framework for schoolwide systems and data collection, while the Responsive Classroom approach provides the daily, developmentally appropriate practices that ensure positive behaviors are internalized and sustained.
When schools lean into both, they move past short-term compliance and foster communities where students act responsibly because they are motivated from within, connected to others, and committed to shared success.