SEL and Academic Integration: The integration of SEL objectives into instructional content and teaching strategies for academics as well as music, art, and physical education. When done well, integration of SEL promotes student voice and agency and a positive learner identity.
Assess needs and resources to develop an SEL implementation plan with clear goals, action steps, and assigned ownership.
While your team works to align school discipline policies to SEL, it’s important to ensure that all classrooms consistently reinforce a student-centered approach to discipline.
Belonging and Emotional Safety
When teachers build the structures that support belonging and emotional safety, they lay the groundwork for students to focus on learning (Sergiovanni, 1994 in Darling-Hammond et al., 2017).
In addition to driving overall schoolwide SEL implementation, PDSA improvement cycles also provide a powerful structure for quickly testing specific innovative strategies to support SEL.
Support staff in cultivating personal social and emotional competencies and fostering the competencies of peers and students.
The SEL team serves as a model for positive practices that promote healthy relationships among adults, students, and families. It’s highly beneficial to build a strong team dynamic and positive working relationship by developing group norms and team routines.
The collaborative process of developing a vision helps foster a sense of shared ownership over SEL. It asks staff, students, families, and community partners to reflect on why they are doing this work and what they want for their students and their school. An SEL vision statement launches the planning process and guides goal setting, […]
Engage all members of the school community in foundational learning opportunities to help them understand their role in schoolwide SEL.
Teacher stress has been found to affect teachers’ health and well-being, job satisfaction, turnover, and even student outcomes (Greenberg, Brown, & Abenavoli, 2016). For this reason, it’s essential that educators take time to prevent burnout, promote health, and protect themselves from the negative effects of stress.
SEL is a powerful lever for creating caring, just, inclusive, and healthy communities that support all individuals in reaching their fullest potential.