It’s no secret schools are all-in on social-emotional learning. With SEL resources, trainings, and even new roles popping up everywhere.

As of 2022, 27 states have adopted SEL competencies for K-12, and all 50 states have adopted them for Pre-K. When you consider the research, the increased focus on SEL is well-supported:

• When students learn and practice the five core competencies, they show higher academic achievement compared to students who don’t.

• SEL programs in kindergarten can have positive long term impacts on students’ personal and professional lives.

• SEL is not just for at-risk students. CASEL notes “systemic implementation fosters schoolwide conditions that promote social and emotional growth for all.”

That last point, systemic implementation, is critical. 

Implementing a new program is difficult enough in one classroom. A school or district-wide SEL initiative can have greater impact – but bring greater challenges, too.

This is why administrators must look beyond finding the best social-emotional learning resources for teachers to use, and focus on supporting those teachers in their implementation, too.

To support SEL programs, leaders must remember the 4Es

SEL addresses two of the most complex parts of life: emotions and relationships.

This means an SEL implementation has all the typical challenges of a new initiative, like getting buy-in, aligning expectations, and providing teacher support. However, it comes with the added challenge of navigating students’ and adults’ social-emotional lives.

Teachers and administrators are likely to face these challenges when implementing an SEL initiative, which can be easily remembered through the acronym “The 4Es.”

Equity 

With many different student needs, teachers or leaders may pull from multiple SEL resources and programs. When this happens, how can leaders ensure students get equitable SEL instruction?

Experience 

Teachers may be uncomfortable with their implementation of SEL strategies, especially if they are still working on developing their own SEL competencies. While many introduce social-emotional learning activities for staff, SEL is still a big adjustment for adults, too.

Expectations 

Within a school, leaders may have different understandings of what successful SEL instruction looks like. Coaches may lack useful models of SEL instruction to share with teachers.

Evolution

A successful SEL program requires shifting the behavior and mindsets of adults first. As a district invests in SEL resources, leadership may lack a window for seeing how this is progressing.

These challenges involve understanding the reality of what’s happening in classrooms, and managing the resources available to support teachers in their work. 

“When you have five administrators in your classroom, you’re going to freak out”

Implementing an SEL program in a classroom is already a difficult task for teachers.

They need to become familiar with the resources the school is using. They need to learn and practice their own SEL competencies. And they need to get students to buy-in to activities and language that may feel different than some of their other academic experiences.

Now, imagine doing all this while also having one or more administrators enter the room unexpectedly for a walkthrough. 

While of course administrators need to see what SEL instruction looks like across the school or district, and they may want to provide teachers with feedback, unannounced classroom visits are not the most efficient or effective way to do this. 

Kat Stevens, a district-level administrator from Guilford County, NC, described the problem, saying, “When you have five people from the district coming into your classroom, you’re going to freak out. Whereas, if you put a Swivl Robot in there, teachers will often forget it’s in there and just continue what they’re doing.”

Through Swivl Teams, teachers can share a short clip of their SEL instruction with a principal or other administrators, who can provide time-stamped comments to discuss the teacher’s progress, encourage self-reflection, and facilitate growth.

How a 10-minute video can help support and align SEL instruction

The use of classroom video to support an SEL program (or other initiative) involves three essential actions: 

• Reflection: Teachers capture important moments of instruction on video. They self-reflect to identify challenges and opportunities, or their “glows and grows.”

• Alignment: Video helps teachers, coaches, and administrators get on the same page. Coaches or veteran teachers can record short lessons, which can be used to establish shared expectations. 

• Coaching: Ideally, teachers will identify their own coaching needs through self-reflection. In other cases, a third party may suggest a coaching cycle. Classroom video makes coaching more effective and objective, and also makes it easier for coaching to become another opportunity for teacher self-reflection. 

Even a single 10-minute video can be a powerful asset in improving the success of an SEL initiative. Imagine this scenario: 

1. One coach or veteran teacher records a short model lesson about a key SEL lesson that many teachers will do. 
2. The video is shared with teachers, who can self-reflect on their own instruction and compare their work to the video. 
3. Coaches then use this video in conversations with teachers as a model. 
4. Principals and other instructional leaders refer to the video before observations and walk-throughs, and use it to inform their conversations with teachers.

Now imagine scaling this process across your entire organization. By giving teachers the tools and systems needed for meaningful self-reflection, collaboration, and coaching conversations, you can make the most of your investment in SEL resources, and drive better outcomes across your school or district. 

Ready to see how Swivl Robot + Teams can help you support your teachers in succeeding at SEL? Schedule a free 30-minute consultation.

The post Why SEL resources are not enough for a successful school initiative appeared first on Swivl.

There have been incredible challenges over the last twelve months but also opportunities to innovate and disrupt traditional ways of teaching. When the pandemic forced school closures in March, over 20,000 educators turned to the Modern Classrooms Project’s blended, self-paced, mastery-based instructional model. 

While there are still challenges that lie ahead, the Modern Classrooms Project can support educators and students as they return to in-person learning and begin to address the social-emotional and academic impacts of COVID-19. Educators can also effectively differentiate instruction and deepen student learning by using technology tools like Swivl coupled with the Modern Classrooms Project instructional model.

Learning levels have widened

There have always been a broad diversity of learning levels within a classroom but the pandemic has only made these gaps more extreme. While some students thrived in the remote and hybrid learning setting, many have suffered academically, socially, and emotionally. A recent analysis of student learning loss due to the pandemic found that students learned only 67 percent of the math and 87 percent of the reading that grade-level peers would typically have learned by the fall. The learning loss was especially severe for students of color, where scores were 59 percent of the historical average in math and 77 percent in reading.

Students’ varying academic levels will need an instructional model that meets them where they are.The Modern Classroom instructional model replaces a one-size-fits-all approach with differentiated instruction and flexible structures that meet the unique needs of each and every student. Students are no longer pushed ahead to a new lesson each day. They can take the time they need to truly master new content and only progress when they are ready. 

Centering student relationships

Children and adolescents have not been spared the unique stresses of the last year. Some students may have lost a loved one or experienced economic hardship due to a parent losing their job. Some may have become more aware of systemic racism, climate change, and other societal issues like food insecurity and healthcare availability. It is critical that schools are responsive to the unique experiences, attitudes, and feelings students will bring back to the classroom. While this is a global problem, there are things that any individual teacher can do to start addressing these needs. When in-person learning resumes, we know there will be a temptation to be singularly focused on academic content to make up for learning loss. While it’s important to build students’ academic skills, it will be equally as important to focus on students’ social and emotional well-being and foster positive relationships with them.

The Modern Classroom instructional model allows educators to spend less time delivering whole group instruction and more time working closely with students. By leveraging blended instruction through teacher-created videos, teachers can use valuable class time for supervising small group work, checking in with students one-on-one, and providing meaningful and personalized support. This small group and one-on-one time helps foster healthy, trusting relationships with students. Relational teaching takes work and time, but it is the key to building supportive school communities for our students. 

Disruptions will continue

Modern Classroom educators report that our model provides them with flexibility to more easily transition between in-person, hybrid, and remote learning environments and assist  students who miss class. According to a 2016 Department of Education report, 21% of high school students miss more than fifteen days of school per year. This number could be even higher next year. Students may miss school for a variety of reasons outside of their control and should have opportunities to access content and pick up where they left off. In Modern Classrooms, students can access content at any time and from any place via teacher-created instructional videos. 

Blended, self-paced, mastery-based classrooms put students in the driver’s seat of their own learning.  Students don’t have to wait for whole-class direct instruction to access new content: they can easily hit play and watch a short instructional video created by their teacher. After watching this instructional video, students can proceed to their assignments and apply what they have learned. Students control the pace of their learning as they move from lesson to lesson. When students are in control of their learning, they naturally take more responsibility for their learning. This learner independence is a 21st century skill that will benefit students long after their school days are over.

Leveraging technology

Modern Classroom educators were at an advantage when the pandemic struck because they were comfortable leveraging technology to facilitate learning. But for many teachers, technology was not as commonplace in their classrooms and they had to quickly learn how to use new platforms, apps, and technology tools. Now that educators have these new technology skills, they can’t let them go to waste. Educators can harness their use of technology and serve their students even better than before. 

As students across the country adapted to remote and hybrid learning, they, too, became more familiar with education technology and its various uses. For Modern Classroom students, the transition to remote and hybrid learning was made easier by their expertise using technology to access instruction. A study by John Hopkins University found 66% of students in a Modern Classroom report that they learn how to use technology in class compared to only 47% of students in a traditional classroom, and that 100% of Modern Classroom educators felt they used technology effectively. In the last year, districts have invested more heavily in technology devices and infrastructure and it will be important that their instructional models support the effective and efficient use of this new technology.

Preventing burnout 

Teaching is challenging even in the best of circumstances, and  the pandemic has made it substantially harder and put immense pressure on educators. An alarming poll from the National Education Association found that nearly one in three teachers are more likely to resign or retire early due to COVID. At a time when educator’s stress levels are soaring, it’s critically important that they feel supported. 

Modern Classroom educators report that our model makes teaching more sustainable. They are able to focus less on delivering content in real-time and focus more on connecting with students one-on-one and creating learning environments where students flourish personally and academically.

Join the conversation with Swivl and the Modern Classrooms Project

Want to engage in more discussions about this topic and hear first-hand perspectives from Modern Classroom educators? Join us on April 15 at 5:30 p.m. ET and hear from Modern Classroom educator Moira Mazzi on how the blended, self-paced, mastery-based model has helped her overcome the challenges of remote teaching and will ease her and her students’ transition back to in-person learning. 

You can get started learning the Modern Classroom instructional model and bring new teaching strategies to our own classroom by enrolling in their Free Online Course at learn.modernclassrooms.org.

The post Making the Transition Back to School appeared first on Swivl.

Even with this promising news, it doesn’t seem like the time to get ahead of ourselves. It is a relief to feel hopeful, but there is still work to do, and it will be some time before we are really considered safe. Schools will likely continue to be impacted by the pandemic at least through the fall of 2021, and with that, we believe this means hybrid is likely in your school’s path to safety.

In an attempt to make sense of everything, we have pored over information as it has become available, and now we can make educated guesses about the way schools might operate for the next year. Here is our best guess as to what 2021 could look like, and the factors that could affect it.

Safety timelines as we know them

Right now, in mid-December, infections are higher in many cities than they have been at any other point during the pandemic. These numbers will continue to surge variably through January and maybe into February, with the only hope for control being to follow what are now standard safety precautions: wear a mask, stay home when you can, etc.

The most optimistic timeline for vaccinations reaching the entire population is around June. Even with the new promise to vaccinate up to 40 million Americans by the end of the year, there are 111 million health care workers, residents of long-term care facilities, essential workers who are first in line, in that order. By the latest projections, those numbers alone take us into the beginning of March. Then come adults with high-risk conditions (100 million), and those 65 and over (50 million). Only after all of this, in April, will the inoculation of the general population will begin.

In theory, between March and June everyone will have access. But the logistics of vaccine distribution will be long and uneven, and there is no guarantee of the vaccine’s effectiveness over time. According to NPR, “Studies of the new vaccines only measured whether vaccinated people developed symptoms, not whether they got infected.” If precautions are let down even more as people adopt a feeling of safety, it will prolong the risk. 

In the latest report from CNN, Dr. Susan Bailey, the President of the American Medical Association, admits that “the biggest obstacle to the vaccine is people’s willingness to be vaccinated.” It is projected that 60-80% of the population would need to be vaccinated in order to “control” the virus. Even today, a new study reveals that a quarter of Americans claim they will not get a shot. With this many people still refusing compliance, we risk the possibility of localized outbreaks that will last well beyond June of 2021.

The result is that it doesn’t seem realistic to expect an “end” to the pandemic by the summer. Increasingly, experts are guiding us to think in this direction. Bill Gates told CNN on Dec 13, “Even through 2022, we should be prepared for life not to return to normal.” If our lives will remain unpredictable for another year or more, then schools will have to reflect that.

What does this mean for schools?

Because of how localized decision-making is, it has remained difficult to make blanket statements about what schools should do. The way we imagine school response is in phases over time, knowing that there will be geographic variability. The first phase of this looks much the same as it is now — with the need for rolling school closures and movement to fully online models as surges occur. This could also include the ability to reopen circumstantially and operate as you did at the beginning of fall 2020, knowing it could switch back again with another surge. Thus, we should not expect much to change for at least a few months.

Beginning around March we should begin to see some stability and predictability. You can think of this as the second phase. The surges in infections that defined fall and winter will become less common, and so will the need for unexpected closures. This will allow more schools to start relying on in-person classes, combined with either a remote class per grade level or a hybrid classroom model. So, the same strategies that have been developed so far apply, but there will be less disruption to the operation of schools.

By August, we expect the number of students that need to consider remote will be declining steadily, if not exponentially, until early 2022. But this will still be a significant number through the end of 2021 at least. Parent choice will be a major variable here, because even those who have been vaccinated may still opt out of school. So, real safety concerns will persist, still requiring careful consideration for school operations.

Then, by the spring of 2022, you will no longer need to be making special plans for classes; the time will come to focus on how to recover from the impacts of the pandemic.

What does this mean for classrooms? 

At some point next fall, it will likely become unrealistic for most schools to offer a remote class per grade level – it will get harder and harder to maintain separate modes of instruction. 

With the average class size of 24 and grade size of 137, each grade will likely have 10-15 students at home – too small to organize a whole class around. This means most schools will need to operate without a dedicated remote class, and deal with a few students absent in each. Once the percentage of students at home is down to around 10%, it seems likely that a hybrid model becomes the only viable option. 

Relying on asynchronous learning solely for those remote students is not enough. It’s apparent now that a connection is needed to promote accountability and initiative. Live streaming, with limitations, should be used in conjunction with asynchronous work. Zoom fatigue is a real problem, and not just for students.

It is true that there is no replacement for being with students in person, but hybrid classroom models have helped us accomplish what we thought was impossible this year, and it has worked where people have committed to it.

For example, the teachers at Fairmont Schools in Southern California are using a setup powered by Swivl to give students an experience that better mimics a traditional classroom, keeping kids connected to their teachers and classmates – even from home. You can read all about their classroom structure and the significant impact it has made here.

We believe planning to leverage hybrid classrooms both this spring and next fall is likely to be the most flexible and reliable way to satisfy safety concerns, as well as make learning more accessible.

If you do choose to build your hybrid classroom solutions with Swivl, it’s an investment that has dual value. At our core, we are a coaching business. There is no question that Swivl would be a powerful addition to any classroom facing the unknown over the next year; but our solutions can also be used to support coaching in your school after the pandemic. And we think that coaching at every level is going to be necessary to recover from the worst impacts of this crisis – for students and teachers. In the long term, school districts will have to address how this trauma has impacted learning. Our confidence is that radically more human connection and individual attention is required to rebuild what was lost, and prepare educators to change and grow.

The point of our thought process is to remember that even in the best case, there will be no quick fix. There is no way to know for sure how the end of the pandemic will play out, but it is looking more and more like our capacity to adapt will continue to be tested a bit longer. 

For classrooms, it means that students are going to need the best that you can give them, which means hybrid learning is likely in your school’s path to safety.

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