Social and Emotional Learning

SEL Gets Bite-Sized Treatment

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 11/05/20

An education technology company has launched a library of "bite-sized" lessons on social-emotional learning subjects. StrongMind's new StrongMinded has already been adopted for use with students in grades 6-12 in schools in Arizona, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The company produces online curriculum for myriad subjects, including English language arts, math, science, social studies, health and physical education and assorted electives.

The individual lessons in the latest offering are about five minutes long and target a special SEL area. Teachers can customize how content playlists are shared--by individual, class or specific groups of students. Students can also access the library for their own learning. A student dashboard shares progress to spur additional use of the materials.

According to the company, the lessons align to the core competencies in the SEL framework developed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, (CASEL). They include direct instruction, vocabulary and practice activities with feedback.

"We recognized a huge need for a student-centered, research-based approach to teaching and learning social emotional skills--one that addressed individual student learning needs, which complemented rather than competed with academic instruction," explained Yovhane Metcalfe, chief academic officer at StrongMind, in a press release. "StrongMinded alleviates the implementation challenges that teachers, schools and districts face so that SEL can more easily be integrated into any middle or high school course."

The company is hosting a Zoom webinar about the new program on Oct. 28 at 2 p.m. Eastern time.