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.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.