For more information about CASEL, SEL, and this listserv, including how to subscribe or unsubscribe, please see the end of this message. We encourage you to share this information with others on your e-mail list. If your e-mail does not support HTML formatting, you can read this issue on our web site at: www.CASEL.org/listservs/enewsletters/e-news-nov04.htm or request a text-only version from Cynthia Coleman at: colemanc@uic.edu.  

In This Issue: School Engagement and Connectedness  

• Spotlight on Research: What does school connectedness mean, how is it measured and how is it increased?
• Spotlight on Practice: Making education meaningful; heading off disruptive behavior
• Spotlight on Policy: Illinois SEL learning standards; Ohio anti-harassment/bullying policy and school climate guidelines; Florida anti-bullying legislation
• CASEL Up-Close: Singapore Ministry of Education meeting; CASEL principal dinners

From CASEL's Leadership  

In the last issue of CASEL Connections we spotlighted the recent “Wingspread Declaration,” a call for a more systematic and deliberate effort to help students feel connected to school. In this issue we present a closer look at the studies behind that initiative as well as other closely related articles and features.

It seems that everywhere we’ve looked lately, people are addressing the issue of student connection and engagement—in the Journal of School Health, Educational Leadership, Education Week, and other venues. What does student connection have to do with social and emotional learning? CASEL’s basic approach to SEL holds that high-quality SEL programming has two primary features: (1) creating schools and classrooms that are safe, caring, well-managed and participatory; and (2) teaching a core set of social and emotional competencies (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making; see Safe and Sound. The research evidence is strong that these factors build strong student attachment to school, promote positive development, and lead to greater success in school and life. Our hope is that the ideas and suggestions in this issue will go far to help you strengthen your students’ engagement, social and emotional competence, and opportunities to succeed in many different ways.

Roger P. Weissberg                                           Mary Utne O’Brien
President                                                          Executive Director

Spotlight on Research 

Attachment, Bonding, Connectedness, and Engagement: What Do They Mean and How are They Measured?

In the September issue of the Journal of School Health, Heather Libbey identifies the various concepts and assessment tools researchers use to measure student attachment to school. Among them she finds nine main themes: academic engagement, belonging, discipline and fairness, liking for school, student voice, extracurricular activities, peer relations, safety, and teacher support. A summary of the article is on CASEL’s web site at http://www.casel.org/sel_resources/learningenvirorecs.php, along with summaries of five related studies in the September issue of the Journal of School Health. The additional studies cover:

• Why we harass nerds and freaks: A formal theory of student culture and norms

• The importance of bonding to school for healthy development

• Relationships matter: Linking teacher support to student engagement and achievement

• School connectedness and the transition into and out of health-risk behaviors among adolescents

• The interface of school climate and school connectedness

Shane Jimerson and colleagues also provide an overview of definitions and measures related to school engagement in their recent article in the California School Psychologist. They stress three dimensions of school engagement—affective, behavioral, and cognitive. You can read the Jimerson article and the entire special issue of California School Psychologist (seven articles on “School Engagement, Youth Development, and School Success”) on the journal’s web site at

http://www.education.ucsb.edu/school-psychology/CSP-Journal/PDF/CSP2003(volume_8).pdf.

How Do You Increase School Engagement and Connectedness?

What the Research Says

The six commissioned studies in the Journal of School Health referred to above came out of a meeting of educational leaders convened at Wingspread in the summer of 2003. The resulting “Wingspread Declaration” on school connectedness included a summary of the most effective strategies for increasing student connection to school based on current research evidence. These strategies are:

• Implementing high standards and expectations, and providing academic support to all students.

• Applying fair and consistent disciplinary policies that are collectively agreed upon and fairly enforced.

• Creating trusting relationships among students, teachers, staff, administrators, and families (such as those supported by SEL programming).

• Hiring and supporting capable teachers skilled in content, teaching techniques, and classroom management to meet each learner’s needs.

• Fostering high parent/family expectations for school performance and school completion.

• Ensuring that every student feels close to at least one supportive adult at school.

The entire Wingspread Declaration can also be found in the September issue of the Journal of School Health.

Additional strategies for enhancing connectedness can be found in Improving the Odds: The Untapped Power of Schools to Improve the Health of Teens, located on the All About Kids web site. This monograph includes lists of 10 strategies that foster connection to school. Separate lists are tailored specifically for administrators, parents, and teachers (see p17-19).

What the Students Say

The cornerstones of school engagement generally agreed on by researchers closely mirror what students say that need from teachers, as reported by Students as Allies (http://www.whatkidscando.org). High School students in five cities across the country involved in the Students as Allies program surveyed other students and held student discussions in their schools. Here’s how they summarized their collective view on how schools can better engage students:

“Start by including us in your planning and conversations, knowing that we care just as much as you do about creating high schools that bring out the best in students and teachers. Invite our ideas and perspectives. Let us explore together where we agree and differ, what’s doable and what’s not. Make us part of the solution and not the problem.

If you asked what we most want, here’s what we would tell you. We want policies that produce schools where . . .

• Teachers know their subject matter well and know how to explain it so that students understand.

• We see the connections between what we are learning and the real world.

• There is at least one person we can go to for support and advice, for both academics and personal issues.

• The relationships between and among students and adults in the school are grounded in respect and trust.

• Discipline is applied equitably and meaningfully across the student body.

• We receive regular feedback on how we’re doing and how we can improve.

• Our teachers and counselors talk to us one-on-one about college or other plans for after high school.

• The bathrooms are clean.

• There are enough textbooks and educational supplies for every student.

And where . . .

Our voices matter.”

You can read the full report and learn more about this project designed to strengthen the relationships between students and teachers by visiting the Students as Allies web site at http://www.whatkidscando.org/studentsasalliesintro.html.

SOUND BITE 

“[We]…know how to create intellectually rich, rigorous classrooms that foster the desire to make meaning. The issue at hand isn't our lack of collective knowledge or ability. It's our lack of collective vision and will.” – Jacqueline Brooks in Educational Leadership

Spotlight on Practice

Making Education Meaningful

Here we focus on the instructional realm by sharing some examples of how to engage your students’ hearts and minds through meaningful learning opportunities in the classroom and community.

For inspiration and specific strategies to create the classroom you want, be sure to read the September issue of Educational Leadership titled “Teaching for Meaning.” The articles provide vivid examples of how teachers across different content areas are creating opportunities for personally relevant and meaningful student learning experiences. Articles by Jay McTighe, Grant Wiggins, and others challenge the assumption that high-stakes testing and accountability preclude student-initiated, project-based learning, or other pedagogic practices for making education meaningful. To see the articles available in the special issue, visit the ASCD web site.

Creating a Culture of Attachment: A Community-as-Text Approach to learning (Education Week, Nov. 10, 2004). In this inspiring commentary piece, Milbrey McLaughlin and Marty Blank discuss the value of a community-as-text approach to address the soaring rates of chronic student disengagement and dropping out. The hallmark of their approach is hands-on authentic learning that focuses on community needs, interests, and issues, with students serving as producers of community knowledge. Strategies include service-learning, place-based education, environmental education, civic education, and work-based learning.

Heading Off Disruptive Behavior

Robert Blum, Shep Kellam, and others have reported on the importance of an orderly, well-managed classroom, free of disruptive student behavior, to students’ engagement and academic success. How can educators create such classrooms? How do we meet the needs of students who require more personalized and intensive social and emotional interventions? Research shows that the effectiveness of such interventions is greatly enhanced if schools also have a universal (all-student) SEL program in place.

Many teachers in the schools CASEL works with ask for assistance in meeting the needs of a small handful of students who are regularly disruptive or aggressive. In their article titled “Heading Off Disruptive Behavior: How Early Interventions Can Reduce Defiant Behaviors and Win Back Teaching Time,” Hill Walker and colleagues describe the development of “antisocial” behavior in students and its progression and escalation if not addressed early on. They provide concrete guidance to schools on effective strategies for reducing such behavior. The authors stress that schools need to address antisocial behavior as early as possible, since interventions are more effective with younger children. According to the article, schools can reduce aggressive and antisocial behavior by:

• Being academically effective: Research shows that when students experience academic success, they are less likely to act out.

• Establishing orderly classrooms: A study of exceptionally aggressive boys assigned to orderly classrooms in first grade found them to be three times more likely to be aggressive in middle school than less aggressive peers from first grade. However, aggressive first-grade boys assigned to chaotic classrooms were 59 times more likely to be highly aggressive by middle school.

• Providing universal, selected, and targeted interventions: Universal programs (intended for all students) are the least expensive and benefit the greatest number of students. Selected interventions (intended for students at risk for problem behavior) are more expensive and help individual students develop appropriate behaviors. Targeted interventions are for the most severe cases and typically involve mental health, juvenile justice, and social service agencies in addition to schools.

• Conducting early screening and identification of antisocial students: For example, using a cost-effective form of mass screening of students in grades 1-6, such as the Systematic Screening for Behavioral Disorders.

• Using effective intervention techniques: These include a consistently enforced schoolwide behavior code, social and emotional skills training, appropriately delivered adult praise for positive behavior, reinforcement contingencies and response costs, and careful use of class “time-out.”

The authors conclude with a discussion of effective programs for reducing antisocial behavior, including First Step for Success, designed for highly aggressive K-3 students. Experimental studies of this program have demonstrated marked improvement in the classroom behavior and academic engagement of antisocial students during the intervention and across many subsequent years.

You can read this American Educator article in full at http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/winter03-04/early_intervention.html.

A second article by the same authors offers ideas on how to manage hostile student interactions effectively. This article is at http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/winter03-04/disruptive.html.

Spotlight on Policy

Illinois SEL Learning Standards

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has posted for comment on its web site (http://www.isbe.net/ils/pdf/social_emotional_public.pdf) the first-ever state SEL Learning Standards in the U.S. They were developed by ISBE with input from teams of teachers and other advisors, including CASEL, in response to a recent legislative mandate. After the current period of public review (through November 30, 2004), the standards will be revised and a final version posted on December 31, 2004. We encourage you to visit and review the SEL Learning Standards, each of which includes benchmarks for five student development levels from early elementary through late high school. We hope you will use these landmark standards in your own work, and provide constructive and supportive feedback in response to ISBE’s very brief survey about the standards.

Ohio Anti-Harassment/Bullying Policy and School Climate Guidelines

The OHIO State Board of Education (OSBE) has approved the Ohio Anti-Harassment and Bullying Policy as part of a set of guidelines aimed at promoting safer and healthier school environments. The Ohio School Climate Guidelines, "which describe how schools can create environments where every student feels welcomed, respected and motivated to learn," can also be downloaded from the OSBE web site.

Florida Anti-Bullying Legislation

A bill before the Florida state legislature, the Dignity for All Students Act, would strengthen existing zero-tolerance policies by requiring schools to report discrimination cases and train teachers to recognize harassment. Similar bills introduced in the Florida legislature during the past two years have failed to win passage. The Miami Herald (free registration).

CASEL Up-Close  

Singapore Ministry of Education Meeting

In early November CASEL was honored to host a delegation of visitors from the Ministry of Education of Singapore. Singapore’s students lead the world in cross-national studies of student academic performance. Yet members of the Education Ministry feel that the social, emotional, and civic qualities of students at all ages need support and development. Our guests examined school-based approaches across the globe and determined that SEL is the framework best suited to coordinating currently disparate and fragmented efforts and guiding new approaches. In fact, their mission statement reads: “To build the capacity of schools in nurturing the social emotional growth and character of students, and in educating exceptional learners.”

We appreciated our stimulating discussions with these gracious and accomplished guests. To read more about their work in SEL, visit the web site of the Education Programmes Division of the Education Ministry.

CASEL Principal Dinners

On Wednesday, November 3, CASEL hosted its first in a series of dinners for principals of schools that are part CASEL’s “collaborating sites project.” These nine principals represent a cohort of outstanding school leaders in Illinois working toward high-quality school-wide implementation of SEL programming in their schools. The purpose of the dinners is to (1) create a learning community of principals from around the state and a variety of districts who are seeking to develop their abilities to lead SEL in a high-quality way; (2) provide a structured opportunity for principals at the nine collaborating sites to share successes and challenges and receive support and feedback; (3) provide a forum for principals to examine their own leadership styles and social and emotional skills to prepare for or continue implementing SEL successfully; (4) underscore the importance of the school leader in the success of SEL implementation; and (5) foster a deep understanding of the variety of roles the school leader can and should play throughout the implementation process to ensure program success and sustainability.

As part of the process, the principals reflected on and discussed two key questions:

Question 1: What is one thing that happened in the past week that connects with why you became a principal (or educator, prevention worker, or prevention researcher)?  (Our thanks to Pamela Seigle and Rachael Kessler for suggesting this question.)

Question 2: What are the qualities and skills you most want to see in your students when they graduate from your school?

To their own surprise, the response of every principal, to both questions, was social and emotional in nature. You can read their list of student characteristics on the CASEL web site.

What Is CASEL?  

CASEL—the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning—is dedicated to the development of children’s social and emotional competencies and the capacity of schools, parents, and communities to support that development. Based at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), CASEL is working to create a world in which young people will have the academic knowledge and skills they need to achieve their goals and will also be caring, engaged citizens prepared to participate fully in society. CASEL’s mission is to establish integrated, evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) from preschool through high school.

What Is SEL?

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process of developing fundamental social and emotional competencies or skills in children and creating a caring and supportive school climate. A large number of school-based programs and practices are designed to do this. Many evidence-based school programs that focus on positive youth development, problem prevention, service-learning, and character education can be considered SEL. They work to develop students’ social and emotional competencies and create ways to nurture and support students. The resources in this e-newsletter cover a wide range of topics under the umbrella of school-based SEL programming.

About This Listserv

The FCASEL (“Friends of CASEL”) listserv is intended to keep you up to date on some of the latest SEL research and best practices. To subscribe or unsubscribe, go to http://www.casel.org/listservs/index.php or send an e-mail to Cynthia Coleman at  colemanc@uic.edu with “subscribe FCASEL” or “unsubscribe FCASEL” in the subject line. 

Having trouble reading this message? You can view this and all previous issues on our web site at http://www.casel.org/listservs/connections.php. We respect your privacy and will not share your e-mail address with others.

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Department of Psychology (M/C 285)
University of Illinois at Chicago
1007 West Harrison St.
Chicago, IL 60607
312-413-1008
Fax 312-355-4480 
CASEL@uic.edu 
www.CASEL.org