October 23, 2003

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/e-news-oct03.htm or request a text-only version from Cynthia Coleman at: colemanc@uic.edu.

In This Issue--- A Focus on SEL in Adolescence

From the Executive Director’s Desk    

In this issue of CASEL Connections we focus on secondary schools. The transition from elementary to secondary school is a crucial time in every student's development. Middle school students are at an age when their physical, emotional, and social development is more rapid than at any other time of life except infancy. High school students are preparing for another important transition: the move to adulthood, independence, and critically important life career choices. The structure of secondary schools and the developmental needs of adolescents require significant modifications in how we promote and implement SEL at the middle and high school level. The good news is that although there may be fewer programs for secondary schools (understandably, given their complex departmental structure and their emphasis on coverage of content), many secondary-level SEL approaches show great promise.

Service-learning-- what we at CASEL think of as "SEL in action"-- for example, can be carried out in much more depth at the secondary level than in the earlier grades. Increasingly, secondary schools offer courses in service-learning, give academic credit for independent service-learning projects, and encourage service-learning clubs and after-school activities. The trend toward small schools and schools-within-schools also reflects a growing awareness that students at the secondary level want and need the adult guidance and support small schools make possible. As shown in the article in this issue on the high school in Hudson, MA, the secondary level is also ideal for encouraging student participation in democratic decision making, making high school a vitally important arena for active citizenship. Another relatively simple but important way to promote SEL at the secondary level is through advisory groups. They are a potentially valuable way to provide students with opportunities to address the social and emotional dimension of school life.

Nevertheless, because secondary schools are more complex organizationally than elementary schools, the challenges of implementing new approaches at this level are significant. We at CASEL will continue to identify outstanding examples of effective, evidence-based SEL implementation at the secondary level and will keep you informed about what we are finding and learning.

-- Roger Weissberg

Spotlight on Research

Secondary School Test Scores Reflect Student Well-Being

Research conducted by WestEd indicates there is a significant connection between secondary schools' academic progress on standardized tests and indicators of students' mental and physical well-being. According to WestEd, "Even after controlling for socioeconomic conditions, WestEd researchers found a significant relationship between the annual standardized achievement test scores of secondary schools and a variety of nonacademic factors, including students’ physical exercise, nutrition, substance use, and safety at school. Moreover, longitudinal analyses revealed that health risks and low levels of resilience assets impede the progress of schools in raising test scores. Overall, the data suggest that schools have higher levels of academic achievement when students have fewer health-risk factors (e.g., drug use) and more protective factors (e.g., caring relationships with teachers)."

Engaging High School Students

Studies have shown high school students experience particularly high levels of boredom and disengagement at school. To offer guidance on how to shake high school students out of ennui and apathy, David Shernoff and colleagues investigated how adolescents spend their time in high school to find out when and why they become engaged, as reflected by concentration, interest, and enjoyment. In their study in the June issue of School Psychology Quarterly, they report students showed increased engagement when:

  • The perceived challenge of the task and their own skills were high and in balance—a balance more likely to be achieved when teachers provide immediate feedback and teach skills incrementally.

  • The instruction was relevant, i.e., students were doing authentic academic work where they were solving real-life problems that extended beyond the classroom.

  • The learning environment was under their control, i.e., students had a large degree of choice in their learning activities.

  • They were engaged in individual and group work instead of listening to lectures, watching videos, or taking exams.

Spotlight on Practice

Practicing Democracy in High School

For a concrete example of how a high school can promote student engagement, read “Practicing Democracy in High School” in last month's issue of Educational Leadership. Written by Hudson, MA Superintendent and CASEL Leadership Team member Sheldon Berman, this article describes what Berman’s district has done at the high school level to foster social-emotional learning, civic participation, and academic engagement. In Hudson: 

  • SEL is integrated into the academic curriculum.

  • School connectedness is fostered by creating smaller learning communities.

  • The relevance of student learning is increased by providing academic choice, connecting learning to student career interests, and having students create service-learning projects.

The article describes the district's efforts in three major categories: fostering responsibility, building community, and promoting democratic governance.

Fostering Responsibility: The district has created a year-long core course for ninth graders on ethics and civic engagement. Taught by English and social studies teachers, the course is built around this question: "What is an individual's responsibility for creating a just society"? A key aspect of the course is the Facing History and Ourselves curriculum. This powerful and academically challenging program provides an intensive and critical examination of the people and events of the Holocaust. It is designed to develop middle and high school students' critical thinking, moral development, and sense of civic responsibility.

Building Community: The district has facilitated the development of community and heightened student engagement by creating smaller, more personalized, and more individualized learning communities. The 1,000-student high school has been divided into eight smaller communities. At the eighth- and ninth-grade level students are divided into two teams of 110 students, each of which takes core courses from an interdisciplinary team. Team membership helps students forge connections with a smaller group of teachers and students during these transition years. 

In grades 10-12 four groups of interest-based clusters facilitate relationships among students who share common interests identified in part through career-interest surveys. The four interest areas are communications, media, and the arts; science, health, and the environment; technology, engineering, and business; and public policy, education, and social service. 

Democratic Governance: The clusters serve as an important governance mechanism. During their weekly cluster meetings students select, discuss, and take action steps on topics of concern to them; make decisions about cluster activities; and make recommendations for consideration by the whole school on how to improve school life.

Promising SEL Strategies at the Secondary Level and Resources on the Web

  1. Integrate SEL into the academic curriculum to engage students more deeply in academic subjects while promoting their social and emotional development.

  • The Facing History and Ourselves web site offers downloadable lesson plans and study guides that can be used in conjunction with books and documentaries commonly available in school or community public libraries. Visit the Facing History web site at: www.facinghistory.org.

  • Voices of Love and Freedom has created study guides for literature for grades 6-12 to help teachers promote both reading-writing skills and social skills and values. For example, in the guide to Hamlet, learning activities relate to revenge and responses to injustice, as well as activities in which students apply a conflict resolution model to conflicts Hamlet faces. For a list of guides and order information go to: http://www.casel.org/VoicesSecondary.htm

  1. Create more personalized and caring learning environments.

  • Tribes, a CASEL Select program, promotes inclusion, participation, and community at the elementary and secondary levels. Tribes and many other middle and high school SEL programs are reviewed in CASEL’s publication Safe and Sound: An Educational Leader’s Guide to Evidence-Based Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs.

  • If your secondary schools are large, explore a small schools model. The article “Ten Features of Effective Design” explains the value of small schools and offers 10 organizing principles of successful small school models: http://www.schoolredesign.com/srn/server.php?idx=297. This web site also gives real-life case studies of large schools that have reorganized into smaller schools. Also be sure to read "Reinventing High School: Outcomes of the Coalition Campus Schools Project" by Linda Darling-Hammond in the American Research Journal (2002), Vol 39 (3). It describes in detail the effective redesign features of 5 successful schools created from 2 larger failing high schools.

  • Check into the First Things First (FTF) comprehensive reform model, which is "actively engaging adults and students around three goals: stronger relationships among students and adults; better teaching and learning; and re-allocation of resources — budget, staff and time — to support these first two goals." Small learning communities are a core feature of this model, and you can read about some amazing results in student academic achievement that they're seeing in schools who have adopted it. Go to: http://www.irre.org/ftf/results.asp.

  • The National Association of Secondary School Principals web site has a section called Breakthrough High Schools. The 12 schools showcased serve high-poverty students, and describe what these successful schools have done in several categories, including personalization, democratic leadership, and school-family-community partnerships, to dramatically improve student educational outcomes. Go to: http://www.nassp.org/breakthrough/index.cfm

  • To learn more about career and enrichment clustering, check out these web sites: http://www.ed.gov/pubs/ToolsforSchools/enrich.html and http://www.careerclusters.org

  • Advisory programs can also help students get to know one adult and a small group of fellow students well. The National Middle School Association web site has a research summary of the benefits of advisory programs at the junior high level: http://www.nmsa.org/research/ressum9.htm

  1. Service-learning programs can help students apply social, emotional, and academic skills to real-world issues and problems. Links to several service-learning organizations can be found on the CASEL web site at http://www.casel.org/links.htm#service. To learn about service-learning projects in the Hudson, MA schools visit the district's web site: http://www.hudson.k12.ma.us/ (click on the "Other" section of the top menu bar on the home page)

  2. Practice democratic decision-making so that students, staff, and parents have a voice in how their school is run. A worthwhile article on this topic can be found on the web site of the School Redesign Network at http://www.schoolredesign.com/srn/server.php?idx=230&page=2

  3. Continue to engage parents in the school and in their child's education in middle and high school. A recent article by Maurice Elias in Our Children, the magazine of the National PTA, offers suggestions for facilitating school-family partnerships at this level: www.pta.org/parentinvolvement/helpchild/partnerships.asp  

  4. Be aware of the stresses adolescents face as they make the transition to middle and high school. Young people at this stage need social and emotional supports. See Maurice Elias's article Easing Transitions with Social and Emotional Learning:  http://www.nassp.org/news/pl_soc_emo_lrng_301.cfm and the National Middle School Associations summary articles on the “Importance of Emotional Intelligence During the Transition to Middle School” and the “Developmental Needs of Young Adolescents” at http://www.nmsa.org/research/res_articles_jan2002a.htm and http://www.nmsa.org/research/resumm5.htm  

Policy Perspectives  

When introduced together in a carefully planned way, service-learning and SEL reinforce each other and help to build a school’s capacity for both. This is well-documented in a recent report published jointly by CASEL, the National Center for Learning and Citizenship, and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory for Student Success titled Social and Emotional Learning, Service Learning, and Educational Leadership. The report notes that "Both experience and research indicate that quality service-learning can build social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies, while SEL can strengthen the ability of students to be capable service providers. When used together, their effects are enhanced and their impact can be more profound and long-lasting." Last year, NCLC published a service-learning policy scan. Check their web site to download the easy-to-digest scan titled Institutionalized Service-Learning in the 50 States.

NCLC is also currently working with educators, policymakers, and other experts from across the country to develop a set of citizenship education policy tools for states. These include citizenship competencies for students (skills, knowledge, and dispositions); an online, 50-state database of policies that support citizenship education; policy briefs on citizenship education at the state, district, and school levels; and a background paper describing four approaches for states seeking to support citizenship education through policy. These tools will be used to support technical assistance in three demonstration states in which education leaders and policy makers have made a commitment to improving the way they educate young people for effective citizenship. Citizenship education includes service-learning as a core strategy. 

http://www.ecs.org/ecsmain.asp?page=/html/ProjectbySubject.asp?issueID=109

CASEL Up-Close—Work and Projects  

Educational Leadership

Hunter College professor and CASEL Leadership Team member Janet Patti co-authored a newly published book, Smart School Leaders: Leading with Emotional Intelligence. This book draws from voices of educators, principals, superintendents and other school leaders, and is about schools "where everyone learns how to make full use of emotional and intellectual intelligence to accomplish goals; [where] the assistant principals, principals, district superintendents and other school leaders are both teachers and learners in this process of personal and organizational change." Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of EQ school leadership. This book is available on the Kendall-Hunt web site at: http://www.kendallhunt.com/.

What Is CASEL?  

CASEL—the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning—is dedicated to the development of children’s social-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 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, 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 that fall under the umbrella of school-based SEL programming.

About This Listserv

The FCASEL 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:  www.CASEL.org/mail.htm, or send an e-mail to Cynthia Coleman at  colemanc@uic.edu with “subscribe FCASEL or “unsubscribe FCASEL” in the subject line. To receive this bulletin in text format only, please send a message to Cynthia Coleman at colemanc@uic.edu with “e-news text format” in the subject line. We respect your privacy, and will not share or sell your email 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