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Tag: SEL

Posted
August 31, 2021
Category
Personalized Learning

Highly gifted students need social-emotional support and the confidence to share their real aspirations

Portola Middle School’s Highly Gifted Magnet is unique because it is the only highly gifted middle school in LAUSD. What’s not unique in the uneasiness that many students feel at this critical juncture in their development. Middle school can cause anxiety for some students who feel that they don’t “fit in” or who are not as emotionally mature as their peers.

Teacher Mia Kang explains, “We often forget that just because a young learner is advanced beyond their years intellectually, they may not be so socially and emotionally. Research and experience prove the veracity of this. My students need explicit instruction on SEL skill development. I began using Thrively to help students expand their range of skills, and what I discovered was that they were very forthcoming about their fears and angst. I also got to see that many of them are profoundly beyond their years in their SEL development. There were extraordinary responses to Thrively prompts that showed how important it is for family, learners, school, and teachers to work together to support SEL.”

“A lot of highly-gifted students are focused and driven but not necessarily inspired by traditional academics. After gathering data from the Thrively interests survey, I found that many of my students wanted to be chefs, pilots, actors, and graphic designers,” explained Kang.

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Understandably, in the classroom, time is limited and the urgency of preparing every child for a fulfilling future is unrelenting. Mia Kang acknowledges this but insists that addressing the social-emotional needs of highly gifted students is foundational to both their wellbeing and their academic success. That approach is also essential in developing their voice and making their school experience relevant.

 “I have used other SEL resources, those with massive binders, unengaging resources, and unrealistic implementation plans. When I discovered Thrively, I was thrilled because not only are the lessons highly engaging but the invitation to reflect is included in every learner experience. Thrively is an integral aspect of my daily instructional practice,” shared Kang. “I started using it half-way through the school year. After reading some of the responses, I know that I would have changed so much of the way that I approached my learners had I used it from the beginning of the year.”

Sometimes we forget that our GATE students have highly specialized needs, and we can default to emphasizing a course of study that is singular in focus. When we give our students a chance to discover and share their strengths, aspirations, and ideas, we can help them see their studies related to their values and dreams. Our highly gifted students can then see that academic achievement is not an end in itself, but a means of achieving a future of their choosing. 

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Thrively appreciates the opportunity to collaborate with Portola Middle School as they strive to ensure that every child’s social-emotional needs are supported.

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Posted
August 28, 2020
Category
Whole Child

Student agency and student empowerment

Most educators would agree that this is the dual aim of our individual and collective efforts. How then do we move from aspiration to action? If students are to become agentive, we need to create the conditions for their authentic voices to emerge. Authenticity is the outcome of being one’s true self, which results from self-awareness. Students feel safe to express their authentic selves when they believe that they are known and valued. The core resource for transforming our schools into vibrant learning environments brimming with curiosity and creativity is sitting right in front of us: our students. When we value students as partners with us, we unleash limitlessness potential. Recognizing this, the principal at a high school in East Los Angeles posed a question: “What would happen if we empowered our students not just as learners but as learning facilitators? The principal, Dr. Faatiai, at the Engineering and Technology Academy on the Esteban E. Torres High School campus launched a two-day professional development workshop for twenty-five students who would learn how to facilitate their Advisory classes. The students were a heterogeneous group comprised of both student body leadership and those who struggle with self-management. At the end of the workshop, all students were ready to lead an Advisory grounded by an authentic desire to know every student’s strengths and aspirations in the school. passion.jpg Students took Thrively’s Strengths Assessment during the workshop, which was designed for young people to increase self-awareness and surface their top five of twenty-three strengths. After the assessment, students discovered themselves and saw their peers in a new light. The facilitator began to call out each strength and asked students to stand and say, “Like me!” when they heard one of their top five strengths. The facilitator began, “One of my strengths is compassion.” Three students stood up and said, “Like me!” “One of my strengths is creativity!” Five students stood up: “Like me! With each new affirmation, new bonds were formed. team_building-Thrively When the twenty-three strengths were shared, students were asked to reflect. An 11th-grade student said, “It’s pretty hard to tease a kid who has compassion as a strength.” One of the more tentative students in the workshop added: “Individually, our strengths make us awesome, but when we put our strengths together, we’re unstoppable!”
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Posted
August 28, 2020
Category
Whole Child

Live Oak Elementary School educators do not leave student empowerment to chance

When students feel known and valued, they feel safe speaking out in front of their peers and speaking up when confronted with a challenge. Live Oak educators help students amplify their voices by showing them how their strengths and particular intelligence make them uniquely powerful. This approach has increased the effectiveness of peer collaboration as well as conflict resolution. The school year begins with inviting students to share their strengths with their parents. Teacher Kim Yerkes explains the effect: “I have been amazed at the connection it provides for the family and how appreciative the parents are to see and hear about their child’s gifts.” Live Oak Elementary School.jpeg Yerkes and her colleagues believe that families want to understand their child’s strengths and how the child is demonstrating growth based upon these strengths. When this strengths-based approach is established at the beginning of the school year, it becomes a means of motivating children and addressing challenges that may arise. When parents understand their child’s strengths that can inspire them to build off of those strengths to experience success. At Live Oak, the teacher, parent, and child are working collaboratively around a common purpose and with a shared understanding of strengths and intelligences. This penchant for collaboration isn’t reserved for the adults; Yerkes analyzes Thrively strengths data to “better understand the dynamics” of her class. She establishes cooperative groups that build on each child’s assets, enabling all to work together to solve problems and work more effectively as a team. Yerkes uses student journal reflections as formative data to better understand how her students are processing what they’ve learned. Thrively 24 Strengths Down the hall, Yerkes’ colleague, counselor Sarah Latham, is building rapport with 1,000 students at a time. Latham is the counselor for two schools with more than 500 students each. She uses Thrively to get to know each student’s strengths and multiple intelligences. Latham recounts a time when two students, despite conferencing and other supports, could not resolve a conflict. “I had two students that I was struggling with. I looked at their strengths and before I began, I said, ‘I want to show you your profiles on Thrively.’ They both had problem-solving as a strength and as soon as I told them this, their demeanor changed and they were more open to solving their conflict. Each took responsibility for their actions.” When students are acknowledged and celebrated for what they and their peers bring to the learning environment, they experience a comfort level that allows them to trust that they will be heard. The educators at Live Oak reinforce this each day by seeing and honoring the whole child.
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