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The subsription required website, Seven Mindsets promotes appreciation and understanding of diversity. Furthermore, their mission statement expresses their desire to maximize everyone's potential by teaching them set high goals while learning to build relationships in and out of school.

Seven Mindsets big idea for seventh grade is titled "Remember and Understand." Their first unit is titled, "We are Connected" and one of their last units is titled "Live to Give". All of the lessons are digital and follow a similary format. An essential question is posed and is followed by a short survey question with one of the following stems. "Have you ever...? Would you ever....? How would you feel...?" Following this, students watch a video where kids their age discuss their experience with the given topic. After that portion, students answer multiple choice discussion questions. Next, a class discussion follows where students discuss keypoints in the video. Closure of the lesson involves a paper or digital exit ticket.

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A Comprehensive Mindsets-Based Solution Trusted by Educators for Over 15 Years Our mindsets-based learning, teacher-first approach is designed to drive

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Edutopia: RESTORATIVE PRACTICES Building Community With Restorative Circles: A technique for proactively building the skills and relationships students will need when challenges arise.

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Edutopia: RESTORATIVE PRACTICES Building Community With Restorative Circles: A technique for proactively building the skills and relationships students will need when challenges arise.

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Edutopia
This site has several articles and lesson ideas for everything from best practices in PBL to SEL. If you want to stay up to date on everything related to education, this site is a great place to start.
Edutopia's lesson outline on using Restorative Circles is spot on. Any teacher that is trying to get started in using circles in their class can use this outline. If it is your first time doing these, I'd encourage you to start small and fun and positive to get students comfortable. An easy one is called, "I like my people who..."
The teacher starts the game off with a statement like, "I like my people who are wearing blue." The teacher and students who are wearing blue must get up and move to different seats as fast as they can. The one student who is standing up must now be in the middle and make the statement, "I like my people who..." and the game repeats. This game is fun and very low risk for most students.

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A technique for proactively building the skills and relationships students will need when challenges arise.

Our students come to school with many issues on their minds and in their hearts. As educators, we can help them process their thoughts and feelings so they can better handle their situations and be more present in class.

Restorative circles are a useful practice to do just that. While frequently used to replace punitive forms of discipline, restorative circles are equally important in proactively building the relationships and skills students need to support one another and collectively address the challenges they face.

Restorative circles are most effective when they're an integral part of school culture. After all, you can't "restore" a community that you haven't built or sustained.

7 Steps for Facilitating Meaningful Circles

1. Cocreate a safe, supportive space: Circles work best if teachers invest time up front to build relationships, skills, and practices to draw on throughout the school year-especially if the going gets tough.

Early in the process, teachers and students together explore values-like empathy, patience, kindness, courage, and open-mindedness-that need to be respected for people to be willing to share openly and honestly in circle. They also determine best ways of working together (circle practices). These include honoring the talking piece, which goes around the circle as an invitation to share while everyone else listens (participants may pass if they don't wish to talk). People are encouraged to speak and listen from the heart. And what is shared in circle, stays in circle, though educators should let students know at the outset that we are mandated by law to report when a student threatens to harm themselves or others, or when students divulge abuse.

2. Be prepared: Make sure that you, the facilitator, are well rested, calm, and focused.

To hold the circle space effectively, it's important to be fully present and able to sit with other people's stories and feelings as well as your own. Center yourself. If you're exploring sensitive issues that may require follow up, consider alerting support staff.

3. Plan ahead: Decide together on a topic or theme that sustains students' interest.

Find a relevant opening ceremony to open the circle space, such as a poem, quote, or piece of music. A mindfulness activity can also be used to bring students into the space after a particularly stressful class or noisy hallway experience.

Look for information to ground the conversation, and develop questions and prompts to invite student perspectives into the circle.

Keep in mind that the bigger the circle, the more time you'll need for the talking piece to go around. Think about how things might unfold and be ready to adapt to what comes up.

Make sure to leave time for a closing ceremony, giving students a chance to transition into spaces that may be less conducive to being vulnerable. A closing ceremony can be a commitment to safeguarding the stories shared in circle, or a breathing exercise in which we provide students with prompts and time to put themselves back together again.

4. Invite student experiences into the space: Encourage students to connect with the circle content by sharing stories from their own lives.

Include storytelling rounds by asking students to talk about "a person in your life who..." or "a time when...." Share authentically of yourself. This gives others permission to do the same. Model good listening as the talking piece goes around the circle. Be fully present as others speak. Remind everyone that listening is the key ingredient in circles. True listening can create the kind of welcoming space that encourages even the quietest voices to speak.

5. Acknowledge, paraphrase, summarize, and practice empathy: Listen closely to what students share so that you can build on their experiences.

When the talking piece comes back to you, touch on what you felt, noticed, or heard. If you sense that there's more than surfaced in the first round, send the talking piece around a second or third time, asking students for their connections, reflections, or additions.

If challenging or painful issues come up, model agreed-upon circle practices for students to follow. Listening mindfully and being present with other people's ordeals and hardships can create supportive, healing experiences that strengthen community connections and build empathy.

If needed, let students know you're available to check in with them later in the day or week. You might also have them consider speaking with other supportive adults or students to find solace if they're troubled.

6. Explore what it means to be an effective ally: Beyond creating a supportive listening environment, ask what else, if anything, students need from you and from each other.

Explore how to be better allies in circle so that students know they don't need to face their challenges alone. Invite them to talk about a person in their lives who is a good friend or ally, or a person they'd like to be a better friend or ally. Discuss the qualities these people have (or lack) and how they make us feel. Invite students to talk about a time they've been a good friend or ally themselves, and what gets in the way of being our best selves with one another.

7. Zoom out to promote understanding on the systems level: Explore whether there are larger systemic forces that underlie the challenges students have touched on (such as racism, sexism, or lack of access to resources). Introduce information, stories, and voices that might shed light on how these systems operate. Look for examples of people who took action to interrupt these and other oppressive systems.

Invite students to connect to this information by sharing their thoughts, feelings, and related experiences.

Studying larger, systemic forces in society can help students better understand their situation, and can be a useful starting point for students to become more active themselves. Action and activism can inspire hope, connection, and healing.

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Building Community With Restorative Circles

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A technique for proactively building the skills and relationships students will need when challenges arise.

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Kelly's Gallagher's Article of the Week site stores several articles from cutltural diversity to the effects of technology on chidlren. His method helps students learn to take a position on a topic using their own thoughts and the evidence presented in an article.
The first four or five tries can be practice, so you can walk them through it.
The basic outline of article of the week is as follows:
1. Give students the article.
2. Circle necessary vocabulary to help student's understanding. Take a few minutes to define these words.
3. Pose an essential question for students to respond to based on the article. Try to create a question where they have to choose sides.
4. Read the article with the students and discuss the evidence that comes up to support one side or another.
5. Provide students with sentence frames to start their reflection for their chosen side, citing evidence, and their reasoning.
6. Their reflection should be about one paragraph and will take the entire week.
7. Give them back their graded paragraphs with feedback prior to starting the next article.

After several attempts, your students should be able to provide meaningful thoughts about social injustice, diversity, equality, current events and more.

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I teach, I write, I travel, I talk—to help students become better readers and writers.

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This YouTube Channel can be used to discuss civic engagement and supportive learning experiences. Because we are placed in "what would you do" scenarios so often students can quietly internalize their own values and past actions.
I watch these at least once a year when I teach students about the Bystander effect. These videos promote self reflection about their own civic duty at school and in the real world.
As we watch each scenario, I only ask students if they would intervene or stand by and watch via Google Form. I don't reveal their answer to anyone. It is for their own self-reflection.

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What would you do when you think no one is watching? What Would You Do? (WWYD?) explores the varying answers with the help of hidden cameras capturing individuals who have been placed within seemingly everyday situation that quickly go awry.

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CNN 10 is an informative news website for students. I've found that CNN10 does a good job of just giving facts and no opinion.

CNN 10 covers global awareness and diversity with current events. The first two items are usually on the serious side and the last two or three are usually fun and informative.

The first story will usually work for Philosophical Chairs. With Philosophical chairs you try to teach your studens to give their opinions based on facts from their resources. Opinions and emotion aren't supposed to be a part of it. This is also a great way to get students to learn how to respecfully disagree with each other.
The basic layout is as follows:
1. Students watch the video and take notes.
2. Students stand on the left or right side of a line of chairs based on their beliefs about the video.
3. The teacher chooses one student from one side to start speaking, which may sound like, "I think ________ because in the video they show ____________, Because of this they should _________.
4. A student from the other side may reply with something like, "I see your point of view _________, but I'd the video shows ___________, which means _______________.
5. The process repeats back and forth after all students have spoken.
This lesson teaches students to use CER and learn how to politely disagree.

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CNN 10 is an on-demand digital news show ideal for explanation seekers on the go or in the classroom.