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This is a well-done weeklly podcast and blog. She has a good amonut of focus on older students as well.

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Jennifer Gonzalez, host

GONZALEZ: In my first few years of teaching, student talking was like popcorn. I gave the class instructions for some kind of work. Let's say journal writing. And for a few seconds, they did it. Things were quiet. Then, like that first kernel of popcorn, one said she didn't know what to write, so I walked over to her desk to try and help her. While we talked, two more raised their hands-two more pops- and said they were stuck, too. I signaled to them that I'd be over in a minute, but in the meantime, someone else was closing his journal, finished already. Another pop. The two who were stuck asked him what he wrote about.

The room needs to stay quiet so we can concentrate, I told them.

Then someone else had a question. Another pop. I squatted by her desk, and behind me, a conversation started between two others. Pop pop. Another journal closed while a different hand went up.

Okay people, I said, this time louder. Let's keep it down. And with rascally smiles, they turned back to their journals to pretend to write some more. At this point, it had turned into a game.

Someone needed to sharpen their pencil. Pop. Someone else decided to race them over to the sharpener. Pop. In a matter of seconds, the whole room had erupted, a huge hysterical bowl of popcorn, exploding all around me, and I couldn't find my way out.

And then, I yelled.

It was like that on most days: They'd talk. I'd tell them to stop. They'd quiet down. They'd start again. I'd tell them to stop.

Looking back, I can see the error of my ways, and although I never quite mastered the problem, I definitely got better at it. But it took a lot of trial and error, year after year of of watching how other teachers did it to figure out how to manage a room full of chatty adolescents.

If this sounds anything like you, I want you to know you are so not alone. I hear it from teachers all the time. One of the things they don't teach us in our education courses is just how freaking much students talk, and how hard it can be to quiet them down in order to get anything accomplished.

To find solutions to this problem, I went to Michael Linsin, the creator of Smart Classroom Management and my go-to person for all classroom management needs. Michael was a guest on episode 48, where he taught us how to set up a clear, simple classroom management plan. If you haven't heard that episode, I would recommend you do so, maybe even before you listen to this one, because a few times during this interview, he refers to that plan.

In this episode, Michael and I talk about the causes of excessive talking, what you should be able to realistically expect from students, and how you can fix the problem.

Two quick caveats before I go on.

One: I believe students need to talk. People need to talk. So if you're shooting for a classroom environment where students sit silently and do rote seatwork all day long, where students never have an opportunity to talk to their peers, where they never get out of their seats, and where the work is not engaging, you are going to have problems.

Two: A big part of good classroom management is building good relationships with your students. If you haven't taken the time to get to know them as individuals, if you mispronounce their names, if you regularly use sarcasm and make them feel stupid for asking questions, then they aren't going to want to behave well for you. And that's a different problem.

So everything that we talk about in this episode is based on the assumption that you're planning engaging lessons and that you have a decent relationship with your students. Without those two, these solutions might still work, but you're still probably not going to love your job.

Before we dig into the details, I'd like to thank today's sponsor, WriteAbout.com. WriteAbout is a writing community and publishing platform for classrooms, a space for daily writing across all genres and purposes. Think of it like a writer's notebook with thousands of writing ideas that is also connected to an authentic audience. Inside Write About's safe digital community, students are always 1 click away from starting a writing piece, reading and responding to their peers' writing, or discovering engaging content that will make them want to write even more. Your students deserve a platform that can make their writing visible, authentic and fun. When students are engaged with their writing, they write more. Visit WriteAbout.com to start for free.

I also want to thank you for the reviews you've left for this podcast on iTunes. Every review really helps to make the show more visible to new listeners. If you haven't left a review yet, but you think I'm doing good work here and want more educators to listen, take a few minutes and leave an iTunes review today. Thanks so much.

Okay, let's figure out this problem of excessive student talking once and for all. Here's my interview with Michael Linsin of Smart Classroom Management.

GONZALEZ: You are just my go-to for all classroom management questions. When people write to me and ask the questions, I give them my best answer and then I say, "But you really need to go over to Smart Classroom Management."

LINSIN: Oh that's awesome.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

LINSIN: I appreciate it.

GONZALEZ: So we're trying to solve the problem today of excessive talking in the classroom. I'm hearing from teachers all the time saying they're just going crazy trying to get students to stop talking. So you and I talked a little bit about this ahead of time and we sort of decided that we were going to first talk about the causes of the talking, what teachers' expectations should be, realistically, and then what they can do to actually fix it, because this problem could have a lot of different root causes, and teachers listening are going to need to try to figure out after listening to us which area is their problem and then how they can fix it.

LINSIN: Yeah. So assuming we're talking about excessive talking while the teacher is giving a directed lesson or during independent work time, because I think that's the two areas that teachers really struggle with. And so if students are talking during that time, and you're really struggling to get them to quiet down and you're shushing and reminding and that kind of thing, then typically the reason why those students are doing that is because they either don't really believe that you mean it, when you ask them not to talk. They don't really believe that you really mean it, and we can dig deeper into that, or they don't care, or they don't really understand what "no talking" means, believe it or not.

GONZALEZ: Okay, that's great. Okay, so let's just take those things one at a time.

LINSIN: Okay, so the first one, the students don't believe that you really mean it when you say so, somewhere along the line, either if you're able to teach to a quiet classroom in the beginning of the year and then now you're not able to or if it happened right off the bat, then somehow at some point, the students' respect for you and for the process, for the classroom, and your authority has faded. So if things are going well in the beginning, but then three weeks, four weeks into the school year, now you're having more and more talking, then the respect for you and your authority has faded, and we can talk about how to correct that.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

LINSIN: Or another thing that's really likely is that because so many teachers struggle with this problem, many after a while kind of throw up their hands and just decide they're going to deal with it, they're going to talk over students, they're going to do their best to keep things as quiet as possible during independent work time, so the students come to you with having been in classrooms where the teacher asked them to be quiet but doesn't really follow up on it. And so they have this habit of talking during these times.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. So they just don't really believe that it's a problem or that there's going to be any kind of a consequence for it.

LINSIN: Yeah. And this is a complex issue, and that's why we're kind of talking around the problem right now, but the fix is pretty straightforward. So if your listeners are wondering where we're going, I think it's important we understand the reasons why. And then once we do that, then the fix is pretty direct and simple and straightforward.

GONZALEZ: Okay. You think it's pretty important for teachers to understand what the cause is first before they start looking straight for the fix?

LINSIN: Absolutely. I think it's critical, and I think it's critical in all areas of classroom management to understand why things are happening.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

LINSIN: Because otherwise you just start grasping at straws and trying this and that. And then the last one, which can be a surprise to many teachers, is that the students in many cases ... So if everything else is going well in your classroom, but you're just struggling with talking while you're talking or talking during independent work time, then it's a sign that your students don't really understand what you mean when you ask them not to talk. You either didn't communicate it in such a way for them to understand what it meant, and it takes far more in explanation and teaching what that means than most teachers realize. And then again, when they come to your classroom and they've had teacher after teacher say the same thing, yet continue to allow it to happen in the classroom, then students think, "Well, he or she just means that we need to kind of keep our voices down," or that, "We're mostly quiet, but if we have important things that we need to say to a neighbor, then we're allowed to do that." And so they're confused as to what the definition of "quiet" really is. And younger students seem to bring this with them, kindergarten students seem to bring this with them into kindergarten. You can say, "There's no talking during this time," and just by watching them, you can tell they really have no idea what that means. But again, it doesn't really matter, those whys, we're still going to correct it, correct them in the same way.

GONZALEZ: So we've talked about the sort of causes or reasons. Are we going to move to the fixes or the sort of teacher expectations, what you should be expecting realistically?

LINSIN: Probably expectations, but before we get there, it's important for me to mention that it can be a combination of these things, of the students not really getting what you're asking them, even though you've plainly said there's no talking, it means silence. They still, believe it or not, don't really understand what that means. And so it could be a combination of that. Likely it's a combination of that plus the respect for you and authority of the classroom is, like I said before, fading, so it's sort of a combination of those things to kind of wrap it all up. That's the key reasons for talking going on.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

LINSIN: But as far as expectations, and I get this question a lot also, yes, you should absolutely expect, no matter where you're teaching or grade level, that the students are able to sit quietly while you're giving a directed lesson or when you're giving instruction or directions, and they should be able to sit quietly and work during independent work times.

GONZALEZ: Okay. It sounds to me like that implies, though, that there might be other times when you should not be expecting total silence. Am I hearing that right?

LINSIN: Absolutely, absolutely. I think it's really important to give, plus it's good teaching, to give students an opportunity to express themselves and to get up and move around and to work in groups and to work in pairs and discuss. I'm all for that. I think classrooms should be vibrant and interesting, exciting places, and so I'm all for getting students up and moving and having fun. And in fact, those things just make classroom management stronger, and they free you to ask anything of your students, including silence.

GONZALEZ: Because, you know, I'm asking that, because sometimes I suspect that a teacher who's really struggling getting students quiet, it might be that they aren't allowing any time for explicit, "Yes you can talk at this time. You can have conversations with each other." And so it's sort of this constant, low-level hum, and the teacher's constantly battling it out. There's not a clear distinction between, "Now you can get out some of your energy and have a couple conversations and now you have to be totally silent." I think the teachers who expect total silence all class period are just doomed to fail.

LINSIN: Yes, and you're absolutely right. We're now kind of segueing into the solution, and the word you used, "define," that's huge. And so I really believe it's important before each new period or each new session of teaching that you define for your class what is expected during the next period. "So for the next 15 minutes we're going to do this, and this is what's expected. In other words, this is what you can and can't do, and this is what you're looking for." Sometimes throughout the day, that might mean absolute silence. But you're right: It's certainly not something if you ask your students to be silent all day long and they're just sitting all day long, they're really going to struggle with that. But having said that, it still isn't an excuse. So as a teacher, we should be able to ask for silence, ask for quiet, and be able to get it during those periods of when it's best for students to be quiet.

GONZALEZ: Right, right. Are we going to get more into this? This is a new thing for me, listening to this sort of even for a 15-minute chunk of time that you are explicitly explaining to them. Is that something we're going to talk about again as we get into the fixes, or are we there now? Are we in the fixes?

LINSIN: We're not quite there yet, but yeah.

GONZALEZ: I just want to remember that if you weren't going to get to it. Okay. Well what else do we need to talk about before the fixes?

LINSIN: Well, just that this definition you mentioned, it can be really, really brief, because of what the fix is.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

LINSIN: So we can be really brief in explaining that during this particular time you're going to be able to get up and move around the room, you can talk as loud as you want, but make sure that you don't break the rules of the class, kind of thing. I think it's really important ... Any time you can give a reminder before misbehavior, it's good, it's a good thing. Anytime you give a reminder after you see misbehavior, it's a bad thing. You should be holding students accountable, so that's a quick way to lose control of your class. But whenever you can be preemptive, that's a good thing.

GONZALEZ: So many teachers that I see who end up writing kids up and sending them to the office, when I hear their conversations about it later in the teacher's lounge, I'm so often hearing the phrase, "Well, he knows better," and "They know how they're supposed to act," and there's a lot of assumption that just because kids have been taught at some point how they're supposed to be behaving in a situation, that they shouldn't have to be reminded ever again, and they should just know better. That again, that seems like a recipe for failure.

LINSIN: Yes. And, you know, many of those teachers really have never taught those students the behaviors that they would like to see in the classroom, which is the fix. So the fix is to define, in detail, exactly what you want during independent work time, because this is what we're talking about, we're talking about the times when you want those students to be silent, so independent work time and when you're teaching a directed lesson. So we're going to define what silence looks like and sounds like. And again, we want to dig deeper into that.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Now I'm remembering our last podcast interview when you talked about walking them ... Your level of explicitness is something that I think a lot of teachers never touch, and that's one of the big keys, right, to your approach?

LINSIN: Yes, exactly right. And when we define, in explicit detail, what we expect, we're going to go far deeper than probably most of your readers or far more detailed than most of your readers are doing right now. But what it does is it takes care of both of the reasons, or all three of the reasons, why those students are talking. So it's going to simultaneously help them understand what it means, what "no talking" means, it's going to cause them to care and care about you and believe you really mean it, because when you really teach something explicitly, you're sending the message that, "Yes, I really do indeed mean it, and this is what I mean," and at the same time, it also brings you into sharper focus, so your fading respect for you and authority starts becoming enhanced and starts coming back to maybe where it was the first couple of days of school.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

LINSIN: Yeah. This is a complex issue with some simple answers, but there's a lot to it.

GONZALEZ: Okay. So the fix itself is really just one main thing, and that kind of covers all the different causes?

LINSIN: Yes. And there are three parts to that main thing, but yes.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

I'd like to take a moment to thank our other sponsor, Peergrade. Peergrade is a platform that makes it easy to facilitate peer review in your classroom. Students review each other's work, while Peergrade takes care of anonymously assigning reviewers and delivering all the relevant insights to teachers. With Peergrade, students learn to think critically and take ownership of their learning. They also learn to write kind and useful feedback for their peers. Peergrade is free to use for teachers and students. To learn more visit cultofpedagogy.com/peergrade.

Now back to the interview.

LINSIN: You know, this is really wonderful, and the fix is really wonderful, not just for talking but really for anything. So sloppy routine, and we can talk more about this, but when your students are, all of them or most of them, when they're not doing something that you've previously taught them how to do, whether it's talking or entering the classroom, and they don't do it well, even though the students are responsible for their behavior, when that happens, most of the class is not doing what you ask, it's on you. It's about you. And so you need to reteach, because there's some disconnect there, there's something they're not understanding.

GONZALEZ: Yes. I have a huge smile on my face now, because that's just, oh. If people could just make that connection. It's 50 million Elvis fans can't be wrong. If that many of them are not doing what you're supposed to do, it is not really them, it's you-so fantastic.

LINSIN: Yeah, and so it's really important. I'm really big on observing and awareness and detachment and those kinds of things, and so your finger, your wet finger's up in the area constantly, feeling how are the winds blowing here, right? Especially in the beginning of the school year, and as soon as you see something amiss, you have to step in and fix it right on the spot. We don't move on until we're getting what we want from our students. And the thing of it is, Jenn, is that when we do that in the beginning of the year, then the rest of the year as well, everything's pleasant right from the get-go. But we do less and less of that teaching as the year goes on, and by November, we're doing almost none of it, because our students get it, they understand, and they're in the groove of doing the right thing in the right way. They're having fun, and you're having this wonderful connection with them.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about detachment, because I've seen you write about this before too, and I think it's such an important piece. Was that you that wrote a piece about delivering your classroom management like a referee?

LINSIN: Yes.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

LINSIN: Yeah.

GONZALEZ: See, that's what I was thinking when you mentioned "detachment." I feel like especially at this time of year, in the U.S. anyway, we've got a lot of teachers that have been in school for a couple of weeks now, and now all of the behaviors are starting to kick in, and we take it so personally. I can remember sometimes my kids would start talking and I would think, "Why don't they respect me?" And then I'd start getting upset, and then I would do stupid things, you know, that would make things so much worse. And so that metaphor of the referee is so perfect, because that's the perfect detachment.

LINSIN: Yeah. Our stress comes from either trying to convince students to behave and/or taking their misbehavior personally.

GONZALEZ: Right, right.

LINSIN: And so if we get rid of those two, then our day is pretty awesome.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

LINSIN: And so we can jump into the fix. So we talked about how it's important that we define in detail what "no talking" means and what it looks like. And so practically, we must have a rule against it.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

LINSIN: I always say that the rules, your rules and consequences, are important, but only a small part of classroom management. So it's important that we have them, and that the rules protect learning and enjoyment in our classroom, but they're a small part of classroom management, but they're non-negotiable. So you have them, and then you must follow them to a "T." So we have to have a rule that forbids talking during those times. I recommend just a simple, general rule, "Raise your hand before speaking." So that's a general class rule. But this is where we can break from that anytime we define for our students what the next 30 minutes looks like or 40 minutes. So when we were talking about defining each kind of period, you can say, "Well, during this time, you may stand up and move around the room or work with a partner or whatever." But anyway, so it's important. We have a rule that prohibits talking in the classroom, and then we have to define what that rule means, so we have to define what "no talking" means and looks like. The best way to do that is through detailed modeling. So you may bring a desk or a table up in front of your classroom and you'd sit down and you're going to pretend to be a student, and you may have other students acting as models also, so you may sit at a table and pretend you're a table, just like in your classroom, and you would show students how you expect them to behave while you're giving instruction, and then how you expect them to behave when they're doing independent work. It's also important to include what not to do. So you'll model those exact behaviors that you're seeing, those exact talking behaviors, whether it's side-talking or standing up and whispering to someone, or whatever your classroom looks like. Even if it's chaotic, whatever that chaos looks like exactly, you want the students to be able to see themselves in your modeling and what isn't okay.

GONZALEZ: Yes. I had a problem with call-outs. I would be giving instructions, or I would be talking about something, and kids would start to say, "Oh, that happened to me," and they wouldn't raise their hand, I would be so stupid, because I would just engage in a conversation with them, and then before I knew it, everybody was off. So that kid who started the pop-up conversation, that kid needs to be in my demonstration. Not him, but I need to act like him.

LINSIN: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, and you're right. This same type of modeling can ... you can use it for call-outs or for anything else that's going on your classroom. If students are pushing each other or kicking the heels of the person in front of them when they're lining up, anything and everything like that, that's when you're going to use your ... When you're observing your class, you may have a little clipboard that you jot down things you want to cover in the future, things that show that maybe you didn't teach something in as explicit detail as you should have. So yeah. So you would go through a modeling exercise, and then you may ... it's really important that you allow them to practice, so you allow your students to practice what it looks like.

GONZALEZ: Okay, what would that look like?

LINSIN: Well, for something like this, it's pretty boring. But you actually will say, "I want you to show me. I'm going to look at the clock, and I'm going to give you 60 seconds, and I want you to show me what good listening looks like, and no talking. So let's pretend I'm standing and giving you a lesson. I want to know what that looks like." And then you'll stand and maybe you'll cross your arms and put your hand under your chin, and you'll watch them. You know? You'll stare at them and you'll walk around the room, and you'll watch one of them, and you'll nod your head and say, "Mmhmm, okay, all right, that looks good. Mmhmm. Chin up a little higher!" It's okay to have fun with it, and I think that's another thing we should mention, that none of this is a punishment. It's just good teaching. It's all good, whether you're teaching how to find a topic sentence or how you want your students to line up before recess, it's all teaching. And so it's okay to have fun with it. It's okay for them to laugh at some of the things that you say or to see themselves in the behaviors, which they love, by the way, and they think it's hilarious, especially if you exaggerate it and have some fun with it.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Okay, so in this demo, do you also sort of show them what happens if they get off track, or is it just about demonstrating what they should be doing at that point?

LINSIN: No, you're absolutely right. The next step in that is that you're going to show them, walk them through the exact steps that would happen if they turn and talk to a neighbor, for example. The thing of it is, is this then bleeds into what is more of a general sense of if they break any rules in your classroom. So the thing of it is if your students are talking while you're talking, or they're talking during independent work, there are probably a lot of other misbehaviors going on as well. They're probably not listening very well. They probably don't follow directions well, and you're probably putting out quite a few fires. And so you'd want to go over this again, but you always, always, always, in the beginning of the school year, and then again any time you notice things aren't going too well in this regard, you want to reteach all of your rules. So all of your rules and the exact steps a misbehaving student would take from your initial warning to contacting parents or whatever your consequences look like.

GONZALEZ: Okay. And you and I went over a pretty detailed explanation of what that overall plan, that was Episode 48, which by the way is one of my most-downloaded episodes, the Classroom Mangement Plan. People are definitely hurting in this area.

LINSIN: Yeah. So you would certainly include that. If it's something that you've already gone over in detail before and they fully understand it and behavior is good in every other area, then it's not something that maybe you would have to cover in as much detail after the modeling portion.

GONZALEZ: So then once you've done the demo, then what?

LINSIN: Well, so after you've done the demo, and your students have proven they understand, they show you physically that they get it, it's really important that maybe after saying, "That's awesome. That's exactly how you do it. You don't need to do it any better than that. That's the way to do it." You may say, "Stand up and say hello to a friend," which I like to do a lot, and they get up and move around, tust to kind of get it out of their system, and then do it for real. Then have a lesson ready, a directed lesson ready, to have them prove to you they can do it in practice.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

LINSIN: So follow up right away. Because once they do, and they will, Jenn. If we teach it in detail, they'll be fantastic during that lesson. Now you've got them. Now you're back where you were before and you can't let go again.

GONZALEZ: Okay, what if, what if, because I'm trying to think of teachers that say they've also got very disrespectful students, so I think there's probably some people listening who are thinking, A, I couldn't even get them quiet to do the demo in the first place, or B, if I did, they'd be rolling their eyes the whole time, and then once I actually did the real trial, where I'm going to try to do a lesson and see, they would immediately start testing me. To me, this is a relationship problem.

LINSIN: A couple of things. I'm happy to answer anything, and I love being challenged on anything. But this is kind of like asking, "How do I manage my classroom?" I get to those emails, and I think, "Oh my gosh. I have 400-something articles over eight years."

GONZALEZ: Right.

LINSIN: But anyway, that means they've lost control of their class.

GONZALEZ: Yes.

LINSIN: And so the problem is deeper than talking.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

LINSIN: Interestingly though, the solution is similar. So we're going to teach, maybe not how not to talk, but we're going to teach from the very beginning, Here's How We Enter the Classroom. You mentioned relationships, and you're absolutely right, because when students are misbehaving, and they're disrespectful, and they're talking when you're talking, there's an excellent chance that there's some resentment coming from you. I mean I know there would be from me. None of us are immune to that. Maybe it's outward, and maybe it's not. So maybe you are. It's hard not to raise your voice, it's hard not to be sarcastic and those kinds of things, so there's animosity between you and your students, and you're going to get disrespect. That's just going to happen. And so we do want to fix that. We want to start letting our classroom management plan take care of all those behaviors, so we can work on building relationships with students.

GONZALEZ: So if a teacher is already a couple of weeks into the year, and this problem now has presented itself ... Let's say they're in their first year, and they never really did much of a classroom management plan to begin with, would it be worth it to basically burn - especially like with you what you're talking about, a middle or high school teacher you've got teaching in class periods - would it be worth it to just burn a whole school day and go through all of your class periods and do all of this reteaching and not really get into content just for the sake of repairing things for the rest of the year?

LINSIN: Absolutely.

GONZALEZ: Yep.

LINSIN: Yes. Do it now, yeah. Don't wait, because it'll just be a miserable year. I couldn't imagine teaching like that. I'm selfish. I want to love my experience, and I want my students to love it too, and it goes together.

GONZALEZ: And so any content teaching that's lost in those days, you will certainly be ... I mean the way I feel is if you're spending so much time already on sort of poor classroom management, you're already not teaching the content effectively anyway. So the sacrifice or the time you give up to do the reteaching, you're going to make that up in not losing all of that other time later.

LINSIN: You'll not only make it up, you'll have weeks of extra teaching that you wouldn't have had. You'll be finished with your curriculum when everyone else is two-thirds through.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

LINSIN: Nowadays you can't do that anymore. Everyone has to stay together. But yeah, you'll be so far ahead.

GONZALEZ: Is there anything else that we didn't cover today? I mean I know there's plenty of things that we could continue to talk about, but just on this one issue of talking, anything else that you sort of want to add?

LINSIN: Yeah, so two things. Of course it's very important that you recommit yourself to enforcing your classroom management plan, so making sure that you consistently follow it in order to communicate, and you'll be tested at first, but in order to communicate, yeah, I really do mean it.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

LINSIN: Because that was a first thing. They don't believe you really mean it, because you haven't shown that you mean it.

GONZALEZ: Right.

LINSIN: Or the teachers before you haven't shown, but they're going to know Mrs. Gonzalez means it.

GONZALEZ: Right. And so that's going to involve having to enforce the consequences on a couple of kids.

LINSIN: Yes. And enforce them immediately. You almost hope during that wonderful lesson, that first wonderful lesson, that one student maybe turns, and so the class can see that you're holding them accountable. I do want to say, Jenn, I do want to give a strategy you can use if you're making this transition, this change in culture, if you will, a way to speed up that change in culture, and it's a strategy that I call the Sign Strategy. And the way it works is that you would model for your students. Again, you would do a detailed modeling lesson, you would model for your students what to do if a neighbor turns to talk to them during these periods.

GONZALEZ: This is good.

LINSIN: And so I like to just teach them a sign. It can be a scissors or peace sign or okay sign or whatever's culturally acceptable in your classroom or wherever you teach, it can be any old sign. And all they do is just hold the sign up, and the sign means, "I'm really sorry, but I have to listen to the lesson," or "I'm really sorry, but I have to do my work." And so this kind of helps that transition, and you can tell them that if they give the sign and that student who sees the sign turns and gets back to work that you will not hold them accountable. That you will not enforce a consequence, because they're showing responsible behavior, and it's sort of a transition.

GONZALEZ: So this is a sign to you or to their classmate?

LINSIN: It's to their classmates, but you're observing and you're seeing it happen.

GONZALEZ: Got it.

LINSIN: So you see someone lean over toward a fellow student, and that student holds the sign up. Doesn't look at them, by the way, they keep looking straight ahead, and they just hold the sign up, and it means, "I love you. I think you're fantastic. We're best friends, and I mean no offense, but I've got work to do. I'm really sorry." That's what the sign means.

GONZALEZ: I would think that would fix so many problems, because when my own kids have come home and said that they'd gotten in trouble for talking. And I'll say, "Well, what was going on?" And they'll say, "Well, so-and-so started to talk to me," and they don't want to be rude and just ignore them. And so this sort of socially, it gives them a way out.

LINSIN: It does, and it's polite, and it's helpful to those students who maybe do understand and they do care now, but they've had this habit, they've been able to do that for four years, and now they're in your classroom and you're asking them not to. And the thing of it is that after awhile, they'll stop doing it.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

LINSIN: Because there's no reason to turn to my best friend, because he's never going to talk to me. He always puts up that sign.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

LINSIN: And so it just sort of ... the strategy just sort of disappears from your classroom, and then you can go right on holding students accountable, per normal. But yeah, as long as you're clear, you understand the reasons, it's important that you understand those reasons for why your students are talking, and then you know how to fix it, you define in detail, you model, you practice, you do it for real, you promise that you're going to follow your plan, and then maybe if you've really struggled, go ahead and teach the sign strategy, and you should be able to, easy, within an hour, have your class back on track.

GONZALEZ: Oh, thank you so much. I want to make sure that we give a plug to your website, smartclassroommanagement.com, and that's the main place where people can find you online, correct?

LINSIN: That's right, yeah.

GONZALEZ: And you've got a couple of books out. "Happy Teacher Habits" is your most recent one, right?

LINSIN: Yes.

GONZALEZ: Has there been anything else since then?

LINSIN: We had a course. I did my first course in the spring, and that was fun.

GONZALEZ: Oh, no kidding? When you say "did a course," is it an online course?

LINSIN: It was an online course, yeah, on classroom management. It's closed now.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

LINSIN: But it was open for a short time. It may open again, and then probably have a book coming out in 2019.

GONZALEZ: Fantastic.

LINSIN: But that's it. Everything's free on the website.

GONZALEZ: Great. So it's smartclassroommanagement.com. Michael Linsin, thank you so much again for helping all of these teachers.

LINSIN: Thank you. Love your podcast.

GONZALEZ: Thank you.

For links to all the resources mentioned in this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com/pod and click on Episode 80. To get weekly updates on all my newest blog posts, podcast episodes, and products, sign up for my mailing list at cultofpedagogy.com/subscribe. Thanks so much for listening, and have a great day.

This podcast is a proud member of the Education Podcast Network: Podcasts for educators, podcasts by educators. To learn more, visit edupodcastnetwork.com.

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Episode 80: When Students Won't Stop Talking

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The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast, Episode 80 Transcript Jennifer Gonzalez, host GONZALEZ: In my first few years of teaching, student talking was like popcorn. I gave the class instructions for some kind of work. Let's say journal writing. And for a few seconds, they did it. Things were quiet.

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Learn more at this website

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The home of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). FInd more information on PBIS, how to implement PBIS, get resources and materials, and how to get support. Funded by the U.S.

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Attitude Latitudes

Standard Met: McREL Behavioral Studies Standard 3
(Understands that interactions among learning, inheritance, and physical development affect human behavior)

What You Need: Three worksheets: Introvert or Extrovert, Optimist or Pessimist, X-Y graph
What to Do: Ask students what it means to have an attitude. Though they'll likely think it's a matter of having a good or a bad attitude, define attitude as one's "readiness to act or react in a certain way."

Have students describe how they act or react in different situations. Does their attitude change from situation to situation? Hand out the Introvert or Extrovert and Optimist or Pessimist worksheets for students to find out how they rank. Then, have them figure out their "attitude latitudes" on the third worksheet (an X-Y graph). Students will graph their introversion/extroversion score on the horizontal axis and their optimism/pessimism score on the vertical axis to land in one of four quadrants. You might use fictional characters from a book or movie to symbolize each quadrant. (I've used characters from Shrek. You're a "Donkey," for instance, if you're an extroverted optimist.) This will give students some insight into how they relate to other people and how they might harness their energies in the most socially beneficial way.

Brain Freezers

Standard Met: McREL Behavioral Studies Standard 3
(Understands that interactions among learning, inheritance, and physical development affect human behavior)

What You Need: Worksheet and answer key
What to Do: How often do your students think about their own thinking? Distribute the Brain Freezers worksheet. Have students work individually or in small groups to answer all of the riddles as quickly as possible. (You might set a time limit, such as 10 or 15 minutes.) When students are done, ask them which riddles were difficult and which were easy. (They will likely say that riddles in the first column were easier.) Invite students to share their answers. As they do so, write the most common responses on the board. After reviewing the answers and explanations using the supplied answer key, ask students if they have changed their minds about which riddles were easy. Elicit that the riddles in the first column seemed easy, but actually should have made them stop and think. Their wrong answers were the result of "fast thinking." Conversely, the riddles in the second column seemed to require a lot of thought, when the solutions were actually simple; "slow thinking" likely bogged them down.

Use this activity as an opportunity to talk about times that "fast thinking" or "slow thinking" got them in trouble: "Fast thinking" can cause you to jump to conclusions, while "slow thinking" can make you dwell too much on problems.

Setting Boundaries

Standard Met: McREL Behavioral Studies Standard 2
(Understands various meanings of social group, general implications of group membership, and different ways that groups function)

What You Need: Boundaries worksheet
What to Do: To most students, boundaries are the lines drawn between states or nations. Explain that boundaries also pertain to relationships-rules that tell us what we can and can't do. Talk about the boundaries that apply in families, school, and society. Next, hand out the Boundaries worksheet and talk about the types of rules-rigid (hard-and-fast), clear (firm but appropriate), and fuzzy (inconsistent or nonexistent). Have students work in small groups to evaluate the boundaries listed on the worksheet to determine the type of boundary described in each. Review the answers as a class and discuss what life would be like without boundaries. Are they frustrating but important to have? Work with students to create a list of classroom boundaries, organized by physical (respect one another's space), behavioral (listen respectfully), and academic (turn in work on time).

What Sets You Off?

Standard Met: McREL Behavioral Studies Standard 4
(Understands conflict, cooperation, and interdependence among individuals, groups, and institutions)

What You Need: What Sets You Off? worksheet
What to Do: Managing emotional responses is difficult for many adolescents, who are still developing neurologically-the emotional centers of the brain develop more rapidly than the executive centers.

Hand out the What Sets You Off? worksheet. Have students recall a time when they got really angry and then write down "just the facts" about the incident. Students should detail three different experiences on the worksheet. Then, challenge them to look for patterns as to what sets them off. Have they gotten angry at least twice over the same situation or with the same person? This can reveal that certain people or behaviors (e.g., teasing) act as triggers for them. Likewise, it will help identify "danger zones" for confrontations (the locker room, for instance). When you debrief students' experiences, focus on the suggestion "Don't react! Respond." Discuss the difference (reaction is knee-jerk, while response is something you do after careful thought) and how a response might have de-escalated an encounter.

Resolving Conflicts

Standard Met: McREL Behavioral Studies Standard 4
(Understands conflict, cooperation, and interdependence among individuals, groups, and institutions)

What You Need: Two worksheets: What's Their Attitude? Part I and Part II

What to Do: Introduce students to four communication styles: assertive (standing up for yourself and respecting others), passive (doing anything to avoid conflict), aggressive (standing up for yourself and not caring who gets hurt), and passive-aggressive (secretly angry). Give examples of these styles using characters from a book you've recently read in class.

Hand out the first worksheet, What's Their Attitude? Part I, to learn how these different styles play out in
conflicts. Then, create a fictional disagreement, inviting student volunteers to role-play it. Dissect the conflict by identifying who was involved, what each person wanted, how the individuals communicated what they wanted, and if it was resolved, including who "won." Talk about the different communication styles each actor exhibited.

To wrap up, have students complete the questions at the bottom of the worksheet and on the second worksheet ( What's Their Attitude? Part II) to anticipate how they might best act during a conflict. Refer back to these win-win solutions the next time a disagreement occurs in class.

Adapted from Social & Emotional Learning: Essential Lessons for Student Success.
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Grades 6-8: Social-Emotional Skills | Scholastic

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Standard Met: McREL Behavioral Studies Standard 3 (Understands that interactions among learning, inheritance, and physical development affect human behavior) What You Need: Three worksheets: Introvert or Extrovert, Optimist or Pessimist, X-Y graph What to Do: Ask students what it means to have an attitude.

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Rethinking Challenging Kids-Where There's a Skill There's a Way | J. Stuart Ablon | TEDxBeaconStreet

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Positive Behavior intervention & Supports (PBIS)

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This past year, we've asked thousands of educators from across the country to stand with us at the intersection of equity and standards work. We asked them to look for the justice we all seek in the details of teaching and learning.

Each time we gather at the Standards Institute, we start the week by examining the growing body of research that makes clear that we educators, as a system, are not yet serving students of color or students living in poverty the way we serve white students across socioeconomic statuses. We also believe that our own learning and growth are part of the solution to this gap (what we call "the provision gap"). As we engage with the language of the standards, the adaptive change necessary to truly implement "the shifts", aligned curriculum, our own biases, and our role in systemic racism, we become more and more prepared to meet our students where they are and serve each of them so that they are actually ready for college or career after graduation.

Almost one year ago, we introduced five charges that we pulled through the learning each day and in the keynotes that followed. On the final day of the week, we brought the message home through the compelling story of one student, the expectations and assumptions of the adults around him, and the ways his life affected his principal's practice forever.

Today, as we are one month away from the Winter 2019 Standards Institute, we ask you to do the same. Take a moment if you haven't already and reflect on your work these past few days of the new year. Have you been as deep into the details of teaching and learning as you intended to be? Have you had any opportunities to examine your unconscious bias and the way it has played out in conversations with students or colleagues? Our students need us to attend to our learning and development on these trajectories each day. They need us to learn beside them, continuously.

Below are two keynotes presentations from last winter, that we hope you take back into your learning communities and begin to recalibrate not only instruction but mindsets of each adult responsible for a student's learning. You can also watch them in our YouTube library along with other thought-provoking keynote speeches.

Teaching and Learning: Justice is Found in the Details
Kate Gerson, Chief Executive Officer at UnboundEd, unpacks how data says were failing students, mainly those of color, and how justice lies in the details of teaching and learning.
Download Keynote Powerpoint
Educating Dominique
Lacey Robinson, Chief of Program and Engagement officer at UnboundEd, delivers an emotional story of one student and the impact educator expectations and beliefs have on the students we serve.
Download Keynote Powerpoint

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This past year, we've asked thousands of educators from across the country to stand with us at the intersection of equity and standards work. We asked them to look for the justice we all seek in the details of teaching and learning.

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As the school year comes to a close, we're reminded that our students depend on us to constantly pay attention to the details of teaching and learning. Even in the summer months, there's still much work to be done as we all move to a better understanding of the language of the standards and what they're asking us to do for every student we serve.

With that in mind, here's a look back at three dynamic messages from Winter 2018 for you to reflect on.

Kate Gerson, Chief Executive Officer of UnboundEd, unpacks how data says we're failing students, mainly those of color, and introduces five charges grounded at the intersection of equity and standards work.

Lacey Robinson, Chief, Program and Engagement of UnboundEd, tells a story that demonstrates how beliefs and expectations shape us and, in turn, shape the lives of our students.

Sonja Santelises, Chief Executive Officer of Baltimore City Public Schools, discusses how educators have to link their work in schools, including standards-aligned instruction, to a larger dialogue that addresses communities of color and those in poverty and the long-term livelihood of both students and their communities.

Unable to join us this summer? Follow @unboundedu and #StandardsInstitute for the latest information and highlights.

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As the school year comes to a close, we're reminded that our students depend on us to constantly pay attention to the details of teaching and learning.

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The Intersection of Standards and Equity – Kate Gerson

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Dina Al Hidiq Zebib (Author & Certified Coach)

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What is PBIS? The BEST Intro Video! By Author & Coach Dina Hidiq Zebib

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If you've ever taught middle school, you know it can be challenging. But you also know what a special place being in the middle can be. Middle schoolers enjoy laughter. They're curious. They're starting to think like adults, but still enjoy being a kid. They're ready to take on new challenges, but they're also anxious about them. And, they're full of emotions! I spent ten years of my education career teaching middle school and loved every minute of it, but I definitely needed to develop a thick skin, a small ego, and a hearty laugh. And I was always looking for materials and strategies specifically for middle school, since it really is its own world.

Teaching Channel, in partnership with Educate Texas, is excited to launch a new video series: Creating Success in Middle School. In part one of the series, we visit classrooms in Texas to see teachers using strategies to engage students in the social, emotional, and academic learning that happens in middle school. After watching these videos, we hope you'll walk away with a few new ideas to implement in your own classroom, whether middle school level or not. And if you're a new teacher, this series is a great way to see how others are creating cultures of success in their classrooms.

1. Embrace Their Social Nature

Middle school students thrive on relationships with each other, and -- believe it or not -- even with teachers. Seventh grade math teacher Jeremy Yager understands and embraces his students' need to be social. In Relationships, Routines, and Rethinking the Lesson, we see students exploring the mathematical concept of slope with partners, in groups, and with the help of peers who have mastered the content. Jeremy feels that his students respond well to learning from peers, and that the peer coaches grow from this leadership challenge.

When pairing and grouping students, Jeremy uses formative and summative assessments to make decisions, but he also intentionally groups students with their friends. Watch Assess and Group to learn more about how Jeremy harnesses the energy and relationships of middle schoolers into cooperative groups. In both videos, it's wonderful to hear Jeremy acknowledge that he is always growing in his practice, and that some days he has to adjust on the fly when things don't go quite as he planned. Having a growth mindset is so important when teaching middle school!

2. Develop Growth Mindsets

Teaching Channel recently launched two new videos that show teachers using growth mindset practices with their elementary students. Creating Success in Middle School lets us take a look at growth mindset practices for the upper grades. In Growth Mindsets for STEM Careers, Adriane Davis engages her eighth grade students in an engineering design challenge to teach them about the importance of learning from mistakes and persevering through challenges. Throughout class, Adriane makes deliberate language choices when speaking to her students, such as referring to them as scientists or engineers, or reminding them of the power of iterating and collaborating, so that her language empowers them. Watch this video to hear Adriane talk about the power of language in developing an equitable classroom, and a training she attended that helped her grow in this area of her practice.

3. Provide Structure

Classroom routines can help the sometimes-frantic middle schooler feel safe and comfortable. But too many routines and structures can also stifle the independent spirit of a middle schooler, so it's important to strike a balance. Daniel Knoll, a fifth grade teacher at KIPP Truth Academy, uses roles and protocols to keep his literature circles on track, but builds in options and rotations to keep his middle schoolers on their toes. In Rising to the Challenge with Literature Circles, you'll see how Daniel uses specific roles for sharing out what students learned during their reading of a chapter. Daniel also uses two graphic organizers, one for the share out and one for character analysis.

Down the hall at KIPP Truth Academy, Brittany Williams uses lab stations to engage her students in an exploration of energy transformations. Watch Building Character with Lab Stations to see how this structure gives students the freedom to explore concepts collaboratively while providing an opportunity for them to further develop their own leadership skills.

4. Take Time to Breath

The middle school years can be tumultuous -- especially socially and emotionally. Fifth grade teacher Anne Mechler uses mindfulness practices such as deep breathing and guided relaxation to help her students be present in her classroom. In her lesson video, you'll see how she uses what's going on in her students' lives as a way to plan these social emotional lessons, so that they truly meet the needs of her students.

If you're looking for a simple way to start incorporating mindfulness in the classroom, watch Anne lead her students through a short guided relaxation exercise. Anne says that these deep breathing activities are good for the students -- and for the teachers! You can read more about Anne's mindfulness practices in her blog post.

Whether you're a new or experienced teacher, middle or another level, there are many strategies to foster student success in these videos. Which resonate with you? What do you hope to try in your classroom next? Let us know! And stay tuned for more strategies from middle school classrooms in part two of the series.
Gretchen Vierstra taught middle school for ten years in the San Francisco Bay Area. During her 15+ years in education, she's also been a department chair, new teacher coach, curriculum developer, and policy analyst. She is an Education Content Manager at Teaching Channel. Follow Gretchen on Twitter: @gretchenvee. Educate Texas is a member of Teaching Channel Teams. Learn more.

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Four Strategies To Create A Culture of Success in Middle School

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If you've ever taught middle school, you know it can be challenging. But you also know what a special place being in the middle can be. Middle schoolers enjoy laughter. They're curious. They're starting to think like adults, but still enjoy being a kid.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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For teachers, it's not just what you say, it's how you say it

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From yelling to whispering, a teacher's tone of voice in the classroom affects learning and student behavior, some educators say.

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Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at OU

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Universal Design for Learning (Part 3): Engagement Strategies

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The page you’re seeking may have been moved or may no longer exist. Try going to our home page, using our website navigation, or by using our search at the top of the page to find what you’re looking for.

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The Impact of Social and Emotional Learning

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Ways to integrate SEL in your classroom throughout the day

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These days it's hard to miss the compelling evidence that shows social emotional learning (SEL) improves learning and life skills. Educators are also becoming increasingly aware that high numbers of students face trauma that impedes their learning and that understanding and addressing it are critical. They're also learning that racial inequities hamper the success of certain groups of students, and acknowledging and ameliorating them is necessary if all children are to thrive.

There is great overlap across these three areas: SEL, trauma-informed work and equity. A student of color who cumulatively experiences racist taunts, reduced expectations and micro-aggressions, for instance, is challenged socially and emotionally, experiencing trauma and suffering inequity - all at once.

Below is the latest research that shows your school can't ignore these three areas of student support, why they should be integrated, and resources to achieve it.

SEL Shows Results

Last year, the Aspen Institute's National Commission on Social Emotional and Academic Development's Council of Distinguished Scientists-leading researchers across character education, emotional intelligence, health and mental health promotion, neuroscience, SEL and mindsets-released a consensus statement to solidify research findings across their disciplines. Most importantly, they agreed that social, emotional and cognitive capacities are intertwined and interdependent. This means that academic learning has its basis in social emotional learning, and that development in one area supports the other. They also agreed that SEL yields results: two sweeping meta-analyses show academic gains, one up to 3.5 years after students' last SEL intervention, in addition to improved behavior and life outcomes. In sum, SEL shouldn't be a "maybe" in schools.

Trauma Can Have Dire Effects

There is growing awareness of the seminal ACEs study, which showed that the more adverse childhood experiences or trauma children experience - including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; family and community violence; and the cumulative impact of poverty, racism, and oppression - the more they're at risk for negative life outcomes. In the US, two-thirds of children have experienced at least one potentially traumatic event by age 16. When research emerged showing that traumatic stress "hijacks the brain", making it incapable of learning, trauma became an education problem. Yet, by making educators aware of students' trauma and giving them tools and strategies to address it, these barriers to learning can be reduced or removed.

With Equity Come Gains

Students of color face increased adversity both outside and inside of school. Outside, they're more likely than white students to suffer socially and financially. Inside, they're often the subject of low expectations, micro-aggressions and bias. Zaretta Hammond, in her book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, describes how these biases put students of color at a learning disadvantage and backs it up with neuroscience. Yet powerful research out of the New Zealand Maori population shows steep academic gains when educators "double down" on incorporating cultural identity and relationship work. By leveraging students' cultural identities and assets, educators can facilitate growth mindsets and learning gains.
Social-emotional skills support student achievement, but embedding SEL into the school day can be complex. If you're launching a new SEL program or enhancing an existing one, these tips will help you avoid common implementation mistakes.
Why Integrating These Areas Is Necessary

Schools provide a unique opportunity to build kids' social emotional assets, address their trauma, and move towards educational equity. Many are focused on doing so, but too often they make these interrelated domains of support separate.

"A trauma-informed, SEL, cultural awareness model of supports allows (educators) to create a safe environment to address trauma and SEL skill build, while also tapping into the strengths and opportunities of students' culture. In this way, prevention assets don't just build on each other, they multiply," says Dr. Gregory Leskin, Ph.D, Director at UCLA/Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

American Institute of Research's David Osher and Juliette Berg, Harvard's Todd Rose, and Turnaround's Pam Cantor and Lily Steyer corroborated this in a series of research papers that synthesized knowledge from multiple scientific domains regarding how humans develop and learn. They concluded that relational, environmental, instructional and curricular factors - factors that include SEL skill building, addressing trauma and building cultural competence - must be integrated to produce effective learning.

There are also unintended negative consequences of failing to integrate these domains. These include an exclusive focus on the deficits or trauma of students of color, failing to leverage their strengths and resilience.

Where to Start

Aspen SEAD's recently released "Pursuing Social Emotional Development Through an Equity Lens: A Call to Action" and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's June report, "Applying an Equity Lens to Social, Emotional, and Academic Development" both offer broad strategies for integration. These include addressing the root causes or trauma underlying SEL skill deficits, such as a lack of impulse control; and ensuring that supports specifically focus on injustice and related trauma. Zaretta Hammond gets more granular in her book's "learning moves", which operationalize two of three (SEL and equity). Helping students process content using methods from their own cultural traditions is one example. This practice honors students' cultural history while modeling how to connect with others. It also makes student learning "stickier".

There are few evidence-based programs or interventions that successfully integrate the three. Ripple Effects, where I serve as director of K-12, offers a digital program that stands out: it builds SEL, resiliency assets and cultural identity development in its interactive lessons, many of which address trauma. The personalized program empowers students to identify what they think are the biggest challenges in their lives, then choose from nine different evidence-based learning modalities to address them.

"We don't always know what's going on with kids - often they don't want to share," says implementer Marni Parsons, Director of Student and Family Services at Bright Star Charter Schools in Los Angeles. "Kids want to explore their challenges with Ripple Effects, and almost every lesson encourages them to connect and get help from people they trust." The program boasts over 430 topics including racial bias, poverty, suicidal thoughts, anxiety and homelessness. Data shows improved behavior and academic gains, specifically in underserved student populations.

Educators can also learn from other educators who are recognizing the value of integration and creating their unique "how-to" maps. Dr. Julie Frugo, Head of School at the high-performing Premier Charter in St. Louis, Missouri is one to watch. She focuses on developing adult culture to achieve equity, address trauma and build SEL skills in her students, who come from 14 different ethnic backgrounds-including a substantive number of Bosnian refugees-and 20% of which have special needs. A multi-tiered system of supports serves as the school's structure, yet her key to integration is staff development and relationships. "We need to be bonded warriors working together," says Frugo, "in order to be truly student-centered and do the arduous work of meeting each student's needs."

There is a long road ahead to achieve educational equity, provide SEL for all, and address the range of trauma that prevents students from learning. Yet by intentionally integrating these three areas, we can move faster and more efficaciously in our efforts, empowering more young people to overcome their barriers and thrive

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Integrating SEL, Equity and Trauma Work for Multiplied Success - EdSurge News

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These days it's hard to miss the compelling evidence that shows social emotional learning (SEL) improves learning and life skills. Educators are also becoming increasingly aware that high numbers of students face trauma that impedes their learning and that understanding and addressing it are critical.

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Effect Size

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An examination of four meta-analyses of SEL programs found multiple positive outcomes in the short and long term for participating students.
In recent years, it has become commonplace among American educators to argue that if schools aim to prepare young people for life in today's complex and diverse world, then they must provide instruction in more than just academic content and skills (in English language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and other subject areas). Social and emotional learning (SEL), too, is critical to students' long-term success in and out of school, and it merits careful, sustained attention throughout K-12 education (Bridgeland et al., 2013; DePaoli et al., 2017; Weissberg et al., 2015).

Already, thousands of schools within and outside the United States have implemented SEL programs (Humphrey, 2013; Weissberg & Cascarino, 2013), and many U.S. state departments of education have issued, or are in the process of issuing, standards for the development of specific SEL skills at each grade level (Dusenbury et al., 2015). So, too, have many federal, state, and local policy makers become willing to provide funding support for SEL programs.

Although SEL has been conceptualized in various ways, it can broadly be understood as the processes through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to manage their emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions (Weissberg & Cascarino, 2013). More specifically, Roger Weissberg and colleagues (2015) have identified a set of five core clusters of social and emotional competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making.

These competencies are thought to facilitate students' academic performance, positive social behaviors, and social relationships during the school years; reduce behavior problems and psychological distress, and help to prepare young people to succeed in college, work, family, and society (Elias, 2014; Jones & Kahn, 2017). As illustrated in Figure 1, scholars and advocates believe that SEL programming is likely to have both immediate and longer-term benefits for young people, both in school and later life.

However, educators and policy makers may wonder whether researchers have documented the effectiveness of SEL programs in bringing about these positive outcomes. To answer this question, we've examined four large-scale meta-analyses on student outcomes related to participating in school-based SEL programs. (A meta-analysis is a statistical method of synthesizing many previous efforts to measure the effectiveness of a given program; it's a way of pooling together all of the available research findings and boiling them down to a single, overall assessment.) The sum total of the existing evidence, we found, strongly suggests that SEL programs do, in fact, have significant benefits for participating students.
Results from four meta-analyses
The first meta-analysis (which has received considerable attention from educators, policy makers, and the popular media) synthesized the findings from studies of 213 school-based, universal SEL programs, including outcomes data for more than 270,000 students from kindergarten through high school (Durlak et al., 2011). Two major findings stood out:

Compared to control students, students participating in SEL programs showed significantly more positive outcomes with respect to enhanced SEL skills, attitudes, positive social behavior, and academic performance, and significantly lower levels of conduct problems and emotional distress.

The higher academic performance of SEL program participants translated into an 11 percentile-point gain in achievement, suggesting that SEL programs tend to bolster, rather than detract from, students' academic success.

This review also indicated that SEL programs managed by teachers and other school staff consistently yielded positive results, and it highlighted the role of careful program implementation in ensuring positive student outcomes. It also identified several priorities for further research, including studies of longer-term effects of participating in SEL programs and research into the effectiveness of programs outside the United States. Finally, because the review was limited to research findings available through the end of 2007, the authors also called for follow-up analyses of newer data.

Since the publication of that first study, three additional meta-analyses have been conducted (Sklad et al., 2012; Taylor et al., 2017; Wiglesworth et al., 2016). All three echoed the earlier one's major findings: When researchers synthesized results from hundreds of existing studies in this area, they found that students who participated in SEL programs saw greater gains in SEL competencies and academic performance relative to students who did not participate. Further, not only did these three meta-analyses touch on newer research findings, but they also included more international comparisons and more information on both the immediate and longer-term benefits of SEL programs. In short, they provide a useful complement to and extension of the earlier work. The fact that independent research teams from the United States and Europe have replicated positive outcome findings from many experimental-control group evaluations involving several hundred thousand K-12 students offers strong support that well-implemented SEL programs are beneficial for children and adolescents.
Detailed findings
All four of the meta-analyses addressed the following domains:

SEL skills, such as identifying emotions, goal setting, self-management, problem solving, conflict resolution, refusal skills, and decision making.

about self, school, and social topics including self-perceptions (e.g., self-esteem, self-concept, self-
efficacy), school bonding, drug use and violence, and helping others.

Positive social behaviors, such as getting along with others, helping others, showing concern for others, empathy, prosocial problem solving, peace building, and cooperation.

Conduct problems, including disruptive classroom behavior, fighting, hurting others, verbal aggression, bullying, discipline referrals, and delinquent acts.

Emotional distress, such as depression, anxiety, stress, and social withdrawal.

Academic performance, including reading and math achievement, standardized test scores, school grades, and academic competence from teacher ratings.

At the same time, while all four meta-analyses touched on these six domains, and while they reached similar conclusions overall, they also differed in one respect: Two of them focused on the short-term effects of SEL programs, synthesizing data (from 255 different research reports) collected shortly after students concluded a program (Durlak et al., 2011; Wiglesworth et al., 2016), and the other two focused on longer-term effects, using data (from 129 different reports) collected at various follow-up periods - Marcin Sklad and colleagues (2012) reviewed 75 studies, covering 2008 and earlier, that assessed outcomes at least seven months after the initial SEL program had ended, and Rebecca Taylor and colleagues (2017) reviewed studies conducted through 2014, with follow-up periods that varied from 56 to 195 weeks. (Table 1 presents some of the main features of these two pairs of reviews.)

Tables 2 and 3 summarize the findings focusing on short-term outcomes (referred to as "post," for data collected immediately post-intervention) and longer-term outcomes (referred to as "follow-up," for data collected later on). Where mean effect sizes are positive, this reflects the superior performance of students participating in SEL programs relative to similar students who did not (referred to as "controls").

As shown in Table 2, the two analyses focusing on the immediate effects of SEL programs (Durlak et al., 2011; Wiglesworth et al., 2016) found statistically significant benefits for participating students. When student outcomes were measured later on (Sklad et al., 2012; Taylor et al., 2017), the effects were not as strong overall, meaning that they tended to fade to some extent over time - this isn't surprising, though; studies of all types of educational interventions tend to find that short-term effects are stronger than longer-term effects. Leading researchers and educators recommend that SEL programming will be most beneficial when it is implemented in planned, ongoing, systemic ways from preschool through high school (Berman et al., 2018; Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, 2017; Jones & Kahn, 2017; Weissberg et al., 2015).

Two of the follow-up findings are particularly notable, though. First, the follow-up effects are quite strong in one domain: academic achievement. The results in this area (mean effects of 0.26 and 0.33), represent an 11 percentile-
point gain in achievement, over the long term, for students who participated in SEL programs relative to those who did not. To put it another way, SEL programs appear to have as great a long-term impact on academic growth as has been found for programs designed specifically to support academic learning (Hill et al., 2008). Second, the study by Taylor and colleagues (2017) found that the best predictor of the strength of students' long-term gains was the strength of their short-term SEL gains. That is, where students saw large immediate gains in their social and emotional skills, the learning tended to be relatively sticky, fading to a lesser degree over time.

Altogether, the meta-analyses we studied contain outcome data from 356 research reports summarizing short- and long-term effects for hundreds of thousands of K-12 students in a range of SEL programs within and outside the United States. With these findings, three different research groups - based not just in the United States (Durlak et al., 2011; Taylor et al., 2017) but also the United Kingdom (Wiglesworth et al., 2016) and The Netherlands (Sklad et al., 2012) - have independently reached the same general conclusion about universal school-based SEL programs: They produce positive benefits for participating students on a range of behavioral, attitudinal, emotional, and academic outcomes that are evident both immediately after the intervention and during various follow-up periods, depending on the specific outcome in question.

In a recent national survey, school administrators called for additional data on the link between SEL and student academic performance (DePaoli et al., 2017). We can report that all four of these meta-analyses showed significant, positive connections between participation in universal, school-based SEL programs and student academic performance over the short and longer term. Given the consistent and enduring nature of this association, we believe that the expansion of SEL programming in low-performing schools is warranted (AEI/Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity, 2015) and that teacher preparation programs should include serious attention to SEL (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2017).

Critics might point out that the findings included in the 2017 meta-analyses are dated already, since they include only studies that were concluded by 2014. However, a lag time of a few years is typical of meta-analysis, given the amount of time it takes to survey and collect the existing research studies, do the analyses, conduct the peer review process, and go through the usual publication timeline. It is worth noting, though, that individual studies appearing up through at least the fall of 2017 have continued to report positive effects for SEL (e.g., Duncan et al., 2017; Miller et al., 2017; Muratori et al., 2017).

Overall, then, current data indicate that SEL programs are both feasible and effective in a variety of educational contexts in many countries around the world. SEL is neither a fad nor a flash in the pan but represents a useful way to improve students' social and emotional skills, which are associated with several positive behavioral and academic outcomes.
Directions for future research, practice, and policy
The meta-analyses discussed here use statistical methods to study the effectiveness of diverse SEL programs, grouping together approaches that differ from one another in the specific skills they target, the nature of the instruction, the duration, and the kinds of students participating. Thus, it will be important for future research to pursue a couple of narrower questions: What type of program is most effective for promoting which particular SEL skills and attitudes in the short and long term for which students, and what are the specific components of each program that account for its impacts?

Further, we also need research into the implementation, wide-scale dissemination, continual monitoring, improvement, and sustainability of SEL programs that have demonstrated their initial value. For example, how can we increase the capacity of schools to conduct SEL programs and assess what they have done? And how can we best align educational policies and funding so that more schools are able to offer SEL programs? In effect, we need to create better synergy among researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. Doing so will require that multiple stakeholders (policy makers, funders, educators, researchers, families, and community members) work together to ensure that as many students as possible benefit from well-conceptualized and well-implemented SEL programs.
References
AEI/Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity. (2015). Opportunity, responsibility, and security: A consensus plan for reducing poverty and restoring the American dream. Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy and the Brookings Institution.

Berman, S., with Chaffee, S., & Sarmiento, J. (2018). The practice base for how we learn: Supporting students' social, emotional, and academic development - Consensus statements of practice from the Council of Distinguished Educators. Washington, DC: National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, The Aspen Institute.

Bridgeland, J., Bruce, M., & Hariharan, A. (2013). The missing piece: A national teacher survey on how social and emotional learning can empower children and transform schools. Washington, DC: Civic Enterprises and Hart Research Associates for CASEL.

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (2017). Key implementation insights from the Collaborating District Initiative. Chicago, IL: Author.

DePaoli, J.L., Atwell, M., & Bridgeland, J. (2017). Ready to lead: A national principal survey on how social and emotional learning can prepare children and transform schools. Washington, DC: Civic Enterprises and Hart Research Associates for CASEL.

Duncan, R., Washburn, I.J., Lewis, K.M., Bavarian, N., DuBois, D.L., Acock, A.C., . . . & Flay, B.R. (2017). Can universal SEL programs benefit universally? Effects of the Positive Action Program on multiple trajectories of social-emotional and misconduct behaviors. Prevention Science, 18, 214-224.

Durlak, J.A., Weissberg, R.P., Dymnicki, A., Taylor, R.D., & Schellinger, K.B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students' social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82, 405-432.

Dusenbury, L.A., Zadrazil Newman, J., Weissberg, R.P., Goren, P., Domitrovich, C.E., & Mart, A.K. (2015). The case for preschool through high school state learning standards for SEL. In J.A. Durlak, C.E. Domitrovich, R.P. Weissberg, & T.P. Gullotta (Eds.), Handbook for social and emotional learning: Research and practice (pp. 532-548). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Elias, M.J. (2014). Social-emotional skills can boost Common Core implementation. Phi Delta Kappan, 96 (3), 58-62.

Hill, C.J., Bloom, H.S., Black, A.R., & Lipsey, M.W. (2008). Empirical benchmarks for interpreting effect sizes in research. Child Development Perspectives, 2, 172-177.

Humphrey, N. (2013). Social and emotional learning: A critical appraisal. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Jones, S.M. & Kahn, J. (2017). The evidence base for how we learn: Supporting students' social, emotional, and academic development - Consensus statements of evidence from the Council of Distinguished Scientists. Washington, DC: National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, The Aspen Institute.

Miller, C.F., Kochel, K.P., Wheeler, L.A., Updegraff, K A., Fabes, R.A., Martin, C.L., & Hanish, L.D. (2017). The efficacy of a relationship building intervention in 5th grade. Journal of School Psychology, 61, 75-88.

Muratori, P., Bertacchi, I., Giuli, C., Nocentini, A., & Lochman, J.E. (2017). Implementing Coping Power adapted as a universal prevention program in Italian primary schools: A randomized control trial. Prevention Science, 18, 754-761.

Schonert-Reichl, K.A., Kitil, M.J., & Hanson-Peterson, J. (2017). To reach the students, teach the teachers: A national scan of teacher preparation and social and emotional learning. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia.

Sklad, M., Diekstra, R., De Ritter, M., Ben, J., & Gravesteijn, C. (2012). Effectiveness of school-based universal social, emotional, and behavioral programs. Do they enhance students' development in the area of skill, behavior, and adjustment? Psychology and Schools, 49, 892-909.

Taylor, R., Oberle, E., Durlak, J.A., & Weissberg, R.P. (2017). Promoting positive youth development through school-based social and emotional learning interventions: A meta-analysis of follow-up effects. Child Development, 88, 1156-1171.

Weissberg, R.P. & Cascarino, J. (2013). Academic learning + social-emotional learning = national priority. Phi Delta Kappan, 95 (2), 8-13.

Weissberg, R.P., Durlak, J.A., Domitrovich, C.E., & Gullotta, T.P. (2015). Social and emotional learning: Past, present, and future. In J.A. Durlak, C.E. Domitrovich, R.P. Weissberg, & T.P. Gullotta (Eds.), Handbook of social and emotional learning: Research and practice (pp. 3-19). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Wiglesworth, M., Lendrum, A., Oldfield, J., Scott, A., ten Bokkel, I., Tate, K., & Emery, C. (2016). The impact of trial stage, developer involvement and international transferability on universal social and emotional learning programme outcomes: A meta-analysis. Cambridge Journal of Education, 46, 347-376.

Citation: Mahoney, J.L., Durlak, J.A., & Weissberg, R.P. (2018). An update on social and emotional learning outcome research. Phi Delta Kappan, 100 (4), 18-23.

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An update on social and emotional learning outcome research - kappanonline.org

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An examination of four meta-analyses of SEL programs found multiple positive outcomes in the short and long term for participating students. In recent years, it has become commonplace among American educators to argue that if schools aim to prepare young people for life in today's complex and diverse world, then they must provide instruction in more than just academic content and skills (in English language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and other subject areas).

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New National Research Shows Most U.S. Students Feel Unprepared Without Social and Emotional Skills

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CHICAGO, Nov. 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Released today, a report titled Respected: Perspectives of Youth on High School & Social and Emotional Learning, shows...

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Reasons to Use UDL

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From Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive by Marc Brackett. Copyright © 2019 by the author and reprinted by permission of Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.

Okay, let's get the easy questions out of the way first: What's up with that title? Since when does anybody need permission to feel?

True, we all have feelings more or less continuously, every waking moment - even in our dreams - without ever asking or getting anybody's approval. To stop feeling would be like to stop thinking. Or breathing. Impossible. Our emotions are a big part - maybe the biggest part - of what makes us human.

And yet we go through life trying hard to pretend otherwise. Our true feelings can be messy, inconvenient, confusing, even addictive. They leave us vulnerable, exposed, naked to the world. They make us do things we wish we hadn't done. It's no wonder our emotions scare us sometimes - they seem so out of our control. Too often we do our best to deny them or hide them - even from ourselves. Our attitudes about them get passed along to our children, who learn by taking their cues from us, their parents and teachers - their role models. Our kids receive the message loud and clear, so that before long, they too have learned to suppress even the most urgent messages from deep inside their beings. Just as we learned to do.

You haven't even begun reading this book yet, but I'll bet you already know what I'm talking about.

So, we deny ourselves - and one another - the permission to feel. We suck it up, squash it down, act out. We avoid the difficult conversation with our colleague; we explode at a loved one; and we helplessly go through an entire bag of cookies and have no idea why. When we deny ourselves the permission to feel, a long list of unwanted outcomes ensues. We lose the ability to even identify what we're feeling - it's like, without noticing, we go a little numb inside. When that happens, we're unable to understand why we're experiencing an emotion or what's happening in our lives that's causing it. Because of that we're unable to name it, so we can't express it either, in terms the people around us would understand. And when we can't recognize, understand, or put into words what we feel, it's impossible for us to do anything about it: to master our feelings - not to deny them but to accept them all, even embrace them - and learn to make our emotions work for us, not against us.

I spend every minute of my working life dealing with these issues. Through academic research and plenty of real-life experience, especially in the world of education, I've seen the terrible cost of our inability to deal in healthy ways with our emotional lives.

Here's some evidence:

● In 2017, about 8 percent of adolescents aged twelve to seventeen and 25 percent of young adults aged eighteen to twenty-five were current users of illicit drugs.

● The number of incidents of bullying and harassment in U.S. K-12 schools reported to the Anti-Defamation League doubled each year between 2015 and 2017.

● According to a 2014 Gallup poll, 46 percent of teachers report high daily stress during the school year. That's tied with nurses for the highest rate among all occupational groups.

● A 2018 Gallup poll revealed that over 50 percent of employees are unengaged at work; 13 percent of those are "miserable."

● In 2016-17, more than one in three students across 196 U.S. college campuses reported diagnosed mental health conditions. Some campuses have reported a 30 percent increase in mental health problems per year.

● According to the 2019 World Happiness Report, negative feelings, including worry, sadness, and anger, have been rising around the world, up by 27 percent from 2010 to 2018.

● Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 25 percent of children between thirteen and eighteen years old.

● Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide.

● Worldwide mental health problems could cost the global economy up to $16 trillion by 2030. These include direct costs of health care and medicines or other therapies and indirect costs such as loss of productivity.

We seem to prefer spending more money and effort on dealing with the results of our emotional problems rather than trying to prevent them.

I have a personal interest in the bad things that happen when we deny ourselves permission to feel. Meaning I've been there, but thanks to someone who cared, I made it out alive. We'll talk about that too.

Only a few naturally insightful among us can claim to have the skills discussed in this book without consciously pursuing them. I had to learn them. And these are skills. All personality types - loud or quiet, imaginative or practical, neurotic or happy-go-lucky - will find them accessible and even life-changing. These are clear, simple, and tested skills that can be acquired by anyone of almost any age.

Recently, I was training administrators at one of the country's most challenging school districts. I was warned, "They'll eat you alive." At lunch on the first day, I was standing in the buffet line next to a principal, and to make small talk, I asked him, "So, what do you think about the session so far?" He looked me in the eye, then looked down at the food and said, "The desserts look pretty good." I realized at that moment what I was up against. I'm used to resistance, but his attitude hit hard. I decided at that moment that he was going to be my project. His superintendent was fully on board, but it was clear that we would succeed in this district only if principals, like this guy, were also believers.

At the end of a couple days of intensive teaching, I ran into him again. "The other day, when we met, you weren't so sure this course was going to work for you," I said. "I'm curious. Now that you've spent two days learning about emotions and how to integrate emotion skills into your school, what do you think?"

"Well, I'll tell you," he said, pausing to collect his thoughts. "I realize now that I didn't know what I didn't know. The language of feelings was foreign to me."

That was encouraging, I thought. Then he went on.

"So, thank you for giving me the permission to feel."

Let's begin there.
Marc Brackett, Ph.D., is the founder and director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the university's Child Study Center. He is the lead developer of RULER, an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning that has been adopted by nearly 2,000 pre-K through high schools across the United States and in other countries.
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Book Excerpt: 'Permission to Feel' Shows the Power of Giving Students Tools to Understand and Regulate Their Emotions

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From Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive by Marc Brackett. Copyright © 2019 by the author and reprinted by permission of Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC. Okay, let's get the easy questions out of the way first: What's up with [...]