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Getting Started With Trauma-Informed Practices

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When teachers use strategies tailored to children who have experienced trauma, all students reap the emotional and academic benefits.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of using effective performance feedback: Use positive feedback to reinforce efforts and actions that lead to learning.

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Carol Dweck - A Study on Praise and Mindsets

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This connects to two PBSES Proactive Classroom Management Strategies: provide acknowledgment for expected behaviors & use a class-wide/school-wide motivation system.

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This connects to two PBSES Proactive Classroom Management Strategies: provide acknowledgment for expected behaviors & use a class-wide/school-wide motivation system.

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See Tip #2

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A teacher shares the strategies she used with second graders last year for community building and proactive behavior management.

Goodboy Picture Company / iStock

Community and connection are more vital than ever as children reconnect after nearly two years of disrupted learning and isolation. Last year-the toughest one in terms of behavior management that I can remember-I used three tools to create a positive community in my second-grade classroom. They helped me build students' self-esteem, teach empathy and problem-solving, and inspire leadership among my students. This was my most successful year for behavior management, despite having a handful of children who needed a lot of support.

Tools to Build Classroom Community

1. Classroom agreements. A few weeks into the school year, our class cocreated a list of agreements. I presented these as "important reminders of how we should act and treat each other." To keep it manageable, I limited the list to three agreements. After think time, group chats, sharing out, and voting to narrow down ideas, our class made the following three agreements:

We agree to give everyone their turn to speak.

We agree to give each other quiet time to work.

We agree to treat each other like we want to be treated.

These agreements were posted and visible at all times. Minor disruptions like blurting out answers and side-talking became opportunities to review our first two agreements. The third agreement helped students work out peer conflicts. For example, two students got into an argument about the rules of a game. The argument escalated to loud name-calling, and one student ripped up her partner's papers.

This prompted a conversation about our agreement to treat each other like we want to be treated. I asked the class the following questions: "Why did we choose to make this agreement?" "How does it feel when everyone keeps this agreement?" "How does it feel when we don't keep this agreement?" The students were then able to redo the situation that led up to the conflict to show how it could have turned out differently if they kept the agreement in mind. The agreements built intrinsic motivation for positive behavior. Every one of my students saw themselves as a member of a community and understood how their behavior could positively or negatively impact others in their community.

2. Long-term classroom jobs for everyone. Elementary teachers know how much pride young students feel when they have a special job. All 28 of my second graders held a job title at all times, and they kept their jobs for a full month before switching. At the end of each month, I asked them to give me their top three choices for a job (with the disclaimer that they might not get their choice) and assigned jobs accordingly. Some of the most popular jobs were Snack Manager, Lunch Counter, Door Holder, Calendar Reader, Time Keeper, and Pencil Sharpener.

No one got the same job twice, and everyone got their first or second choice at least once in the school year. It was tricky to come up with 28 different jobs, but it meant that every student felt like they had something valuable to contribute to the class community every day-even if it was as simple as straightening books on a shelf or passing around a bottle of hand sanitizer.

By holding their jobs for a whole month, students experienced the comfort of routine, and they became independent in initiating and completing their tasks. The shyest child in class gained confidence and started talking more after a few weeks of asking peers which snack they wanted at snack time. A student with high anxiety who had frequent outbursts became more self-regulated after he was in charge of choosing and leading brain breaks. By holding their job for a whole month, students who found a job challenging had enough time to practice and gain confidence.

3. Daily class meetings. The transition back to class after lunch and afternoon recess can be the most challenging time of the day. Energy levels are high, and students have difficulty settling down. Playground conflicts spill into the classroom, and students sometimes return to class crying or tense with anger. Having class meetings at this time helped students settle down, solve their social problems, and get ready to learn again.

Class meetings were teacher-led for the first quarter, modeling respectful and productive ways to talk about social problems. After the first quarter, I gradually assigned responsibilities to the students. By the spring, each item in the meeting agenda was led by one or two students. I gave positive and constructive feedback to the students in leadership roles both during and after the class meeting, and I restated expectations for student-led class meetings as often as needed.

As we approached the end of the year, I was often able to sit on the sidelines and watch while my second graders conducted 30 minutes of whole-group social and emotional learning entirely on their own. Class meeting was the most important time of day to my students, especially once they took over leadership of the meeting.

Our class meetings were 25-30 minutes long, and they always followed the same structure:

Calendar reading

Compliments

Problem-solving

Show-and-tell

Play a quick game

The agenda items before and after problem-solving helped students feel calm and secure, ready for serious reflection and social and emotional growth. Problem-solving was the heart of the meeting. Problem-solving started with a student bringing up a problem without using any names, such as "Someone stuck their tongue out at me in line." The student with the monthly job of Class Meeting Host might ask their peer to give more details: "What happened before that?" or "Did you already try to solve the problem on your own?" Then the meeting host would ask classmates to share solutions. Peers would offer solutions like "Ignore it" or "Say 'I don't like that' and ask the person to stop."

After hearing several solutions, the Meeting Host would turn back to the student who experienced the problem and ask them which solution they thought worked best for their situation.

I experienced many of the same exhausting challenges that other teachers experienced this year: adjusting and readjusting for ever-changing mandates and guidelines, trying to make up for lost learning time, and differentiating for the widest spread of academic levels I've ever had under one roof. Despite all of those challenges, using these three tools made this year my most successful for creating a positive classroom community.

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3 Tips for Effective Classroom Management in Elementary School

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A teacher shares the strategies she used with second graders last year for community building and proactive behavior management. Goodboy Picture Company / iStock Community and connection are more vital than ever as children reconnect after nearly two years of disrupted learning and isolation.

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Make your students' group work more effective by giving each member a specific role to fill.

Advisory

English & Language Arts

History

Social Studies

The resources I'm getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable.

- Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

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Make your students' group work more effective by giving each member a specific role to fill.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of building and priming background knowledge: Use strategies like Notice and Wonder, where there are no wrong answers, to validate all voices

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of explicit and intentional instruction: Reinforce the cross-cutting concept of cause/effect across the curriculum.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of building and priming background knowledge: Have students share cause/effect examples from their own experiences.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of frequent opportunities to respond: Offer students a choice of modalities to respond when you can: draw/diagram, write, talk, etc.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of explicit and intentional instruction: use graphic organizers for specific learning goals.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of effective performance feedback: Use rubrics to enable self-assessment and peer feedback.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of frequent opportunities to respond: Use consistent discussion protocols.

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
When I worked with student teachers on developing effective lesson plans, one thing I always asked them to revise was the phrase "We will discuss."
We will discuss the video. We will discuss the story. We will discuss our results.
Every time I saw it in a lesson plan, I would add a note: "What format will you use? What questions will you ask? How will you ensure that all students participate?" I was pretty sure that We will discuss actually meant the teacher would do most of the talking; He would throw out a couple of questions like "So what did you think about the video?" or "What was the theme of the story?" and a few students would respond, resulting in something that looked like a discussion, but was ultimately just a conversation between the teacher and a handful of extroverted students; a classic case of Fisheye Teaching.

The problem wasn't them; in most of the classrooms where they'd sat as students, that's exactly what a class discussion looked like. They didn't know any other "formats." I have only ever been familiar with a few myself. But when teachers began contacting me recently asking for a more comprehensive list, I knew it was time to do some serious research.

So here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging. If you've struggled to find effective ways to develop students' speaking and listening skills, this is your lucky day.

I've separated the strategies into three groups. The first batch contains the higher-prep strategies, formats that require teachers to do some planning or gathering of materials ahead of time. Next come the low-prep strategies, which can be used on the fly when you have a few extra minutes or just want your students to get more active. Note that these are not strict categories; it's certainly possible to simplify or add more meat to any of these structures and still make them work. The last group is the ongoing strategies. These are smaller techniques that can be integrated with other instructional strategies and don't really stand alone. For each strategy, you'll find a list of other names it sometimes goes by, a description of its basic structure, and an explanation of variations that exist, if any. To watch each strategy in action, click on its name and a new window will open with a video that demonstrates it.

Enjoy!
a.k.a. Chat Stations
Basic Structure: Stations or posters are set up around the classroom, on the walls or on tables. Small groups of students travel from station to station together, performing some kind of task or responding to a prompt, either of which will result in a conversation.

Variations: Some Gallery Walks stay true to the term gallery, where groups of students create informative posters, then act as tour guides or docents, giving other students a short presentation about their poster and conducting a Q&A about it. In Starr Sackstein's high school classroom, her stations consisted of video tutorials created by the students themselves. Before I knew the term Gallery Walk, I shared a strategy similar to it called Chat Stations, where the teacher prepares discussion prompts or content-related tasks and sets them up around the room for students to visit in small groups.
a.k.a. Values Continuum, Forced Debate, Physical Barometer, This or That
Basic Structure: A statement that has two possible responses-agree or disagree-is read out loud. Depending on whether they agree or disagree with this statement, students move to one side of the room or the other. From that spot, students take turns defending their positions.

Variations: Often a Philosophical Chairs debate will be based around a text or group of texts students have read ahead of time; students are required to cite textual evidence to support their claims and usually hold the texts in their hands during the discussion. Some teachers set up one hot seat to represent each side, and students must take turns in the seat. In less formal variations (which require less prep), a teacher may simply read provocative statements students are likely to disagree on, and a debate can occur spontaneously without a text to refer to (I call this variation This or That in my classroom icebreakers post). Teachers may also opt to offer a continuum of choices, ranging from "Strongly Agree" on one side of the room, all the way to "Strongly Disagree" on the other, and have students place themselves along that continuum based on the strength of their convictions.

Basic Structure: Students are divided into 4 groups. Three of these groups are assigned to represent specific points of view. Members of the fourth group are designated as "provocateurs," tasked with making sure the discussion keeps going and stays challenging. One person from each group (the "speaker") sits in a desk facing speakers from the other groups, so they form a square in the center of the room. Behind each speaker, the remaining group members are seated: two right behind the speaker, then three behind them, and so on, forming a kind of triangle. From above, this would look like a pinwheel. The four speakers introduce and discuss questions they prepared ahead of time (this preparation is done with their groups). After some time passes, new students rotate from the seats behind the speaker into the center seats and continue the conversation.

Variations: When high school English teacher Sarah Brown Wessling introduced this strategy in the featured video (click Pinwheel Discussion above), she used it as a device for talking about literature, where each group represented a different author, plus one provocateur group. But in the comments that follow the video, Wessling adds that she also uses the strategy with non-fiction, where students represent authors of different non-fiction texts or are assigned to take on different perspectives about an issue.
a.k.a. Socratic Circles
Basic Structure: Students prepare by reading a text or group of texts and writing some higher-order discussion questions about the text. On seminar day, students sit in a circle and an introductory, open-ended question is posed by the teacher or student discussion leader. From there, students continue the conversation, prompting one another to support their claims with textual evidence. There is no particular order to how students speak, but they are encouraged to respectfully share the floor with others. Discussion is meant to happen naturally and students do not need to raise their hands to speak. This overview of Socratic Seminar from the website Facing History and Ourselves provides a list of appropriate questions, plus more information about how to prepare for a seminar.

Variations: If students are beginners, the teacher may write the discussion questions, or the question creation can be a joint effort. For larger classes, teachers may need to set up seminars in more of a fishbowl-like arrangement, dividing students into one inner circle that will participate in the discussion, and one outer circle that silently observes, takes notes, and may eventually trade places with those in the inner circle, sometimes all at once, and sometimes by "tapping in" as the urge strikes them.
a.k.a. Affinity Diagramming
Basic Structure: Give students a broad question or problem that is likely to result in lots of different ideas, such as "What were the impacts of the Great Depression?" or "What literary works should every person read?" Have students generate responses by writing ideas on post-it notes (one idea per note) and placing them in no particular arrangement on a wall, whiteboard, or chart paper. Once lots of ideas have been generated, have students begin grouping them into similar categories, then label the categories and discuss why the ideas fit within them, how the categories relate to one another, and so on.

Variations: Some teachers have students do much of this exercise-recording their ideas and arranging them into categories- without talking at first. In other variations, participants are asked to re-combine the ideas into new, different categories after the first round of organization occurs. Often, this activity serves as a good pre-writing exercise, after which students will write some kind of analysis or position paper.
a.k.a. Speed Dating
Basic Structure: Students form two circles, one inside circle and one outside circle. Each student on the inside is paired with a student on the outside; they face each other. The teacher poses a question to the whole group and pairs discuss their responses with each other. Then the teacher signals students to rotate: Students on the outside circle move one space to the right so they are standing in front of a new person (or sitting, as they are in the video). Now the teacher poses a new question, and the process is repeated.

Variations: Instead of two circles, students could also form two straight lines facing one another. Instead of "rotating" to switch partners, one line just slides over one spot, and the leftover person on the end comes around to the beginning of the line. Some teachers use this strategy to have students teach one piece of content to their fellow students, making it less of a discussion strategy and more of a peer teaching format. In fact, many of these protocols could be used for peer teaching as well.

Basic Structure: Another great idea from Sarah Brown Wessling, this is a small-group discussion strategy that gives students exposure to more of their peers' ideas and prevents the stagnation that can happen when a group doesn't happen to have the right chemistry. Students are placed into a few groups of 4-6 students each and are given a discussion question to talk about. After sufficient time has passed for the discussion to develop, one or two students from each group rotate to a different group, while the other group members remain where they are. Once in their new group, they will discuss a different, but related question, and they may also share some of the key points from their last group's conversation. For the next rotation, students who have not rotated before may be chosen to move, resulting in groups that are continually evolving.

Basic Structure: Two students sit facing each other in the center of the room; the remaining students sit in a circle around them. The two central students have a conversation based on a pre-determined topic and often using specific skills the class is practicing (such as asking follow-up questions, paraphrasing, or elaborating on another person's point). Students on the outside observe, take notes, or perform some other discussion-related task assigned by the teacher.

Variations: One variation of this strategy allows students in the outer circle to trade places with those in the fishbowl, doing kind of a relay-style discussion, or they may periodically "coach" the fishbowl talkers from the sidelines. Teachers may also opt to have students in the outside circle grade the participants' conversation with a rubric, then give feedback on what they saw in a debriefing afterward, as mentioned in the featured video.

Basic Structure: One student assumes the role of a book character, significant figure in history, or concept (such as a tornado, an animal, or the Titanic). Sitting in front of the rest of the class, the student responds to classmates' questions while staying in character in that role.

Variations: Give more students the opportunity to be in the hot seat while increasing everyone's participation by having students do hot seat discussions in small groups, where one person per group acts as the "character" and three or four others ask them questions. In another variation, several students could form a panel of different characters, taking questions from the class all together and interacting with one another like guests on a TV talk show.
a.k.a. Pyramid Discussion
Basic Structure: Students begin in pairs, responding to a discussion question only with a single partner. After each person has had a chance to share their ideas, the pair joins another pair, creating a group of four. Pairs share their ideas with the pair they just joined. Next, groups of four join together to form groups of eight, and so on, until the whole class is joined up in one large discussion.

Variations: This structure could simply be used to share ideas on a topic, or students could be required to reach consensus every time they join up with a new group.

Whereas the other formats in this list have a distinct shape-specific activities you do with students-the strategies in this section are more like plug-ins, working discussion into other instructional activities and improving the quality and reach of existing conversations.

One of the limitations of discussion is that rich, face-to-face conversations can only happen when all parties are available, so we're limited to the time we have in class. With a tool like Voxer, those limitations disappear. Like a private voice mailbox that you set up with just one person or a group (but SOOOO much easier), Voxer allows users to have conversations at whatever time is most convenient for each participant. So a group of four students can "discuss" a topic from 3pm until bedtime-asynchronously-each member contributing whenever they have a moment, and if the teacher makes herself part of the group, she can listen in, offer feedback, or contribute her own discussion points. Voxer is also invaluable for collaborating on projects and for having one-on-one discussions with students, parents, and your own colleagues. Like many other educators, Peter DeWitt took a while to really understand the potential of Voxer, but in this EdWeek piece, he explains what turned him around.

A backchannel is a conversation that happens right alongside another activity. The first time I saw a backchannel in action was at my first unconference: While those of us in the audience listened to presenters and watched a few short video clips, a separate screen was up beside the main screen, projecting something called TodaysMeet (update: TodaysMeet has shut down. Use YoTeach! instead.) It looked a lot like those chat rooms from back in the day, basically a blank screen where people would contribute a few lines of text, the lines stacking up one after the other, no other bells or whistles. Anyone in the room could participate in this conversation on their phone, laptop, or tablet, asking questions, offering commentary, and sharing links to related resources without ever interrupting the flow of the presentations. This kind of tool allows for a completely silent discussion, one that doesn't have to move at a super-fast pace, and it gives students who may be reluctant to speak up or who process their thoughts more slowly a chance to fully contribute. For a deeper discussion of how this kind of tool can be used, read this thoughtful overview of using backchannel discussions in the classroom by Edutopia's Beth Holland.
a.k.a. Accountable Talk
Talk moves are sentence frames we supply to our students that help them express ideas and interact with one another in respectful, academically appropriate ways. From kindergarten all the way through college, students can benefit from explicit instruction in the skills of summarizing another person's argument before presenting an alternate view, asking clarifying questions, and expressing agreement or partial agreement with the stance of another participant. Talk moves can be incorporated into any of the other discussion formats listed here.

Whole Brain Teaching is a set of teaching and classroom management methods that has grown in popularity over the past 10 years. One of WBT's foundational techniques is Teach-OK, a peer teaching strategy that begins with the teacher spending a few minutes introducing a concept to the class. Next, the teacher says Teach!, the class responds with Okay!, and pairs of students take turns re-teaching the concept to each other. It's a bit like think-pair-share, but it's faster-paced, it focuses more on re-teaching than general sharing, and students are encouraged to use gestures to animate their discussion. Although WBT is most popular in elementary schools, this featured video shows the creator of WBT, Chris Biffle, using it quite successfully with college students. I have also used Teach-OK with college students, and most of my students said they were happy for a change from the sit-and-listen they were used to in college classrooms.

An oldie but a goodie, think-pair-share can be used any time you want to plug interactivity into a lesson: Simply have students think about their response to a question, form a pair with another person, discuss their response, then share it with the larger group. Because I feel this strategy has so many uses and can be way more powerful than we give it credit for, I devoted a whole post to think-pair-share; everything you need to know about it is right there.

TWO MORE YOU'LL LOVE

Since writing this post, I have learned about two more discussion strategies that teachers are finding to be incredibly effective and powerful for getting students to talk, especially about books and other texts:

This protocol has students come up with their own Thoughts, lingering Questions, and Epiphanies from an assigned reading. Teachers who have used this method say it has generated some of the richest conversations they have ever heard from students!

This strategy places students into one-on-one conversations, getting them to learn each others' names better and create a track record of what they talked about. Excellent for classes where you want to assess for discussion and help students get more comfortable with each other.

So what else do you have? I would like to think this is a pretty complete list, but I'm sure more strategies are out there. If you use a discussion strategy that's not mentioned here, please share it below.

Come back for more.
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The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

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Here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging.

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Connects to the PBSES Proactive Classroom Management Strategy of effective cueing systems to release and regain attention.

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Connects to the PBSES Proactive Classroom Management Strategy of provide a visual schedule.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of building and priming background knowledge: Use a consistent process to teach vocabulary (e.g. Marzano, Frayer (attached), CCD) and surface background knowledge (KWL/inquiry chart, prediction/reaction guide.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of explicit and intentional instruction: Structure your lessons in a predictable way; let students know when there will be a change and why.

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Choosing a small number of strategies that students can use across content areas can help them focus on the concepts they're learning.

Allison Shelley / American Education

When teachers prepare lessons, they often incorporate new strategies-graphic organizers, mnemonics, charts, word banks, written outlines, and other materials-in the hope that variety will attract and hold student interest. Novelty can, however, have a negative impact on learning as students may spend more time trying to figure out how to use the strategy than on the concepts and big ideas they should be learning. And with so many different options to learn, students may not practice the strategy enough to use it independently of the teacher.

To help select which strategies to use as the mainstays of instruction, teachers should consider the following questions:

How can students use the strategy across disciplines?

How does the strategy engage students as active participants in their learning?

How can students use the strategy independently of the teacher?

Is the strategy flexible enough to be used in all learning environments?

Below are three examples of instructional strategies that can have a big impact on student learning.

1. Cognitive Routines

These are simple criteria or questions that students use repeatedly when approaching tasks with similar thinking demand. Students can employ learning targets and success criteria as a cognitive routine as shown by the following example:

"I can summarize information by doing the following:

Determining what is most important,

Being specific and to the point, and

Saying it in my own words."

These three steps serve as a mini-checklist for students when a teacher asks them to summarize, regardless of the content-the cognitive routine remains the same. When students repeatedly draw upon the strategy, it becomes a habit for learning. They're in charge of when and how they use the method. Students can summarize independently or collaboratively. When students write a collective summary, they must work to come to a consensus on each of the criteria. Cognitive routines are easily transferable to any learning environment or modality, and students can summarize verbally or use paper or a whiteboard application.

2. Visual Routines

Visual routines are similar to cognitive routines but rely on a visual representation. Each image is explicitly linked to a thinking demand, making it applicable across disciplines. For example, students can use a tree map to sort and classify information in social studies-the economic, political, or social impact of specific events in history. In science, students can use a tree map to classify the characteristics of different types of matter.

The Thinking Map is different from a graphic organizer in that students are taught when and why to use Thinking Maps. Students learn how to create the maps on their own, which enables them to be able to readily use the strategy when completing a task. When working in remote or hybrid environments, students can easily create thinking maps on whiteboard applications.

3. Discussion Protocols

Discussion protocols like think-pair-share and the Text-Rendering Experience provide students with simple structures for conversation that can be used in all content areas. Think-pair-share, for example, is a simple way for students to make sense of information and carefully consider ideas before sharing with the class. In a remote or hybrid setting, student partners can discuss with each other in breakout rooms and then share in a chat box, whiteboard, or shared document so their thinking is captured for others to see. In math, think-pair-share provides a simple structure for students to solve problems and share the process they used. Students can then review class responses to look for trends and patterns in their thinking or ask clarifying questions to deepen their understanding.

The Text-Rendering Experience asks students to select a sentence, phrase, and word from a text for discussion. They then work in small groups to discuss what they selected and why and how it reflects the author's message.

Once students become familiar with these or other simple protocols, they can easily move into conversations and focus on the question, ideas, or text rather than on the structure of the discussion.

When teachers select instructional strategies that actively engage students and develop those methods as routines for student learning, they're equipping students with strategies for approaching the new and unknown. Using the suggestions in this post, teachers can begin by evaluating the methods they already use in their classrooms. With carefully selected instructional strategies, students will spend less time figuring out how to accomplish a task and more time focusing on the learning.

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Selecting Instructional Strategies That Students Can Master

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Choosing a small number of strategies that students can use across content areas can help them focus on the concepts they're learning. Allison Shelley / American Education When teachers prepare lessons, they often incorporate new strategies-graphic organizers, mnemonics, charts, word banks, written outlines, and other materials-in the hope that variety will attract and hold student interest.

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The CharacterStrong Weekly - Grandma's Rule

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of explicit and intentional instruction: intentionally teach how to work in teams.

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Teaching Group Work: Building Student Collaboration and Agency

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of frequent opportunities to respond: Use a group discussion and clear share out structure to increase engagement.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of explicit and intentional instruction: Select tasks that require teamwork to build trust among students.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of frequent opportunities for students to respond: Balance opportunities to respond as an individual and as a team.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of explicit and intentional instruction: Use rubrics to make the desired learning outcomes (practices and/or content) explicit, so that instruction can be intentional.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of explicit and intentional instruction: Teach students metacognitive strategies to identify what they know and what they need to learn.

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Helping Students Make Sense of New Material

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of frequent opportunities to respond: Establish a culture where the learning journey is as important as the destination.

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How to Create a Mistake-Friendly Classroom

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Edutopia (@edutopia)

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of effective performance feedback: Use feedback when monitoring performance.

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The CharacterStrong Weekly - A Quick Idea or Strategy to Help you Transform Your Daily Work

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of frequent opportunities to respond: Link student academic goals to multiple opportunities to respond, so they can track their progress.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of explicit and intentional instruction: intentionally teach how to work in teams.

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Roles That Encourage Equitable Collaborative Learning

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A look at how to distribute the roles—both academic and managerial—that make up group work to boost engagement and learning.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of effective performance feedback: Use feedback to build students' self-efficacy and feelings of success.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of Building and priming background knowledge: Ask questions and listen to students to surface their assets and needs, then plan instruction with those in mind.

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Building Relationships With Empathy Maps

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of Building and priming background knowledge: Ask questions and listen to students to surface their assets and needs, then plan instruction with those in mind.

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Building Relationships With Empathy Maps

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of using effective performance feedback: Use positive feedback to reinforce efforts and actions that lead to learning.

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Carol Dweck - A Study on Praise and Mindsets

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6 Exercises to Get to Know Your Students Better—and Increase Their Engagement

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Celebrating your middle and high school students’ unique identities can bolster connections and improve performance in school.

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Educators can help students learn how to navigate everyday stress by encouraging cognitive flexibility, a critical component of executive functioning skills, says K-8 school counselor and therapist Phyllis Fagell.

"There are skills that you can learn that are transferable," says Fagell. "Cognitive flexibility-the ability to challenge your thoughts or to think about other possibilities regardless of what's going on in your life-is going to give a kid the sense that they are back in the driver's seat, which is going to make them feel less helpless. That's going to help them navigate any stress, no matter what it is."

Here are six metacognitive questions-inspired by an Instagram post by Nawal Mustafa, a PhD candidate in clinical neuropsychology at the University of Windsor in Canada-to help your students tackle everyday stressors. Students don't need to answer all six in every instance, and they can select the ones that are most helpful or most appropriate to the problem they're facing, eventually developing the ability to do this independently.
1. Wait-what is the source of this feeling?
When they feel overwhelmed, students may have a hard time pinpointing the source of their stress. This question focuses them on a fundamental first step: What is causing me to feel anxious?

"If you don't know why you're stressed, you can't target the right solution," says Fagell, who likes to share a feelings wheel to help students identify what's behind how they're feeling. "Step one is to help them focus on why they're feeling the way they're feeling and maybe even help them come up with a word for the feeling itself. Is there something going on at home? Are they feeling insecure about themselves academically? Are they afraid to take a risk socially?"

Though kids may get practice in elementary school identifying emotions and where they come from, this may be a skill that older students still need help with. Once they identify the source of their stress, they can start thinking about solutions, explains Fagell.
2. And how is this stress affecting me?
Encourage students to pause and reflect so they can assess the impact of the stress they're feeling. This can provide a bird's-eye view of their behavior and help them figure out possible next steps.

A stressed-out student who feels unprepared for a math test might realize, upon reflection, that they're procrastinating studying-even avoiding it-because they feel unsure about new material in the unit. This realization might prompt them to seek help, review notes, or find some other way to improve their grasp of the material.

Quick focused-attention practices and brain breaks can help students slow down before acting-as opposed to impulsively reacting, or overreacting-says Lori Desautels, an assistant professor at Butler University's College of Education. Activities like these help "calm the brain's stress response and stimulate sustained attention and emotional regulation," explains Desautels. "A regulated and calm brain is a brain that is ready to deeply learn."
3. Do I need to ask for help? Who can I talk to about this?
Guidance from a trusted adult is often helpful at this stage, but embarrassment or shame can prevent students from reaching out for support, especially if they are shy or introverted. "They fear that asking for help signals weakness or failure in their character, though adults could tell them that asking for help is instead a sign of maturity and strength," writes educator Jennifer Sullivan.

She suggests providing students with conversation starters that make approaching a caregiver, school counselor, coach, teacher, or friend for help less daunting:

I'm struggling with _____. Can we talk about it later?

I'm not sure what I need. Can you please talk with me?

Can you give me advice about _____?

4. What advice would I give to a friend with this problem?
A shift in perspective allows students to take a step back, evaluate a situation from an outsider's point of view, and identify solutions they might not have seen before. Neuroscientist and professor of psychology Ethan Kross refers to the technique as distanced self-talk.

"We know that it's a lot easier for people to give advice to others than it is to take that advice ourselves," Kross explains, as reported by Liz Greene for Nautilus. "What we've learned is that language provides us with a tool for coaching ourselves through our problems like we were talking to another person."

Asking students to assess a problem from someone else's perspective prompts them to create some psychological distance, which helps them generate more constructive solutions for how to deal with their stress. Once solutions are given, they are more likely to take the advice themselves.
5. What can I control and what can't I control?
Students might simply spend a few moments considering these questions, or they can go deeper. Fagell has her middle schoolers draw a venn diagram-the left circle is marked "things I can control," the right circle is marked "things I can't control," and the overlap is marked "things that matter." As students fill it in, they distinguish if variables within their control and outside of their control align with the goal of relieving their stress.

A student who identifies an upcoming science test as a source of stress, for example, would identify this as a variable they cannot control because the test is mandatory. The student can, however, control how much time they spend studying, or if they ask the teacher for help going over topics they don't understand. What matters to the student most might be getting a good grade, which goes in the center space of the venn diagram.
6. What is one small step I can take to feel better?
Students may struggle to set reasonable, attainable goals and often have unrealistic expectations about how quickly they can meet those goals. It can help to first identify the end point and then help students break down the steps to get there.

When she works with stressed-out students, Fagell scaffolds the process by using a ladder metaphor: Each rung of the ladder is a different step to get to the final goal. Students must determine what each step is, then ask themselves how to get from one rung to the next.

"After we break this process down into rungs on the ladder, then I add another rung in between each existing one," she explains. "Let's flesh out that process even more so that they're not set up for disappointment and they can really see that it takes time to get to the next step."

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6 Questions To Help Students Cope With Everyday Stress

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Educators can help students learn how to navigate everyday stress by encouraging cognitive flexibility, a critical component of executive functioning skills, says K-8 school counselor and therapist Phyllis Fagell. "There are skills that you can learn that are transferable," says Fagell.

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You might recognize this as a PBSES Proactive Classroom Management Strategy: Smiling & Being Nice.

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You might recognize this as a PBSES Proactive Classroom Management Strategy: Smiling & Being Nice.

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of explicit and intentional instruction: Use brain breaks to optimize academic learning as well.

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Practice makes perfect. To become ambidextrous in basketball, dribble with your left hand, switch to your right, and repeat the process again and again. Likewise, to solve differential equations in math, pile them up and work your way through them diligently.

According to one popular school of thought, it's this active, repeated manipulation of material that lays the neural foundations for skill development. All too often, time away from the basketball court-or the math books-is seen as a break in the learning process, a way to cool off, reenergize, and then return to the vital work of actual practice.

But for Leonardo Cohen, a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health and the senior author of a June 2021 study published in the journal Cell, the idea that breaks are a cooling-off period is a misconception.

Cohen and his colleagues used magnetoencephalography-a highly sensitive brain-scanning technique-to observe the neural activity of young adults as they learned how to type with their nondominant hand. After a practice session, the study participants were given a short break and then continued practicing for a total of 35 sessions.

When analyzing the data, Cohen's team made an intriguing discovery: They observed a spike in brain activity, mimicking the neural pattern seen during the practice session, but compressed by twentyfold. Rather than being idle, the brain was replaying the practice session over and over at an astonishingly high rate of speed-flipping the material from the neocortex, where sensory and motor skills are processed, to the hippocampus, the brain's memory center, over two dozen times in the span of 10 seconds. Stepping away from the activity, it turns out, is not stepping away from the activity at all.

The findings echo the groundbreaking discovery in 2001 that after successfully running through a maze, rats replayed those memories repeatedly during REM sleep, with the same spatial circuitry flickering to life as they slept.

An Inside Look

When we learn a new skill, we need to connect it to previous memories, explains Cohen, a process called "binding." For example, when learning how to play piano, our brains need to link a simple action-pressing a piano key-with a larger, more complex skill, such as playing a song. Until now, scientists have been unable to decipher how the brain connects these two discrete actions into a consolidated skill.

Cohen's team discovered that after learning new information, our brains continue to whir, using cognitive downtime as a virtual staging ground to process, organize, and integrate learned information. The key, they believe, lies in neural replay, the "temporally compressed reactivation of neural activity patterns representing behavioral sequences during rest." In other words, after practicing a skill, our brains rapidly cycle through the experience, compressing and imprinting the material to optimize storage and recall.

We greatly underestimate the value of breaks when learning, Cohen and his colleagues assert, commonly opting for an approach that views active practice as the only way to advance. But that's a mistake, because incorporating breaks into learning "plays just as important a role as practice in learning a new skill. It appears to be the period when our brains compress and consolidate memories of what we just practiced."

Brain Breaks During School

In the classroom, "brain breaks should take place before fatigue, boredom, distraction, and inattention set in," writes neurologist and classroom teacher Judy Willis, and that means they should be far more frequent. "As a general rule," Willis continues, basing her conclusions on decades of research, "concentrated study of 10 to 15 minutes for elementary school and 20 to 30 minutes for middle and high school students calls for a three- to five-minute break."

You don't have to overthink it, or add to your workload by planning entertaining activities. Willis recommends simple techniques, such as a stretch break, moving to a different part of the room, or singing a song to give students time to "replay" what they've learned and to prepare them for more practice or new material. Letting students chat informally for a few minutes should also work well.

As the school day progresses, there's evidence that brain breaks become increasingly important. A 2016 study found that "cognitive fatigue" sets in toward the end of the day, leading to a notable drop in test performance: For every hour later in the day, test performance decreased by 0.9 percent of a standard deviation, the researchers found-roughly the equivalent of losing 10 school days' worth of learning. Incorporating breaks, however, not only eliminated the decrease but actually increased performance. "Importantly, a break causes an improvement in test scores that is larger than the hourly deterioration," the researchers discovered. "Breaks, it appears, recharge students' cognitive energy, thus leading to better test scores."

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We Drastically Underestimate the Importance of Brain Breaks

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When it comes to optimizing learning, we don't value breaks enough, neuroscientists suggest in a new study.

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The end of the year is filled with a lot of pressure and stress for both students and teachers alike. Between testing and report cards, to uncertainty about next year, the stress can build up. As all really good teachers know, the key to teaching students is to give them the tools to do things on their own. In the case of stress management, those tools include relaxation strategies that they can carry with them for years to come. Try some of the ideas below to help your students channel their stress and cope effectively with pressures both in and out of school.

Relaxation Techniques for the Classroom

Stress Balls

Whether you use play doh or a squishy ball, giving students something to manipulate with their hands while listening to a story or trying to relax can be very helpful. It helps them channel their nervous energy into a physical outlet without causing a lot of distraction. When introducing the balls to the students, be sure to emphasize that they should remain in contact with their hands at all times.

Yoga

Yoga is traditionally seen as an adult exercise and relaxation routine, but it is also beneficial for children. Teach your students some simple yoga poses that help them calm their minds and focus inwards. This is a great way to break up afternoon stress or get them ready and focused before a test.

Drawing

Sometimes all students need is a chance to draw and color their emotions. Have designated "Relaxation Art Journals" and encourage students to draw, color, or write in them during a designated time in the daily schedule. Play soothing music and set a gentle timer to let students know when relaxation time is over.

Head to Toe

Progressive body relaxation is perfect for helping students relax. If possible, have them stretch out on the floor and guide them through relaxing their bodies using verbal cues. Start with the head and neck and move all the way to the toes. If students cannot stretch out on the floor, have them sit at their desks with their heads down as you go through the exercise.

Helping students relax and teaching them how to relieve their stress is just as important as any of the basic skills in the curriculum. Equip your students with relaxation techniques that will benefit them in your classroom, as well as throughout life. It can make a significant difference in how they handle life's stresses.

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Relaxation Techniques for Students and Teachers

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The end of the year is filled with a lot of pressure and stress for both students and teachers alike. Between testing and report cards, to uncertainty about next year, the stress can build up. As all really good teachers know, the key to teaching students is to give them the tools to do things on their own.

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By following some simple guidelines, teachers can make sure that fidgets remain valuable tools and don't become distractions.

In recent years, educators have seen many fads for fidgets, from the fidget cubes to the spinner and everything in between. For some teachers, these can be valuable classroom tools, and for others, a frustrating distraction.

When working with students with sensory needs and difficulties focusing, fidgets can be a vital tool to help them stay engaged. Students with these needs can use these tools to burn off excess energy, reduce classroom anxiety, and energize their bodies to remain involved with the lesson.

The key is to pick the right kind of fidget. They need to be quiet and low-tech and serve a purpose. The students also need to be taught the appropriate way to use them. The students must know that these are tools, not toys.

3 Characteristics of Good Fidgets

1. They're quiet and unobtrusive. When we look for fidgets for our students to use, we need to think about how much noise they make. Generally, the quieter the better. This quietness isn't only about the noise they make but also about how brightly colored they are. When choosing a fidget, you want to ensure that it's not making noise that any nearby students will find distracting. Think of that person in a meeting constantly tapping or clicking their pen with nervous energy (it's usually me). That constant noise can become incredibly distracting for others.

Typically, if a fidget is made of rubber or soft plastic, it will make less noise and be less of a distraction. On top of the noise, you also need to consider how bright the fidgets are. Most marketers create bright and shiny fidgets to attract a buyer's eye in the store. That same phenomenon will happen in your classroom if you bring in bright and flashy fidgets for your students. This brightness turns them from a focusing tool into a toy.

2. They're low-tech. Think as low-tech as possible when looking for fidgets for your students. The simpler the fidget, the less likely it will turn into a toy. For a couple of my students who kept losing their fidgets this year, I improvised and gave them a small piece of yarn. They used the yarn just like any other fidget, and it was simple and got the job done.

Fidgets don't need to be expensive or cutting-edge. Most of the time, they're just something students keep in their hands to help alleviate nervous energy.

3. They serve a definite purpose. I see the behaviors that occur in the classroom but don't always know what tools students need to counter them. I find myself constantly asking our occupational therapists (OTs) for advice. I've learned that when choosing a fidget for a student, it must be purposeful. We don't want to give Jonny a fidget spinner because it will make him happy and quiet. We want to give him a fidget spinner because it will help him focus on the lesson. We want to choose the right tool for the right job.

First, it's essential to ask, "Why is this behavior happening? Is it work avoidance, attention seeking, or a sensory need?" When you can tell that it's a sensory need, we can ask, "Is the student trying to get rid of excess energy, or are they having difficulty managing the sensory input of the room?" Talk with your gen-ed teachers and OT to figure this out for your student. Once you've done this, you can choose a starting fidget.

I work with the OTs in my building to choose the correct fidget instead of having parents send in something. Many fidgets that come from home tend to be viewed as toys. Plus, getting them from the school helps keep students in the mindset that "I'm going to use this to help me complete my work and stay on task."

Transitioning Away From Fidgets

When you have found the right fidget, you have to start teaching the student how to use it and ensure that they understand it's not a toy or a prize. Once they know how to use it, you have to monitor the situation to see if it works. As time passes, the student may not need to use fidgets as much. We want them to realize that they may only need these tools at certain times, such as during a longer lesson or while reading on their own.

We don't want students to become overly dependent on fidgets but to recognize when they are becoming distracted or anxious and to use the right tool for the right job. This isn't an exact science and will need to change as the student's needs change. The important part is for them to know that fidgets are tools, how to use them, and how to self-advocate for their needs.

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Choosing the Right Fidgets for Students With Sensory Needs

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By following some simple guidelines, teachers can make sure that fidgets remain valuable tools and don't become distractions. In recent years, educators have seen many fads for fidgets, from the fidget cubes to the spinner and everything in between. For some teachers, these can be valuable classroom tools, and for others, a frustrating distraction.

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The Powerful Effects of Drawing on Learning

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The science is clear: Drawing beats out reading and writing to help students remember concepts.

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2020 Mrs. McCoy - Cause & Effect Charades

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of explicit and intentional instruction: intentionally teach how to work in teams.

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Teaching Group Work: Building Student Collaboration and Agency

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At University Park Campus School, students learn through group work that they have something to contribute.

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Research-backed ideas on how to give meaningful praise to inspire and reinforce positive behavior.

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The flexible mindset framework emphasizes metacognition and can help students understand the process of learning.

Robert Neubecker / The iSpot

You're already familiar with growth mindsets and the importance of belief systems that reframe notions of intelligence and our responses to failures. But you may have struggled with how to convince your students that they are smart while encouraging them to persist in the face of setbacks. Mindsets are more than a poster on the wall. We can't simply tell our students to "get grit."

Flexible mindsets go beyond growth mindsets by leveraging both the self-awareness and strategies needed to actualize a growth mindset. A flexible mindset is the interaction between self-awareness, adaptive strategy use, and perseverance that empowers learners to evolve and become self-directed.

Essential Elements of a Flexible Mindset

There are three key components to the flexible mindsets approach that feed each other and propel students along the path of directing their own learning journey.

Metacognition: At the core of all deeper learning is our awareness of and ability to reflect upon our own thinking and learning, or metacognition. Self-directed learners are driven by metacognitive insights, those "uh-oh" moments when we notice that what we're doing isn't working and engage in deep self-reflection about our own learning.

Positive thinking: Upon this foundation we can build I can mindset messages that tell us we can always learn and get smarter and there is value in mistakes and not knowing. The flexible mindsets framework differs from growth mindsets by being explicit about fusing our encouragement to keep trying with direct instruction and feedback about adaptive strategy use.

Executive function strategies: In our model, executive function (EF) is a set of interrelated processes such as planning, working memory, self-monitoring, and thinking flexibly. We need EF processes to understand what we need to do, figure out how to get there, and make it happen. Simply put, it's how we get stuff done.

This flexible mindset framework provides strategies you can use to give your students the tools they need to learn how to learn. Metacognitive insights and executive function strategies are the perfect partners to propel your students beyond growth mindsets.

5 Key Tools to Develop Flexible Mindsets

1. Build trusting relationships. We can begin by examining our own cultural attitudes, values, fears, and beliefs about children; how these affect our actions; and how our previous life experiences can influence current behaviors. Trust follows with the intentional use of language that tells students we are authentic, receptive, solution oriented, reliable, and committed to their needs. This lays the groundwork for co-learning and other key drivers of flexible mindsets.

2. Ground our learning in metacognition. This focuses attention on self-awareness, the perspectives of others, and what works when. Flexible mindsets extend beyond traditional measures of metacognition by building self-awareness around capacities such as curiosity, adaptability, critical thinking, complex problem-solving, and creativity.

3. Teach about the brain and mistakes. Children as young as 4 can begin to explore the brain and how we learn. Students at all levels can be taught to describe simple functions of the brain and identify their personal learning-related strengths and areas for improvement. Educators can be equipped with the science of learning: how stress can hijack the prefrontal cortex and what happens in the brain when we make mistakes.

This paves the way for us to normalize mistakes, teach students the value of not knowing, and model how to grapple with material to make it their own.

4. Provide direct instruction in learning strategies. Flexible mindsets require students to use effective strategies that are based on current evidence about how the brain learns. These strategies need to be taught purposefully, directly, and frequently for students to experience the benefits of studying smarter and appreciate the value of focusing not only on the content of what they are learning but also on how they are learning. This helps students buy into the effort required to learn and apply new strategies.

Most students have never been taught how they learn, and the strategies they come up with on their own are often ineffective. The most straightforward way to teach students about strategies is by modeling, labeling, and sharing a variety of actual strategies being used in the classroom.

5. Give feedback based on strategy use. As opposed to effort only, strategy-based feedback is specific enough that it can be measured, worked on, and used to track progress. We define flexible mindset feedback as responses that are solution-oriented, empathetic, and targeted at specific strategies. This feedback encourages us to try a different approach to a problem. Feedback is powerful when learners reflect on questions such as What strategies did I try? What am I doing that is working and not working? How many attempts did I make?

Ultimately, if we believe in equity, solutions can be found in equipping all learners with the tools they need to respond resiliently and adaptively to uncertainty and adversity. It's time to be intentional in preparing students to be curious, make mistakes, and take risks for learning.

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Guiding Students to Develop a Flexible Mindset

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The flexible mindset framework emphasizes metacognition and can help students understand the process of learning. Robert Neubecker / The iSpot You're already familiar with growth mindsets and the importance of belief systems that reframe notions of intelligence and our responses to failures.

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

A simple activity helps students feel more comfortable sharing details of their lives, a foundation for a strong classroom community.

I started this pandemic school year like so many teachers: staring at rows of empty boxes representing disabled cameras, struggling with taciturn class discussions, and even getting "Zoom-bombed." Students were showing up for the most part, but they were going through the motions, with little buy-in and enthusiasm for learning. Most important, the positive relationships and sense of classroom community that are fundamentally important to my teaching practice were not being developed.

Conversation with other English teachers led me to Monte Syrie's " smiles and frowns " activity. Once I tried it, the improvements were immediate. I had time every day to connect with every student, and students began asking one another questions about their lives.

Introducing Smiles and Frowns

I use smiles and frowns at the start of a virtual lesson, as a way of taking attendance. The instructions are simple: Share a smile for something that you're happy about or looking forward to, share a frown for something that you're unhappy about, or pass. (You may be familiar with a similar social and emotional learning activity, roses and thorns.) I start by sharing my emotional state and something from my life to model sharing something personal. I then call on each student in alphabetical order, which as Monte Syrie explains, gives me "a chance to say every kid's name, every single day."

On any given day, one student might share that he is looking forward to a visit from his grandparents, and another student might reveal that his pet was just put to sleep. When a third shares that she's nervous about an upcoming gymnastics competition and I ask her a follow-up question, the class learns that she is heading into a rigorous statewide competition. Students learn to ask each other their own follow-up questions and refer to things that were shared previously, which further builds community.

At first, I was worried that the title of the activity might sound a bit too kindergarten-y for my eighth graders, but they took right to it. I also considered doing away with the option to pass, but I found that it's key to the activity: Kids participate only if they want to, which makes it more authentic and gives them more agency.

Before introducing smiles and frowns, I would log on to our Zoom meeting to be greeted by 20 sullen faces. No matter how creative I was with breakout rooms and collaborative Jamboards, I couldn't push student engagement beyond tacit compliance. Smiles and frowns changed that entirely-virtual learning was suddenly more human.

Supporting Classroom Community

With virtual learning, it's easy to go through a marking period without getting to know students on a personal level. You can show up, deliver your instruction, and require students to submit assignments, all without developing relationships and giving students an opportunity to get to know one another.

However, we know from research and from experience that relationships, classroom community, and a sense of belonging are fundamentally important preconditions for classroom engagement and student achievement. Smiles and frowns develops classroom community on a daily basis, and it invites students to talk about what's on their minds, whether that's a basketball tournament or how they're feeling about the Derek Chauvin trial, or even what they're having for lunch that day.

Fostering Student Self-Awareness

In his landmark book Emotional Intelligence, psychologist Daniel Goleman identifies self-awareness-being tuned in to our mood, feelings, and thoughts-as one of the foundational components of emotional intelligence. Goleman explains that "there is a crucial difference between being caught up in a feeling and becoming aware that you are being swept away by it."

By making space in our lessons on a daily basis for smiles and frowns, we give students a chance to practice looking inward to identify how they are feeling, which empowers them to make a choice to accept or even change that emotional state.

Building Teacher-Student Connection

If you're like me, greeting students by name at the doorway to your classroom is part of your daily routine. But there is no doorway to a virtual classroom. Smiles and frowns can, however, serve the same purpose and help you be more aware of what's going on in your students' lives, no matter the setting. I found that once I started smiles and frowns, I asked them more casual questions more frequently, like, "How did your soccer tournament go last weekend?" "Are you catching up on sleep?" and "What are you doing to celebrate your birthday?"

Practice Speaking in a Videoconference

Zoom anxiety is real, including for students. Smiles and frowns gives students a regular, low-stakes opportunity to toggle that mute button and speak over the conference call, even if it's just to say "Pass." It might not seem like much, but this daily practice can transform the sometimes-daunting task of speaking in front of a group of peers into a routine.

Over the course of the school year, my school has transitioned from a fully remote learning model to a hybrid in which I have most students in the classroom, and a few attend remotely. In spite of the challenges that this format poses to whole-class activities, I've continued using smiles and frowns on a daily basis, and it will remain core to my practice.

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Cultivating Community With Smiles and Frowns

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) A simple activity helps students feel more comfortable sharing details of their lives, a foundation for a strong classroom community. I started this pandemic school year like so many teachers: staring at rows of empty boxes representing disabled cameras, struggling with taciturn class discussions, and even getting "Zoom-bombed."

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The 2021-22 school year began with excitement-following 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was going to be back in a classroom again! I walked through the halls of my middle school, taking in the sights of recently waxed floors, colorful signs with welcome back messages, and my beautifully decorated classroom. I let out a sigh of relief-we were going back to normal.

But it didn't take me long to realize how wrong I was. Students were pushing each other into lockers, grabbing other people's belongings and throwing them down the hall, and even hitting each other as they moved from classroom to classroom. Some were found hiding in stairwells and bathrooms and even running off campus.

Like many educators, I was utterly unprepared for the first few weeks of in-person learning. The personal and collective traumas students had experienced led to disruptive behaviors across the school and inside the classroom, resulting in lost instructional time and an inability to create a safe community.

There was an acute need to address students' behavior and safety. In 2022, 87 percent of public schools reported the pandemic had negatively impacted student social-emotional development, noting "increased incidents of classroom disruptions from student misconduct (56 percent), rowdiness outside of the classroom (49 percent), [and] acts of disrespect towards teachers and staff (48 percent)."

As students (and educators) returned to the classroom following remote learning, we had not necessarily developed the tools needed to process feelings of grief, anger, and anxiety from a lack of control during the pandemic. In response, many of us were stuck in a trauma loop of fear and immobility, unable to regulate our nervous systems.

In The Body Keeps the Score, psychiatrist Bessel Van Der Kolk writes that young people who exhibit disruptive behaviors as a result of trauma "are unlikely to be brought to reason by verbal reprimands or even suspension . . . these kids' disturbing behaviors started out as frustrated attempts to communicate distress and as misguided attempts to survive." Though this school year has seen an increased emphasis on preventing disruptive student behavior , the response has largely reactive and disciplinary, focusing on loss of privilege, detention, and suspension. Schools report feeling limited in their ability to prevent disruptive behaviors due, in part, to restricted funding and inadequate teacher training in classroom management.

As part of a proactive approach to behavior management, Van Der Kolk explains: "The critical challenge in a classroom setting is to foster reciprocity: truly hearing and being heard; truly seeing and being seen by other people."

With a more informed understanding of trauma response, I began to view our "new normal" as an opportunity to recalibrate and focus on what really matters in the classroom.

To begin assessing what was most needed to recalibrate our classroom, I decided to have conversations with my students about what could be improved. I knew this was a gamble because I was asking them to be honest and vulnerable about the challenges they were facing, and if I were unable to adequately address those issues, I might lose their trust. When I took the time to listen, however, students bravely shared many of my same concerns. They, too, felt there was a lack of compassion, empathy, and consistency in the classroom, and each student had been negatively impacted by this.

In addition to this discussion, I had students complete an anonymous survey so that they could privately share their feelings. The survey asked students about their level of joy and safety in the classroom, respect and caring by the teacher, and their ability to learn and be successful in class. Based on the discussion, the survey data, and my own trauma research, I began implementing strategies to move us out of the trauma loop and into a place of safety by focusing on three main areas: (1) Establishing clear and consistent expectations; (2) equipping students with self-regulation strategies; and (3) increasing opportunities for autonomy, choice, and play.

The specific changes listed below, while small, made a huge impact on the sense of community and safety in our classroom. These changes included:

Within eight weeks of making these changes, students completed another anonymous survey in which they self-reported a 22 percent increase in believing the classroom setup allowed them to learn and an 11 percent increase in being able to meet the learning goals they set for themselves. There was a 3 percent increase in students feeling safe in the classroom and a 15 percent increase in students believing the teacher respected them. With sustained persistence and commitment, we were on our way toward building a trauma-sensitive classroom.

Feeling reenergized and empowered by these results, I set out to replicate this process with a first-year teacher who had reached out for guidance on how to address disruptive behaviors in his classroom. After a classroom observation, discussions with both the teacher and his students, and an anonymous survey of his students, we again identified classroom needs and potential solutions. These students' needs were similar to those identified in my classroom. They centered on clear and consistent expectations; self-regulation strategies; and inclusion of autonomy, choice, and play.

The teacher implemented a few changes designed to address these needs and, after only a four-week period, students reported a 19 percent increase in meeting the learning goals they set for themselves and a 23 percent increase in the class being a safe space for students. One hundred percent of the students in the class felt the teacher respected them.

The small changes in this classroom included:

Although the specific changes in my classroom and my colleague's were different, the needs of our students were the same. They thrived when there were clear and consistent expectations; when they were given the opportunity and instruction to develop self-regulation skills; and when autonomy, choice, and play became a part of the classroom culture.

Being able to identify the needs in a particular classroom and develop specific interventions to address those needs can lead to a cohesive classroom community in which students felt safe and are better able to meet expectations.

These changes required me not only to give up a degree of control to the students over how the classroom operated but also to implement trauma-informed strategies that were not widely embraced in my school. This process was uncomfortable because the stakes were high: If this was successful, my students would benefit from a sense of belonging, agency over their learning, and self-regulation of their emotions; if unsuccessful, however, not only would my students not receive these benefits but it could discourage other educators from implementing trauma-informed practices in their own classrooms. Fortunately, my concerns were not actualized, and in the end, my students did receive the rewards I had promised.

The impact of trauma has always affected individual students and their ability to learn. But the uniqueness of the pandemic was that it created the potential for many more students to have suffered trauma. The evidence of this collective trauma can be seen in classrooms like mine where, instead of having a few students struggling, there are now whole classrooms grappling with trauma. As our understanding of trauma's impact on learning continues to grow, our practices need to evolve so that we are truly cultivating trauma-sensitive classrooms.

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The 2021-22 school year began with excitement-following 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was going to be back in a classroom again! I walked through the halls of my middle school, taking in the sights of recently waxed floors, colorful signs with welcome back messages, and my beautifully decorated classroom.

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Radcliff introduced the idea to parents during her Florida school's open house. She spoke about it and shared information through a brochure and flyer. Naturally, parents wanted to know the nuts and bolts of how Radcliff would maintain effective classroom management with flexible seating, i.e., could the students handle the autonomy?

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The Best Way to Make Students Feel Valued, Known, and Respected... - Dave Stuart Jr.

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is to actually value, know, and respect them.

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We all know that when children aren't well, they're less likely to learn.

More and more teachers recognize that children who can't sit still in class, act out, or have asthma may be showing warning signs of a toxic exposure to childhood trauma.

More than two decades ago, landmark research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente found that exposure to adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs-ranging from parental addiction to abuse, neglect, or divorce-can have lasting effects on children's health. These ACEs can lead to abnormal levels of stress hormones-a condition known by doctors as toxic stress, which increases kids' risk of serious illnesses including asthma and diabetes, as well as long-term problems including heart disease and cancer later in life.

But the science also tells us that two things are clear: Early intervention improves outcomes, and safe, stable, nurturing relationships can be healing for children. With nearly 35 million children across the country at risk for toxic stress, what if the person giving the biggest daily dose of healing treatment for toxic stress isn't a doctor or a therapist, but a teacher?

As education researchers have found, stress can change brain architecture, making it more difficult for children to focus and learn. When a child's fight or flight response is constantly triggered by adverse experiences such as abuse or neglect, the child's nervous systems can become dysregulated, which can also affect thinking, decisionmaking, emotional control, and learning. This makes it more likely that children will experience negative academic outcomes such as poor grades, an increased risk of suspensions, or dropping out of school all together.

Although scientists used to think the brain circuitry was "set" around age 6, they have recently found the brain is malleable well into the 20s. As such, the brains of students who've experienced trauma can also be "rewired" for greater connection and feelings of security. To do so, it's essential to design an education system that takes into account our new knowledge of the developing brain. One of the most important findings is that for students who've experienced trauma and adversity, caring, secure relationships, and trust can restore their ability to learn.

How might schools incorporate these important findings? Teachers want to offer social-emotional learning, but many are unsure how to do so. Here are 10 practical, low- or no-cost strategies for turning things around:

1. Immerse your school in trauma-informed approaches. Such approaches focus on infusing the values of safety, trust, collaboration, choice, empowerment, and equity into all learning environments. Trauma-informed teaching is less about following a checklist than adopting a new way of doing business as a school.

2. Create a positive school climate that offers long-term, secure relationships between teachers and students. These relationships support academic, physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development-an approach known as whole-child education-that can help children overcome trauma and toxic stress.

3. Incorporate practices that address belonging and safety. Neuroscientists have found kids need a feeling of safety and connection in order to thrive. As a recent Edutopia video series on how learning happens demonstrates, something as simple as greeting children at the door each day with a hug, high-five, or handshake can help develop an atmosphere of trust, safety, and caring.

4. Implement one-on-one time with the teacher. Giving children a few moments of private time each day will help students feel cared about and soothed, experts say.

5. Create "safe" corners in the classroom. Children should have space if they need to take a break and regroup. This respite is particularly important if children are suffering from trauma or toxic stress.

6. Be predictable. As the Houston-based psychiatrist and trauma expert Bruce Perry writes, "If a schedule is consistent, but the teacher is not, there is no predictability for the child." Your smile and the calm rhythm of your voice can make a child feel safe, he explains.

7. Make sure your students are eating nutritious food and have time to move and play at school. Study after study shows that healthy students perform better on tests, attend school more often, and behave better in class. With this in mind, schools should ensure that students have nutritious meals and snacks (including during celebrations, where it can be easy to default to less-nutritious foods like birthday cake) as well as regular opportunities to be physically active.

8. Hang up reminders to use "talk moves" for classroom discussions. Taping helpful conversational formulas to the wall for kids to refer to-"What do you think?" or "I heard you say X-could you explain that?"-can help children get into a classroom discussion and feel more connected socially. This is especially helpful in getting shy students to join the conversation.

9. Boost engagement with phrases like "I wonder" and "I notice." Encouraging students to use these phrases in conversation can clue in teachers about what and how children are learning. This can make it easier to pinpoint gaps and reach out to students who need help, which may reduce their anxiety about learning.

10. Teach and model social-emotional learning. Showing kids how to calm themselves, work out conflicts, and name emotions helps everyone in the classroom better focus on learning and promotes academic and social development.

While sleep, exercise, nutrition, and mindfulness are critical to help children heal the impact of toxic stress, research suggests it is the cumulative dose of positive student and teacher interactions that makes the biggest difference.

Of course, these suggestions are just one piece of a bigger puzzle for mitigating the impact of toxic stress. Children who experience more severe or frequent ACEs, such as abuse or household instability, will likely need more interventions beyond those that even a caring, nurturing teacher can provide, and referrals to counseling and community resources are likely the next step. But using the above strategies can do wonders for easing toxic stress in the classroom.

What's especially gratifying is that most of these science-based teaching practices are simple ones. They don't need expensive technology. They don't require specialists or extra rooms. And they can be easily incorporated into almost any school. Even a daily hug or high five from a caring teacher can help kids thrive.

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10 Simple Steps for Reducing Toxic Stress in the Classroom (Opinion)

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We all know that when children aren't well, they're less likely to learn. More and more teachers recognize that children who can't sit still in class, act out, or have asthma may be showing warning signs of a toxic exposure to childhood trauma.

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Provide necessary skills and modeling to support students in regulating emotions and managing stress (SEL).

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Provide necessary skills and modeling to support students in regulating emotions and managing stress (SEL).

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This is a PBSES Proactive Classroom Management Strategy, as well!

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This is a PBSES Proactive Classroom Management Strategy, as well!

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Engagement isn't something you can infer from smiling faces or a classroom arrangement. Engagement is what the brain attends to.
Source: Teacher-blogger Blake Harvard

Should students sit in rows?

In my view, there are only two silly answers to this question:

The answer, as all sensible folks know, is more nuanced: it depends.

In my room, students sit in pairs, and those pairs are situated in columns and rows. This is what my Powerschool seating chart looks like.

I used to have students sit in groups of four, facing each other in pods. I found this sub-optimal, mainly because too many of my students were needing to exert too much effort too much of the time to focus on something besides the folks they were sitting at the table with. E.g., when they were doing things like this -

Writing

Reading

Having a pair talk

Listening to direct instruction or another student

- they were needing to put cognitive effort into not being distracted by the faces sitting across from them.

So, for my class, I find that the most learning-conducive environment is the one organized like you see in the seating chart above.

Anti-row folks would say that in such a room, students are being treated like industrial widgets. Community cannot be fostered in such a room. Such a seating format is militaristic or prison-like. In this kind of a place, it's all about the teacher, the sage on the stage.

There was a brief time in my career where I even bought in to this kind of thinking.

But then I started noticing row-seating classrooms run by competent colleagues in which the classroom vibe was

Highly engaging,

Warmly communal, and

Deeply humanizing.

In fact, they were much more so than my own group-seating room was. And I started to realize that it was because I was placing such a tax on my students' effort levels by seating them in a way that wasn't best for the kind of learning work we most often do in my class (i.e., writing, reading, speaking and listening, knowledge-building, arguing - see my book).

In other words, it turned out that the seating chart wasn't the deal-maker or the deal-breaker. As comforting as either-or thinking can be with its black-and-white certainties, pedagogical decisions often resists dogmatic oversimplification.

And so in my room with rows, I find that:

My students have less to tune out when trying to work independently.

They can be comfortable when I am giving direct instruction at the front of the room, not needing to crane their necks.

They can be comfortable when we're doing something on the document camera or the projector screen.

They can still interact with one another every single day (e.g., through Think-Pair-Share, Conversation Challenge, and Pop-up Debate).

So, should your students sit in rows? My answer is that it depends on what kind of work they're most often going to be doing.

But in my room, yes: students should.

Best,

DSJR

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Should Students Sit in Rows? - Dave Stuart Jr.

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Engagement isn't something you can infer from smiling faces or a classroom arrangement. Engagement is what the brain attends to. Source: Teacher-blogger Blake Harvard Should students sit in rows? In my view, there are only two silly answers to this question: The answer, as all sensible folks know, is more nuanced: it depends.

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By teaching students how to identify, process, and communicate their feelings, educators give them a set of tools they can use throughout their lives to calm themselves, navigate conflict, and build stronger relationships. Looking for resources cited in this video?

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Unit Planning Strategies from Dr. Stembridge

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Unit Planning Strategies from Dr. Stembridge

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Connects to the High Leverage Instructional Practice of explicit and intentional instruction: Establish instructional goals including what students will know, do, and feel.

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A variety of exercises that promote self-regulation can function as elements of a safe and supportive learning environment.

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Trauma-Informed Practices

A variety of exercises that promote self-regulation can function as elements of a safe and supportive learning environment.

During craft time, an alarming hush overtook the second-grade classroom. A student, usually cheerful and self-assured, sat under a desk, head lurching side to side, emanating distress that unnerved the class. No amount of empathy or encouragement from the teacher elicited a response from the child. After the class was sent outside for recess, the trauma-informed school psychologist collected the student and walked the child to the counseling office.

To the teacher's surprise, the student returned to the classroom smiling and animated after only 80 minutes with the counselor.

"The transformation is unbelievable," the teacher said. "How in the world did you do that?"

"We walked around the playground, then drew sailboats," the psychologist said. " Talking helps with trauma. Getting a child to do something physical also helps."

Trauma and Common Classroom Interventions

Sustained toxic stress-ongoing and repeated exposure to situations that overwhelm a child's ability to cope-can cause a child to stay on high alert indefinitely. The nervous system becomes dysregulated, excessive cortisol is produced, and the hippocampus shrinks. As a consequence, memory and concentration problems severely degrade academic performance and negatively impact peer-to-peer and peer-to-teacher relationships.

Whether or not the educator has observed survivor behaviors associated with trauma (such as overwhelming fear and social withdrawal), teachers can support traumatized students by taking the following steps:

Communicate care (Example: Celebrate student successes, big and small, and listen to children to get to know them.)

Provide a predictable, respectful, and safe classroom environment (Example: Communicate expectations for how students should treat each other, and model how to build relationships.)

Be transparent and build trustworthiness: Be open about your own teaching practices, goals, and beliefs, and follow through on these priorities.

Expand on students' competence and empowerment (Example: Encourage students to make choices about what and how they will learn, and relate new learning to students' strengths and experiences.)

Connect students to classmates and counseling resources (Example: Invite the school counselor to model to your class how to build peer-to-peer relationships.)

Help students make sound choices (Example: Provide students with options for what they read, and let them choose based on interest.)

Foster cultural connections (Example: Invite diverse leaders in the community to discuss their cultures, or explore curricula to authentically include culture within instruction.)

Teach self-calming techniques (Example: Show students how to engage in progressive muscle relaxation.)

Incorporate laughter and joy into the school day (Example: Children can perform skits based on content they've learned.)

Beyond those recognized approaches, teachers can safely and confidently incorporate stress-reducing physical activities into the school day, even without formal training in trauma-informed practices.

Physical Activities and Classroom Motor Tasks Help Lower Stress

Unsurprisingly, the effectiveness of using exercise to complement clinical approaches for alleviating trauma symptoms is well documented. Physical exercise produces endorphins, reduces the fight-or-flight response, and improves physical confidence, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Teachers can offer students the following specific physical practices that lower the stress hormone cortisol:

Intentional movement activities that students enjoy, such as painting or working with clay

Low-intensity walks, ideally performed in nature

Belly breathing

Yoga and stretching (see "5 Poses to Calm Overwhelmed Kids" from Class Yoga Kids by Helen Clare)

These activities and other exercise breaks benefit every student, not just those surviving trauma. After your class participates in these activities, you may see their energy mellow in just a few minutes.

According to a 2019 study of 71 elementary school students, increasing motor skills also improves children's chronic stress response. The researchers theorize that reducing the mental load of coordination frees up cognitive resources to negotiate complex emotions. Also, focusing on a concrete physical task can afford students a much-needed distraction. The following classroom activities involve motor skills and help students regulate their emotions:

Pouring juice into cups during snack time

Sponging off desks or cleaning whiteboards

Using flash cards or playing card games

Coloring

Opening containers and distributing items

Playing rhythm and rhyme games

Participating in a nondominant-hand drawing challenge (for fourth grade and up)

Some physical education routines can be modified for use in the classroom, such as pinpoint, magic cauldron, on the edge, and cooperative (wadded paper ball) tennis. Dan Batty describes all four games in his short video.
Classroom strength activities
Do Strength Activities Lower Stress?
Playground or gym strength activities
Strength exercises (not the same as powerlifting) have a positive impact on physical and psychological manifestations of trauma. For kids as young as age 7 or 8, light resistance, body-weight exercises, and controlled movements work best, but don't overtax the same muscle groups for more than one day in a row. Here are some strength exercises to try:

Passing out heavy textbooks

Squats or wall sits

Heel-raise sticker game

Tennis ball squeezing

Rearranging desks and/or chairs

Squats

Climbing on playground equipment

Rope climbing

Superman exercise

Parachute cooperative play

Tug of war

Total body resistance exercise (TRX)

Jane Clapp, a trauma-recovery coach specializing in movement, recommends balancing exercises such as standing on one leg or crawling because they trigger the nervous system's "righting reflex" to foster better self-regulation. However, discourage children from building human pyramids as many schools have banned them for causing serious injuries.

Implement These Practices Under Advisement

When combined with general trauma-informed interventions and trauma-sensitive practices, integration of movement into the school day supports emotional regulation and reduces students' stress, especially when these activities incorporate play. Always consult with your school counselor, administration, and parents when applying practices and routines that could affect traumatized students. Some children experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder or other traumas may be exercise avoidant, so start slowly with gentle movements.

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Using Movement to Help Reduce Students' Trauma Responses

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Trauma-Informed Practices A variety of exercises that promote self-regulation can function as elements of a safe and supportive learning environment. During craft time, an alarming hush overtook the second-grade classroom. A student, usually cheerful and self-assured, sat under a desk, head lurching side to side, emanating distress that unnerved the class.

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My students had been back in our building for just a few weeks last spring when the collective mood plummeted. The kids were thrilled to be together, but they also were exhausted, sensitive, insecure, and wiggly. Some felt constricted by the tedium of the social distancing rules, others were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of social interactions, and some resisted coming to school at all.

To get a better read on the situation, Jessica Donovan, the head of Sheridan School in Washington, D.C., (where I work as a counselor), and I visited several classrooms. "We know you're having a hard time," we told our K-8 students. "We've never been through a pandemic, and we worry we're not doing enough. We want to know how we can help you."

We used the metaphor of an iceberg to get them thinking about the difference between what they projected to the world (or what they perceived they projected) and how they actually felt below the water line. In written responses, they used adjectives such as confident, playful, smart, and happy to describe how they thought others saw them, but chose words like unmotivated, anxious, and lonely to describe their internal state.

One student wrote, "I was afraid to come back to school because I had gained so much weight."

Another said, "I'm desperate for attention."

And a third student told us that they "carry a massive bucket of stress around that's always on the verge of tipping over."

The research confirms that students across the country are-and will be-struggling in different ways. A March 2021 survey of parents of younger elementary school students found that more than 25 percent of the respondents' children were hiding mistakes, struggling to adapt, and giving up after failing once (Morin, 2021). Another survey of more than 10,000 high school students found that student stress had increased and engagement with learning had decreased during the pandemic (NBC News/Challenge Success, 2021). And finally, according to a national poll conducted by the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, 46 percent of parents believed their teens were more depressed and anxious (Mostafavi, 2021).

Given these statistics, educators will undoubtedly need to focus on fostering hope and healing as students settle into a new routine this fall-and well into the future. As pediatric psychologist Mona Delahooke, author of Beyond Behaviors (PESI Publishing & Media, 2017), emphasizes, "Relational health is the key to development and learning, and teachers are the most important therapeutic tool."

I recently had the chance to speak with some of the nation's top education and mental health experts, including Delahooke, on ways that schools can mindfully approach pandemic recovery. The strategies they described don't have a shelf life. In fact, as we enter education's "new era," safeguarding students' mental health and well-being will be key to ensuring their future success.

Here are six ways educators can shore up students' social skills, bolster their confidence and sense of self-efficacy, and improve their overall emotional well-being.

1 . Address any social awkwardness and rebuild trust.

Students' social skills are likely to be rusty, and they may need help with even basic conversations. Normalize the fact that many kids will feel insecure and awkward, and talk about behaviors that promote healthy conversation, such as making eye contact and asking open-ended questions. Ryan DeLapp, a child psychologist with the Montefiore Health System in New York, suggests that teachers regularly provide conversation starters-such as a question about a favorite food or activity-so everyone can practice "being in the spotlight, asking others 'who, what, when, where, why' questions, and providing details when others ask them questions."

Conflict resolution may be a challenge, too, especially if students lost connections they had before the pandemic, says Brad Weinstein, author of Hacking School Discipline (Times 10 Publications, 2019). "When conflict occurs, they'll have less social capital, and it will be harder to give one another the benefit of the doubt." To counteract knee-jerk reactions, help students assume positive intent. For example, if a student tells you that a classmate ignored him, validate his hurt feelings and ask him to consider other, more benign explanations for his peer's behavior. You might ask, "Is it possible your mask muffled your words, and he didn't hear you?"

Teachers and counselors can also coach students on how to limit social drama in the first place, says Amy Morin, editor-in-chief of Verywell Mind and author of 13 Things Strong Kids Do: Think Big, Feel Good, Act Brave (HarperCollins, 2021). "Explain that when you're really frustrated, it's not a good time to have a conversation. If you wake up irritable, your fuse isn't as long and you may need to calm your brain and body" before interacting.

When a student's fuse does blow, help them work through the situation-and work collaboratively to identify the underlying reason for their behavior. "It's never been more important to use restorative practices, to seek to understand what's going on that we can't see," notes Weinstein.

2. Ask what they need (and make it easy to get help).

Make yourself visible in the building and verbalize that you want to help. When 6th graders returned to Silver Creek Middle School in Bethesda, Maryland, last spring, they had never stepped foot in the building before, recalls Susan Levine, chair of the counseling department. "We didn't know them and they didn't know us. [However], we knew the fastest way to get to know them was to be present where they were."

Silver Creek counselors roamed the halls during transition times, pushing carts loaded with masks, sanitizer, fidget toys, mandala coloring books, tissues, and laptops so they could help students keep track of their assignments, stay organized, and meet deadlines. At lunch, they led mindfulness activities with students. If a child requested a 1:1 appointment, they walked to their classroom to pick them up.

The most expedient way to learn what students need is to ask them. When my head of school and I went into our 5th and 6th grade classrooms, students told us they wanted playtime with puppies, snacks, and more time for socializing, fun, and catching up on work. Most of their requests were doable. Donovan brought her own dog to school, and teachers tried to mix things up, whether they took students outside for an unscheduled break to do word games and eat popsicles or they took an impromptu "field trip" to a neighborhood park. Our team also incorporated post-lunch walks for students and swapped one morning meeting a week for free time. Instead of following the regular advisory curriculum, students used the period to hang out with friends, play outside, or catch up on schoolwork.

On the heels of a traumatic event like the pandemic, children will need structure-to know what they can expect with certainty-but they will also benefit from some novelty. As New York University researchers reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, being exposed to a variety of experiences can increase your happiness (2020). It's OK to shake things up: For example, our school brought in an inflatable obstacle course for PE one day and Fletcher Elementary in San Diego hosted a memorable competition for charity. When students surpassed a fundraising goal, their principal, Jeff Friedenberg, made good on his promise to take a couple of pies to the face-and a few teachers even got slimed.

To achieve balance, schools must ensure students have a predictable schedule and consistent behavioral expectations, while also finding ways to lighten the mood and vary the routine.

3. Find ways to address issues around identity.

Students will need structural supports, such as affinity groups and advisories, that allow them to share and process feelings related to their identity and experiences. This is especially true for LGBTQ students and students of color. In a 2020 Trevor Project survey, 41 percent of LGBTQ children stated that COVID-19 impacted their ability to express their LGBTQ identity, and LGBTQ children were 1.75 times more likely than their peers to experience symptoms of anxiety or depression.

Similarly, public health researchers found that Hispanic and Black children experienced disproportionately more adverse mental health outcomes during the pandemic than their white peers (White, Liburd, & Coronado, 2021).

This is a good time to reinforce ground rules about what it means to be a compassionate classmate. Establish norms that might include recognizing that everyone has a different back story and is worthy of respect, that it's never OK to laugh at someone, and that students will be held accountable if they say or do something that's demeaning. Let students know that they can come to you if bullying or other problems occur.

"People think of fostering resilience in children as doing more good things, but what we know from science is that the first order of business is to reduce unkindness, [including] victimization or rejection by peers," says Suniya Luthar, professor emerita at Teachers College at Columbia University and cofounder of Authentic Connections, an organization that seeks to foster resilience in school communities.

Our collective reservoirs are empty, Luthar emphasizes. "Given the sheer length of time and level of stress, fear, and grief that we've all faced, everyone's exhausted. With this exhaustion, some of us have tended to shut down or withdraw from others, and some have become more thin-skinned and irritable." This is true for both children and adults, who may be less empathetic and more likely to lash out at others.

4. Take steps to reach defeated and depleted students.

Whether a child is a high achiever who stumbled during virtual learning or is one of the three million students who dropped out of school during the first few months of the pandemic (Korma, O'Keefe, & Repka, 2020) and may be returning with a gap in formal education, many kids are going to be academically insecure. They also may be physically and mentally exhausted, unmotivated, less attentive, and more disorganized.

Rick Wormeli, author of Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessing & Grading in the Differentiated Classroom (Stenhouse, 2018), recommends breaking up lessons to help students re-engage in school. "Instead of reading 30 pages," he explains, "read four and then have a creative interaction with the text."

Try giving students choice in how they present evidence of their learning, too. "If they don't test well," Wormeli says, "let them create a podcast or a series of TikToks to show what they know." It's not worth getting hung up on the method in which students express understanding: Teachers can make a point of asking students questions that give them more agency, such as: "How would you like to demonstrate your learning?"

It may seem counterintuitive, but less is more, especially this year. "Teachers may have this impulse to catch up, but be mindful-you can't do 'double time' in expectations now," explains Luthar. "We've got to recognize that children who are stressed to the max are simply not able to work with a ramped-up workload."

This will be true even when the pandemic is a distant memory. As I often remind parents, no one performs better because they're told they're lacking or that the stakes are high.

5. Help them ground themselves in their bodies.

At first, as in-person schooling resumes, students might be more mellow and exhibit fewer behavioral issues because they have fewer interactions overall, Weinstein predicts. "Students may be spaced out, and there may not be a lot of group work, specials, or gatherings in the cafeteria. It's [going to be] a sterile, less vibrant environment."

Once students become more comfortable, however, their frustrations will surface in the classroom. "Some students will be in the red zone, which means their bodies will need to move," says Delahooke. "These are not necessarily intentional behaviors. They're literally trying to maintain their autonomic state of attention and regulation." Others will be in the blue zone and will look detached and uninterested. Those who aren't "making eye contact, appear to be sad, or are isolated from teachers and peers may need the most human connection and encouragement," explains Delahooke.

Educators can help students recognize when they're beginning to feel dysregulated-perhaps their heart starts to beat faster or their hands get clammy. Teach students how to activate the parasympathetic wing of the nervous system and fend off the body's stress response with simple actions. For instance, students can give themselves a self-hug, splash cold water on their face, tense and release their shoulders, breathe deeply, or apply pressure to the acupoint at the base of their thumb.

Wormeli recommends keeping a basket of fidget toys in the classroom-filled with items such as stress balls or tiny puzzles-that can help students focus. "It's a kind of intellectual white noise and defuses the excess energy that would have been used to text a friend or poke [a classmate]."

During the pandemic, my students stopped by my counseling office more frequently to borrow fidget toys, such as bubble poppers and expandable mesh tubes. Older middle and high school students can benefit from fidgets as well, but they may prefer more discrete objects, such as metal anti-stress rings or small stretchy bands.

Most of my students expressed relief when I reassured them that others also were struggling to maintain attention. Educators can use these types of exchanges to normalize a child's discomfort and convey that they want to offer support.

6. Nurture the adults who need to nurture students.

When Luthar surveyed teachers about their mental health in May 2020, roughly 20 percent reported high levels of burnout, but that number jumped to 40 percent this spring. "We've been talking so much about the children's needs and the lost year, but we know from the science of resilience that the well-being of children under adversity rests primarily on the adults who care for them-including parents, caregivers, and teachers-and nearly half of school adults can be emotionally exhausted by their work," she says.

One way that schools can nurture and care for staff, Luthar advises, is by bringing in trained facilitators to run groups in which educators can process all the stress, fear, grief, anger, and exhaustion they've been experiencing. Much like students, teachers will need an emotional outlet, flexibility, attainable expectations, and a reasonable workload. If school leaders want to nurture teachers, they need to model patience and forgiveness and encourage self-compassion.

Teachers aren't the only adults who will need special attention, however. "One of my greatest concerns is the damage that's been done to close relationships," says Luthar. All sorts of relationships have been tested-including ones between parents and school officials, staff members and administrators, and teachers and their colleagues.

"Communities have experienced some unbridled anger around decisions on school closure, use of masks, distance learning, and so on," explains Luthar. "We have to prioritize healing of frayed networks because it's these relationships that will help us deal effectively with the challenges that still lie ahead."

Play to Your Strengths

There's no manual for helping vulnerable children-or adults-to thrive in the aftermath of a pandemic, but we can start by ensuring that everyone feels seen, nurtured, and valued. To accomplish that, double down on whatever you do best, whether you're adept at earning a child's trust, marshalling resources to help a family in crisis, or bringing levity to a lesson. Make a point of noticing your colleagues' and students' strengths and contributions, too. After such a tumultuous year, the simple act of showing compassion may be the most impactful and enduring gift we can give one another.

Reflect & Discuss

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Fostering Hope, Healing, and Well-Being - ASCD

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My students had been back in our building for just a few weeks last spring when the collective mood plummeted. The kids were thrilled to be together, but they also were exhausted, sensitive, insecure, and wiggly. Some felt constricted by the tedium of the social distancing rules, others were overwhe

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Cookie Monster Practices Self-Regulation | Life Kit Parenting | NPR

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When we intentionally track moments of genuine connection with students, starting with the first day of school, a few important things happen:

We connect with every kid. Using a clipboard and a single sheet of paper with all 120 or so of my students' names, I can quickly see who I've connected with lately, and who I haven't.

We get better at connecting, faster. Genuinely connecting with a child - and by this, I mean creating a 1-3 minute situation in which that child feels known, valued, or respected - is a skill. Complex, yes - it's more like painting a picture than tying your shoes - but a skill nonetheless. As such, it requires earnest practice. If you track moments of genuine connection, you'll be more likely to put in the work.

Kids will have more reason to believe that they belong in your class. I want all of my students to believe that people like them do work like the work we'll do in my class. Not only do we do the work - we do it with care. Many of my students do not walk into the classroom holding this belief - and many of yours don't, either. The good news is that, through moments of genuine connection, we can cultivate this Belonging belief during the few minutes we have, here and there, at the start or end of a class, or during independent work time, and so on.

Kids will think you're a better teacher. The Credibility belief is affected by students' perceptions of our CCP: Care, Competence, and Passion. Moments of genuine connection greatly enhance the degree to which kids find us to be caring. (I outline all five key beliefs beneath student motivation here.)​

Moments of genuine connection aren't resource-intensive; they don't require intensive planning or huge swaths of our time. Financially, they're free - zero drain on the budget. Except for the clipboard.

So: get the clipboard, get all the names on a single sheet of paper, and print a few copies of that sheet. And then, get to work.

Before you dive in, a quick reminder: The point of your class isn't moments of genuine connection. If we spend all our time and energy connecting with kids and none of it teaching them to master our course material, then we're forsaking the call. We've got to create a higher standard for ourselves than that. So we use a very small amount of strategies (like moments of genuine connection, or pop-up debates, or purposeful annotation) to yield greater amounts of mastery, all the while keeping in view that the point of mastering world history or biology or calculus or physical education is that it promotes the long-term flourishing of a child.

I don't send my children to school each day hoping that they'll connect with the teacher. I assume that the teacher will work to connect with my child so as to maximize my child's growth in that teacher's class, which will in turn increase her odds of flourishing long-term.

So: make them consistent, and keep them in perspective of the long-term goals we have for our work. And don't forget to make them real - the word genuine is there for a reason. Because when they're genuine, one more cool thing starts to happen besides the bulleted list above: we increase the odds that, today, there will be moments of joy for us.

These themes and strategies are treated in greater depth in my book, These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most.

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Moments of Genuine Connection: A Piece of Paper, a Clipboard, and a Goal - Dave Stuart Jr.

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Neat Update, Fall 2020: This strategy has been featured at Cult of Pedagogy! You can find it here. When we intentionally track moments of genuine connection with students, starting with the first day of school, a few important things happen: We connect with every kid.

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As adults, we encourage our students to dream big, but many times students don't understand how to set goals and make plans to make their dreams a reality. In fact, many students believe results are more often a matter of luck.

With this goal setting worksheet, we'll help you teach them to create their own luck by thinking about what they want and making a plan to achieve it.

After completing the activity, we encourage you to periodically review the goals with each of your students. In addition, please consider using our vision board ideas worksheets for a follow-up lesson.

Note: We have provided an age appropriate, goal setting worksheet for both younger and older students.

Recommended Grade Level: All

SEL Skill(s): Emotion Regulation, Impulse Control

Duration: 30 minutes

Materials:

Goal Setting Worksheet Instructions

Prompt: "What does it mean when someone says 'good luck!' or 'you're lucky?'

Some people think that finding a four leaf clover can bring you luck. Today we're going to learn how we can make our own luck!

If you have a dream or a goal, the best way to reach that goal is to make a plan. For example, suppose I want to make the soccer team but I've never played soccer. What are some ways I can put a plan in place and prepare? I might:

Get a soccer ball

Practice at home

Ask a friend that plays soccer for help

I'm sure you all have something you'd like to do or would love to have, and now, we're going to work on creating plans to make our own luck!"
Pass out goal setting worksheet
Prompt: "A goal is something we dream about or want. A lot of people say 'follow your dreams' or 'dream big' and we should, but we need to have a plan in place to work towards it. Some steps we can take to do this are:

1. Write down your goal (the thing that you want)

2. Think about how you can make it happen (your plan)

3. Write down your plan

4. Follow your plan and don't give up!

Prompt: Now, think about a dream you have. It can be something you've wanted to do at home or school, etc. Write it down in the space where it says "goal" on your worksheet.

Next, think about how you can make that happen. What do you need to do, or do you need help with in order to make that goal a reality? When you have some ideas, write them in the next spaces provided.

For older students: Have them write a date that they will reach this goal by. Walk through how to make a realistic end date so they are giving themselves enough time to attain the goal. Discuss a few positive sayings that they can remind themself of when they are working hard towards this goal.

Sometimes fear can get in the way of going for a goal. You should encourage your students to pinpoint and identify the source of their fear from the start so they don't create obstacles for reaching their goal.

After your students complete a goal setting worksheet, make copies to keep on hand to review. Encourage students to take their worksheet home and keep it in a place they can see it every day.

Would You Like Free Lessons Each Week?

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As adults, we encourage our students to dream big, but many times students don't understand how to set goals and make plans to make their dreams a reality. In fact, many students believe results are more often a matter of luck.

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A resource from Kids First From Day One by Christine Hertz & Kristine Mraz

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Heinemann. A division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

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Check out an extended sample of Kids First From Day One by Christine Hertz and Kristine Mraz. Heinemann Publishing

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Kids First from Day One: A Teacher’s... book by Kristine Mraz

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Buy a cheap copy of Kids First from Day One: A Teacher’s... book by Kristine Mraz. This book is a place to start creating the classroom of your dreams from the very first minute of school, a classroom that is research based, child centered, and... Free Shipping on all orders over $15.

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How to Turn Dreams into Reality with the WOOP Method

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Learn how to turn your dreams into reality using psychologist Gabriele Oettingen's WOOP method for setting goals, identifying obstacles, and achieving success.

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Some of the first adorable patients to trickle into Dr. Nadine Burke Harris's pediatric clinic when it opened in 2007-long before she was named the first surgeon general of California-were referred by teachers and principals.

Sitting in her examination rooms back then, in one of San Francisco's poorest neighborhoods, Burke Harris knew almost immediately that something was amiss. Her young patients arrived with tentative diagnoses of oppositional defiant disorder or learning deficits, but routine exams uncovered a host of more serious physical ailments: asthma, autoimmune hepatitis, and even growth failure. Almost inevitably, the children's caretakers-also sick with advanced diabetes, heart disease, or cancer-relayed harrowing stories of family incarceration, sexual abuse, and even murder.

"I'd have this snapshot of multigenerational adversity in one room," Burke Harris said, still looking worried decades later. How did the pieces fit together? What did a learning problem have to do with asthma, or with exposure to trauma? Could any of it be connected to terminal conditions like cancer?

An answer arrived "like a bolt of lightning" in 2008, when Burke Harris read a seminal study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) linking childhood trauma-which the researchers called adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)-to dramatically higher rates of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes in middle-aged patients. Burke Harris's own groundbreaking research in 2011 completed the picture, revealing an astonishing relationship between childhood trauma and the onset of learning and behavioral issues.

Today, the implications of those insights still feel revolutionary, blowing a hole in pious American myths about equity, social mobility, and financial success. Our good fortune, or rotten luck, is "written into our biology," Burke Harris asserts in her 2018 book, The Deepest Well -wired into synapses and coiled within strands of DNA-where it exerts a stealthy and persistent influence on our bodies and minds, for better or worse.

For children with ACEs, the damage is reversible, and teachers can help, Burke Harris says-but she's adamant that they can't do it alone. "We all have to play our positions," she insists, emphasizing the need for broader coordination between medical, educational, and emergency systems. "It's unfair to ask teachers to be therapists or doctors. The role of educators is in delivering that daily dose of buffering care that's so important for healing."

I sat down with Burke Harris recently to talk about how she came to her vocation, whether our traditional school disciplinary policies are supported by science, and how she overcame her skepticism about meditation.

STEPHEN MERRILL: In your book The Deepest Well, you say your father taught you that "there is a molecular mechanism behind every natural phenomenon." There's just such a deep curiosity about how the world works running through the book.

NADINE BURKE HARRIS: Yeah. That is just part of my DNA. It's the way that I was raised-my dad is an organic chemist. When we were little kids-when my four brothers and I were throwing paper airplanes at each other-your typical parent would be like, "Stop that or else you'll put an eye out."

My dad would come in and he would say, "OK, let's time your throws. Then let's measure the distance so we can calculate the velocity. Then we know that gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared, so we can calculate the lift under the wings." It was science all day, every day in my house.

MERRILL: Right, and on one level the book reads like a scientific mystery. At your clinic, you're surrounded by kids with really serious illnesses-but for years the "molecular mechanism" beneath them eludes you. Can you take me back to that moment in 2008 when you were handed the CDC's study on ACEs? What were you feeling when you read that?

BURKE HARRIS: It was like being hit with a bolt of lightning. You remember in that movie The Matrix, when all of a sudden Neo can see what the universe is really made out of? It was just such a validation-a coming together of all of these disparate pieces-that I feel I had been seeing throughout my career.

Keep in mind, I had done research in college about the effects of stress hormones like cortisol and how they affect development. And I had been-day in, day out-caring for patients at Bayview Hunters Point clinic, hearing their stories and seeing over and over again how they were impacted by the harms of poverty, trauma, and adversity.

Almost every cell in your body has a receptor for cortisol. When the stress response is triggered too frequently, or too severely, it can change the structure and function of children's developing brains, their immune and hormonal systems-and even the way their DNA is read and transcribed. Those changes are what we now refer to as a toxic stress response.

MERRILL: You've said that school-aged children with ACEs often present with oppositional defiant disorder, impulse control issues, or difficulty focusing. What can teachers do? Does the science support social and emotional learning (SEL)?

BURKE HARRIS: Absolutely. Those are the tools to help kids understand how to recognize and regulate their emotions and their behaviors. One of the things that I think is really crucial: As a doctor, I may be the one who's screening for ACEs, but I might see the child at the most a couple of times a year.

Educators can deliver the daily doses of healing interactions that truly are the antidote to toxic stress. And just as the science shows that it's the cumulative dose of early adversity that's most harmful, it also shows that the cumulative dose of healing nurturing interactions is most healing.

Giving children the tools to understand how to recognize what's going on with them, then how to respond-especially to be able to calm their bodies down-truly is healing.

MERRILL: I think our teachers will be glad to hear it.

BURKE HARRIS: I cannot tell you the number of kids that I have cared for who, when I say to them, "You know what? Because of what you've experienced, your body might be making more stress hormones than it should. That can look and feel like being quick to anger, or having trouble controlling your impulses, or getting sick easily"-I can't tell you the number of kids who have looked at me and literally said, "Oh, you mean I'm not crazy?"

Many of our kids have been told that they are the problem. Helping them to understand that what's going on in their bodies is actually a normal response to the abnormal circumstance that they find themselves in, giving them tools to understand how to calm themselves down, how to keep themselves safe, how to connect with nurturing relationships-I've seen it be life-changing and life-saving.

MERRILL: Have you given thought to whether our discipline policies in schools are informed by science? Are punitive tactics like loss of recess, shaming, expulsion, suspension-are those going to work for kids with trauma?

BURKE HARRIS: I have a feeling that is a setup, but I'm grateful for it [laughs]. Because that's really the whole point. If the science shows us that many of these behaviors are associated with a toxic stress response, then blaming and shaming that child is not going to improve that.

For example, if you have a child who is experiencing adversity at home and is being defiant, acting out, having a terrible time with impulse control, suspending them so that they can go home to be in that environment may be doing more harm than good.

We obviously need school safety policies and policies that support the orderly functioning of the school environment. But the science suggests that those should be things like in-school suspensions, restorative justice, opportunities to de-escalate and give a child the time and space to allow their adrenaline and cortisol levels to come down. It could be as simple as 15 minutes in a quiet area to get back to self-regulation. That's a way to work with a child's biology instead of working against the child's biology.

MERRILL: That reminds me of this school in Nashville where I first saw a peace corner. Have you heard of these? Kids can go there just to calm down. There are even activities to get them to self-regulate.

BURKE HARRIS: Yes, I've seen that! There's one in California that has a similar space-it's beautiful. I think it was in Fresno. When I saw it I was just like, "This is awesome. This is science being implemented in our classrooms."

MERRILL: Can you talk to me about meditation? I know you were a little wary of the practice at first, but now you seem to prescribe it.

BURKE HARRIS: Yeah. That's no joke-I really do prescribe it as part of my clinical practice. If you are experiencing an overactive stress response, there's cortisol, adrenaline, all these stress hormones-those are what leads to long-term harm.

So I went through the literature and said, "OK, well, what does the opposite?" I was skeptical at first, but meditation helps to regulate the part of the brain that is associated with recovery post-provocation; it's associated with reduced levels of cortisol and other stress hormones; and it also reduces the physiological indicators of an active stress response, like blood pressure and heart rate.

So I implemented a program in my clinical practice-we taught mindfulness as part of our treatment protocol for kids with toxic stress.

MERRILL: How young can the kids start?

BURKE HARRIS: Mindfulness practices can be done itty-bitty, for kids as young as 3 in my practice. The modality might change a little bit depending on the developmental stage. From 3 to 6, you might do one type. Then as kids get older, you can do more things, like downloading a mindfulness app on your phone and practicing 10 or 20 minutes a day.

MERRILL: Is there anything else you want to say? Anything I missed?

BURKE HARRIS: The last thing that I want to say-especially in light of Covid and all of the anxiety around that issue-is for our educators. We know that educators are the backbone of our society. As we do this work, I want to encourage you to put your own oxygen mask on first. Because we need you in this fight. We need you in this struggle.

In order for any of us to provide that safe, stable, and nurturing environment for the children that we serve, we have to practice self-care so that we can be available. Please make sure to put your own oxygen mask on and practice real care for yourself so that you can be there for the next generation.

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Trauma is 'Written Into Our Bodies'-but Educators Can Help

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Some of the first adorable patients to trickle into Dr. Nadine Burke Harris's pediatric clinic when it opened in 2007-long before she was named the first surgeon general of California-were referred by teachers and principals. Sitting in her examination rooms back then, in one of San Francisco's poorest neighborhoods, Burke Harris knew almost immediately that something was amiss.

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In the classroom, failing to respond firmly and consistently to student misbehavior can mean losing control of the room-and a quiet, focused class is often a highly productive one. But too much emphasis on the superficial appearance of order can stifle student creativity and passion. An always-quiet, always-composed classroom, veteran teachers tell us, can look like success but conceal a deeper problem with student engagement-disguising disinterest, or even boredom, as attentiveness.

Earlier this year, we wrote about the importance of carving out time to build strong, long-term relationships with middle and high school students because the research shows that these connections are central to productive learning. On our social channels, teachers from around the country passionately agreed, sharing their own experiences of connecting with students in the classroom.

And a powerful theme emerged: Educators told us about the subtle ways they temporarily loosen the reins on discipline or suspend the focus on academics. With the goal of building deep and genuine connections with kids, these teachers insisted that some messiness and noise-yes, even some chaos-moved the class forward in intangible ways. The research and the neuroscience clearly square with this practice: Students need downtime to process recently learned material and make space for new lessons, and the social context of classrooms-the relationships with fellow learners, the sense of belonging and camaraderie-drives deeper academic engagement.

"My first piece of advice is not to be scared of a noisy classroom," Heather Redmon Leise, a high school history and government teacher, wrote via Facebook, counseling other teachers to confront some old taboos. "Let the side conversations happen while students are working, and eventually they will invite you in."

Traditionally, letting kids chat in class is discouraged-unless it's done with purpose. "It's common to assume that allowing students to talk to whomever they want about whatever they want is a bad thing. That it wastes time. That it gets them off track. That it riles them up and causes misbehavior," writes teacher and author Michael Linsin in his Smart Classroom Management blog. "But when you decide when and how it's done, it's nothing of the sort. In fact, giving students a few minutes to stand, stretch their legs, and chat with a friend can be an effective classroom management strategy."

Allow Some Frivolity

Within the framework of a well-managed classroom, experienced teachers tell us, they've grown to embrace this type of flexibility, building in opportunities to honor students' humanity, letting them take breaks and be silly at times, and giving them frequent, in-classroom opportunities to connect. It may look messy on the surface, but it's how these educators build authentic, meaningful classroom communities where kids are engaged and learning.

Give Them Time to Tell Their Stories

Rules in the classroom matter, but relationships matter more, according to Rebecca Alber, an instructor at UCLA's Graduate School of Education. "One way we can deepen our relationships with students is to share a bit about ourselves with them, and create opportunities for them to share with us-and each other," Alber says.

It's a priority that savvy educators have advocated for a long time. "Years ago, the late Ted Sizer came to my university to give a talk to a small group of teacher candidates and faculty," writes Laura Thomas, director of the Antioch University New England Center for School Renewal and a former teacher, via Facebook. "One of the teachers asked him: 'How can I change anything?' Ted answered: 'Bear witness to one another's stories. Tell yours, listen to the stories that your colleagues tell, listen to the stories your students tell. Bear witness.'" Notes Thomas: "Best advice I've ever received."

Sharing stories can be a relatively unstructured part of the day: You might start the period by asking if anyone has a good story to share with the class or share one yourself. Or pair kids up and ask them to share a good thing that happened recently in their lives or something they're looking forward to. "It doesn't have to be anything major-it can be something as simple as, 'It's taco night at my house tonight,'" says Alber. "Start each day or class period with [this type of sharing], and as students get more comfortable with it, expand the groups to four or five students to help forge more community connections. You share too."

In the end, it's the sharing and listening that sets these classrooms apart, allowing kids to develop a deep sense of connection to their teacher and classmates, priming them for productive learning. "Let them tell you their stories," Redmon Leise writes. "Work stories. Pet stories. Homework stories. Relationship stories. Stop and listen. One on one, even in a class of 34 (which I've had), it's a game-changer-23 years later, relationships are my most effective tool."

Bracket the Class With Unstructured Time

Consider starting or ending class with a few minutes of open, largely unstructured chat time, but be sure you have a plan to right the ship.

When classes start to drag and students' interest flags, sometimes a simple 2- or 3-minute break with some stretching can reenergize everyone. "The key to allowing talking breaks is for you to decide when and how they're done," says Linsin. It's important to teach and model for students how this quick mental and physical break will unfold and how they'll return to their seats as the chat break concludes to focus once more on learning. "I realize that allowing students to talk can feel a bit rebellious or sacrilegious, or almost too simple to make a difference. But it's sneakily effective," Linsin writes.

Challenge the Conventional Wisdom

Ultimately, students need to talk, says Jennifer Gonzalez, a former middle school language arts teacher and the editor of Cult of Pedagogy, and it's important to make space for that in the classroom. "If you're shooting for a classroom environment where students sit silently and do rote seat work all day long, where they 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," she writes.

It's reasonable, of course, to expect kids to be quiet while you're teaching and giving instructions, and during independent work, but there should be times throughout the day when they can chat freely and work off antsiness and boredom. It's OK to occasionally break out of the standard routine-and kids often really benefit from a learning break. So actively seek out opportunities throughout the day for them to "express themselves, to get up and move around, to work in groups and pairs and discuss," Linsin writes. "Classrooms should be vibrant and interesting, exciting places, and so I'm all for getting students up and moving and having fun. Those things just make classroom management stronger, and they free you to ask anything of your students, including silence."

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In the classroom, failing to respond firmly and consistently to student misbehavior can mean losing control of the room-and a quiet, focused class is often a highly productive one. But too much emphasis on the superficial appearance of order can stifle student creativity and passion.

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The phrase "Maslow before Bloom" is a cliché in education for good reason: Paying attention to students' social and emotional needs primes their developing brains for learning, so that they are better able to take in and process lessons.

Different teachers will prefer different tools, and the point here is not to try all of the strategies you'll find in the article below. Instead, pick a few: some movement breaks to use up some energy, calming routines like mindfulness activities when students seem to need to recenter themselves, and so on.

Greeting students at the door is a good idea for everyday use, but after that, each teacher will put Maslow before Bloom in their own way, throughout the day.

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More Than a Check-In: Maslow Before Bloom Throughout the Day

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While checking in on students' well-being at the beginning of class is important, tending to it throughout the day helps students flourish-socially, emotionally, and academically.

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What Research Tells Us about Classroom Decor

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What Does a Trauma-Sensitive Middle/High School Look Like?

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A School's Journey Toward Trauma Sensitivity

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A quick primer on how to think about the decorations in your classroom, with five research-backed tips for getting it right.

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Dos and Don'ts of Classroom Decorations (Article)

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Dos and Don'ts of Classroom Decorations (Article)

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What you put on your classroom walls can affect your students' ability to learn.

The walls in Kenita Sutherland's classroom are lively but not overwhelming.

Heavily decorated classrooms can bombard students with too much visual information, interfering with their memory and ability to focus, a new study finds.

This is just the latest study to examine the relationship between classroom environment and students' executive functions, which include skills like memory, attention, and self-regulation. While teachers have good intentions when decorating, many classrooms end up being "sensory-rich" in a way that "could hamper children's learning gains rather than help," according to psychologists Pedro Rodrigues and Josefa Pandeirada, who coauthored the study.

To understand how decorations affect learning, Rodrigues and Pandeirada recruited 64 children between 8 and 12 years old to perform attention and memory tasks in two groups. For the high-decoration group, the walls of the room were covered with numerous pictures of ordinary objects and scenes, such as cars, musical instruments, and trees. Walls in the control group's room, on the other hand, were bare.
© Kendra Caralis
The children performed a series of tasks designed to test their attention and memory. In one attention test, for example, they observed a laptop screen, pressing a button if an X appeared and doing nothing if a K appeared. In a memory test reminiscent of the electronic game Simon Says, the children observed nine blue squares that changed to yellow in varying sequences, which the children attempted to repeat. A total of four tests were given-two for memory and two for attention.

Compared to children in the bare-wall room, children in the high-decoration room performed worse on all tests, which suggests that too much visual stimulus can be a distraction.

"Overall, the results from these studies indicate that children could have difficulty in ignoring visual distractors when these are embedded in the surrounding environment," the study authors explain.

Classrooms Should Be Engaging, Not Distracting

That's not to say that every wall must be bare. In 2015, a team of researchers in the U.K. analyzed 153 classrooms and found that students benefited most when the walls had some decorations. "The displays on the walls should be designed to provide a lively sense to the classroom, but without becoming chaotic in feel. As a rule of thumb, 20 to 50 percent of the available wall space should be kept clear," the researchers wrote.

So what do researchers say teachers should do?

Display student work. Students not only feel a greater sense of responsibility for their learning but are also more likely to remember the material (Barrett et al., 2015).

Feature inspiring role models. Putting up images-and short stories or quotes-featuring heroes and leaders can help students gain a greater sense of belonging and aspiration, especially when their backgrounds and interests are represented. Strive for inclusion, but avoid token or stereotypical representations-they can be damaging to students' self-esteem (Cheryan et al., 2014).

Avoid clutter. Keep at least 20 percent of your wall space clear, and leave ample space between displays so they don't look disorganized. Resist the temptation to keep adding decorations-it's better to swap them out than to keep adding more (Barrett et al., 2015).

Visual aids-like anchor charts, maps, and diagrams-are OK. Posters that reinforce a lesson, rather than distract from it, can boost student learning. But don't forget to take down ones that are no longer helpful (Carney & Levin, 2002; Bui & McDaniel, 2015).

Avoid displays of student scores or grades. Many teachers use data walls to motivate students, and while they can work for high performers, they can backfire for struggling students, leading to feelings of shame and demoralization (Marsh et al., 2014).

Let in natural light. Don't cover up your windows with decorations unless you have a problem with glare or outside distractions. Students who are exposed to more natural light in their classrooms outperform peers who get less natural light in math and reading (Cheryan et al., 2014). If you don't have windows, making sure the room is well lit can boost achievement (Barrett et al., 2015).

Balance wall colors. You don't have to stick with four white walls-try having a single feature wall painted a bright color, with the rest being muted (Barrett et al., 2015).

Developing Brains

While decorating walls is a favorite pastime for many teachers, young children may not respond as teachers hope.
Courtesy of Amy Mileham
"Our findings could be related to the fact that children's cognitive capacities are still under development, including executive functions responsible for the filtering of irrelevant information for a given task," explain the study authors. A teacher may have little difficulty ignoring a wall full of decorations, but young students may find themselves unable to look away and focus on a lesson.

Children aren't born with fully developed executive functions-they have to develop these skills over time, according to Harvard's Center on the Developing Child. Children who have adverse experiences-such as neglect, abuse, or violence-or learning disabilities are at greater risk of impaired attention and self-regulation skills. So classroom distractions may be harming the students who need the most help.

The Third Teacher
© Nichole Murray
This study is the latest in an emerging field looking at classrooms as the third teacher-after parents and the teacher-which views the environment as essential to supporting learning. The idea is hardly new; approaches such as Reggio Emilia and Montessori put it at the forefront of pedagogy, giving classrooms a prominent role in shaping how students learn. Recent studies have shown evidence for the role that classrooms play in learning: A 2014 study, for example, found that young students spent more time off-task when classroom walls were highly decorated, while research on flexible classrooms shows that optimizing physical characteristics of classrooms such as light, color, and seating options can improve academic performance by as much as 16 percent.

The takeaway: Classroom walls should feel warm and lively but not overcrowded-keep 20 to 50 percent of the wall space clear, and fill the rest with student work, inspiring pictures, and learning aids.

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What you put on your classroom walls can affect your students' ability to learn. The walls in Kenita Sutherland's classroom are lively but not overwhelming. Heavily decorated classrooms can bombard students with too much visual information, interfering with their memory and ability to focus, a new study finds.

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Why I Won't Be Asking "How was your summer?" Anymore (Article)

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Why I Won't Be Asking "How was your summer?" Anymore (Article)

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The first days of school I am so excited to reconnect with students and my 'go to' conversation starter has almost always been a variation of "How was your summer?" But according to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network approximately 25% of American children will experience at least one traumatic event by the age of 16, and there is a very good chance that many of our students had a summer they would like to forget. I realize trying to offer an answer to that question can be incredibly stressful and difficult for these students.

Many will be eager to return to a stable and predictable environment, but they don't always express it with love and gratitude. Many are wounded and traumatized by experiences that make it difficult for them to build relationships, express emotions "normally", or communicate effectively. What we interpret as indifference, opposition, or resistance to being a member of our school community may not reflect how much they are counting on us to invite them into the fold; to make them feel safe, welcome, and loved.

So what can we do instead of asking about their summer? Well, we don't need to pretend it didn't exist. If students openly talk to me about their time away from school I will be glad to listen and converse, I just won't be soliciting that information in a public way.

What I'll focus on is the here and now of this school year. I'll think more carefully about what conversation starters and questions I'll use in a whole group setting, where students may be reluctant to bare their souls to people they are unsure they can trust yet.

For whole group perhaps I could start a conversation with (depending on the grade)...

What are you looking forward to in ____grade/this class?

What are you hoping to learn this year in ____grade?

How do you learn best?

How can the teacher and your classmates challenge and support you this year?

For quickwrites, conversations, or surveys I could ask those same questions or...

What do you want to be remembered for this year in school?

What is a goal I can help you with this year?

What is something you would like me to know about you?

When I see students in the hallways or playgrounds I might say...

I'm so glad to see you. I hope you have a great year!

Welcome back to ____ school. I missed you.

If you heard of or read any good books, let me know. I'm always looking for recommendations.

There's a wonderful article in the Aug 31 2016, New York Times "What Kids Wish Their Teachers Knew" that can give you even more insight and ideas.

My goal will be to reconnect and check in with students, to let them know their teachers care and are ready to support them. I cannot assume that summer was as wonderful for them as it was for me. I can learn about their summer and their lives as we work together. I'm not trying to ignore their experiences, I am trying to honor and respect the reality that not all summer vacations are created equal and I don't want to start the school year accentuating the "haves" and "have nots" or putting students in a position of sharing 'on the spot'. Also, I'm not going to guilt myself or others for asking students in the past. Our intentions are good, we genuinely care. I always remind myself, When I know better, I do better. I am always seeking to know better.

If you have other back to school conversation starters or community building activities that work for you, I'd love to hear them.

What's On My Book Radar?

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Why I Won't Be Asking, "How was your summer?" Anymore

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The first days of school I am so excited to reconnect with students and my 'go to' conversation starter has almost always been a variation of "How was your summer?" But according to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network approximately 25% of American children will experience at least one traumatic event by the age of...

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Opportunities to Respond - CharacterStrong

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How to Create a Learner Centered Classroom (Video)

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How to Create a Learner Centered Classroom (Video)

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Using Problem-Solving to Build Community From Day 1

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When math students work together to solve logic puzzles on the first day of class, they learn to trust one another.

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When educators make it clear that mistakes are an essential part of the learning process, students can move past fear of failure and flourish as learners.

To learn more about the research in the video, see the resources below:

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How to Create a Mistake-Friendly Classroom

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When educators make it clear that mistakes are an essential part of the learning process, students can move past fear of failure and flourish as learners. To learn more about the research in the video, see the resources below:

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"Wish someone well, acknowledge their presence, and offer a bit of cheer." -Kristin Souers