{"id":4449,"date":"2021-08-31T21:31:08","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T01:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/?p=4449"},"modified":"2021-09-03T02:56:04","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T06:56:04","slug":"to-reflect-and-connect-social-and-emotional-learning-for-students-and-adults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/to-reflect-and-connect-social-and-emotional-learning-for-students-and-adults\/","title":{"rendered":"To Reflect and Connect: Social and Emotional Learning for Students and Adults"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Recently,&nbsp;I was&nbsp;watching&nbsp;the webinar series&nbsp;\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.soldalliance.org\/post\/who-gets-to-thrive-the-science-of-learning-and-development-as-a-tool-for-anti-racism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Who Gets to Thrive? The Science of Learning and Development as a Tool for Anti-Racism<\/a>.\u201d In the second episode,&nbsp;Angela Ward,&nbsp;the&nbsp;supervisor of&nbsp;race and equity&nbsp;programs&nbsp;for&nbsp;Austin Independent School District,&nbsp;says,&nbsp;\u201cWithout&nbsp;reflection, we continue to make decisions that put us down a spiral of compliance that are not human-centered, not-healing centered, and we have no way to get to a space of transformation.\u201d&nbsp;Reflection is one of the ways through which our brains make meaning. The act of reflecting enables us to connect what we know from previous experience to what we have just learned (Cantor et al.,&nbsp;2020).&nbsp;My coaching brain wondered: Do&nbsp;our educators really know how to reflect&nbsp;purposefully?&nbsp;Do our leaders?&nbsp;How&nbsp;can we find out? What&nbsp;can&nbsp;we do if they don\u2019t?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Late last week, Hewett\u00e9 Moore,&nbsp;ISA\u2019s&nbsp;director&nbsp;of&nbsp;social,&nbsp;emotional, and&nbsp;academic&nbsp;development (SEAD), and I met with&nbsp;long-time&nbsp;ISA principal,&nbsp;Dr.&nbsp;Wachera&nbsp;Ragland-Brown,&nbsp;head&nbsp;of William&nbsp;Shemin&nbsp;Midtown Community School&nbsp;(WSMCS)&nbsp;in Bayonne, NJ,&nbsp;and Carlton&nbsp;Jordan, ISA&nbsp;English\/language&nbsp;arts and&nbsp;leadership&nbsp;coach.&nbsp;The four of us&nbsp;were planning a presentation together,&nbsp;and&nbsp;Dr. Ragland-Brown&nbsp;and Carlton&nbsp;shared&nbsp;the work they&nbsp;had&nbsp;started&nbsp;on&nbsp;reflective practice\u2014for&nbsp;both&nbsp;students and staff. They&nbsp;focused on&nbsp;reflection out of&nbsp;a collective&nbsp;desire to dive deeper into&nbsp;work&nbsp;that&nbsp;they had started last year around&nbsp;the four&nbsp;SEAD-driven&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/consortium.uchicago.edu\/publications\/teaching-adolescents-become-learners-role-noncognitive-factors-shaping-school\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">academic mindsets<\/a>&nbsp;(Farrington et&nbsp;al., 2012):&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>I belong in this community,&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><li>I can change my&nbsp;capacity through effort,<\/li><li>I can succeed,&nbsp;and<\/li><li>this work has value and purpose for me.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These mindsets are what help build student agency and lead to ongoing success as a learner, and they are necessarily connected to the meaning-making strategy that is&nbsp;<em>reflection<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Ragland-Brown&nbsp;recognized&nbsp;that it was not enough to say&nbsp;to her staff, \u201cGo out and do this;\u201d&nbsp;she shared her belief that her&nbsp;team&nbsp;needed&nbsp;iterative and incremental opportunities to learn, apply,&nbsp;and practice.&nbsp;So, Carlton&nbsp;helped develop a&nbsp;reflection&nbsp;tool,&nbsp;and&nbsp;together they modeled&nbsp;the use of that tool&nbsp;to provide teachers with&nbsp;individual and whole-group&nbsp;feedback&nbsp;about the reflective strategies they use with students.&nbsp;When I asked what was helping to establish reflection as a&nbsp;school-wide practice,&nbsp;Carlton&nbsp;pointed out that&nbsp;Dr. Ragland-Brown&nbsp;had&nbsp;built&nbsp;conversations about deliberate reflection&nbsp;into her one-on-ones with teachers, emphasizing the opportunity for growth and&nbsp;<em>not<\/em>&nbsp;a&nbsp;focus on accountability or compliant implementation of a&nbsp;required schoolwide initiative.&nbsp;She wanted teachers to think about why they were applying specific strategies&nbsp;to&nbsp;help them better identify and assess their impact&nbsp;and to make sure they were strategies that were useful and sustainable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The&nbsp;deliberate choices a principal makes to create&nbsp;safe&nbsp;spaces for adult learning, where taking risks and making mistakes&nbsp;are&nbsp;encouraged,&nbsp;can lead to greater and deeper&nbsp;internalization.&nbsp;Leaders&nbsp;model for teachers the kind of safe, affirming, encouraging environments we need them to create for students for optimal growth.&nbsp;As I heard&nbsp;the team&nbsp;talk about the reflection work at&nbsp;Midtown,&nbsp;I noticed how important it was for them to emphasize that the process was supportive and purposeful, and they wanted teachers to generate the same for their students.&nbsp;To help teachers have clarity, the&nbsp;school applied a&nbsp;common&nbsp;framework&nbsp;and used the language from the document as part of its&nbsp;goal-setting&nbsp;and progress-monitoring. Teachers were encouraged to submit and resubmit examples of&nbsp;work.&nbsp;I kept seeing a pattern of learning and support that&nbsp;moved from coach to leader to teacher to student and back.&nbsp;During&nbsp;the&nbsp;planning meeting,&nbsp;for example,&nbsp;we&nbsp;talked&nbsp;about the&nbsp;job-embedded&nbsp;SEAD&nbsp;coaching and&nbsp;professional development&nbsp;that&nbsp;Principal Brown and Carlton had&nbsp;helped&nbsp;plan.&nbsp;The two of them met to assess&nbsp;impact of the&nbsp;professional&nbsp;development,&nbsp;and&nbsp;during that meeting they&nbsp;reflected&nbsp;on their&nbsp;respective&nbsp;roles in the process&nbsp;and then made decisions about&nbsp;how to&nbsp;follow&nbsp;up&nbsp;based on&nbsp;each teacher\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we&nbsp;work together to deliberately&nbsp;reflect on the state of our schools and the professional learning we have or want to put in place,&nbsp;we&nbsp;must consider&nbsp;the social and emotional learning of the adults&nbsp;as well as that of the children.&nbsp;Are we&nbsp;creating&nbsp;the spaces and conditions for all, leadership included, to&nbsp;grow?&nbsp;To find out more about&nbsp;how&nbsp;coaches&nbsp;can&nbsp;support you as you create human-centered, transformative&nbsp;environments in which&nbsp;all&nbsp;learners&nbsp;can thrive,&nbsp;reach out to&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:cquintana@ets.org\">cquintana@ets.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">References:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cantor, P.,&nbsp;Darling-Hammond, L.,&nbsp;Little, B.,&nbsp;Palmer, S.,&nbsp;Osher, D.,&nbsp;Pittman, K.,&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;Rose, T.&nbsp;(2020).&nbsp;<em>How the science of learning and development can transform education: Initial findings<\/em>.&nbsp;Science of Learning and Development Alliance.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/5bde8401-9b54-4c2c-8a0c-569fc1789664.filesusr.com\/ugd\/eb0b6a_24f761d8a4ec4d7db13084eb2290c588.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/5bde8401-9b54-4c2c-8a0c-569fc1789664.filesusr.com\/ugd\/eb0b6a_24f761d8a4ec4d7db13084eb2290c588.pdf<\/a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Duchesneau, N.&nbsp;(2020).&nbsp;<em>Social, emotional, and academic development through an equity lens.<\/em>&nbsp;The Education Trust.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/edtrust.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Social-Emotional-and-Academic-Development-Through-an-Equity-Lens-August-6-2020.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/edtrust.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Social-Emotional-and-Academic-Development-Through-an-Equity-Lens-August-6-2020.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Farrington, C.,&nbsp;Johnson, D.,&nbsp;W.,&nbsp;Allensworth, E.,&nbsp;Nagaoka, J.,&nbsp;Roderick, M.,&nbsp;Williams&nbsp;Beechum, N., &amp;&nbsp;Seneca Keys, T.&nbsp;(2012).&nbsp;<em>Teaching adolescents to become learners: The role of noncognitive factors in shaping school performance.<\/em>&nbsp;The University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/consortium.uchicago.edu\/publications\/teaching-adolescents-become-learners-role-noncognitive-factors-shaping-school\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/consortium.uchicago.edu\/publications\/teaching-adolescents-become-learners-role-noncognitive-factors-shaping-school<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Melnick, H., &amp;&nbsp;Martinez, L.&nbsp;(2019).&nbsp;<em>Preparing&nbsp;<\/em><em>t<\/em><em>eachers to&nbsp;<\/em><em>s<\/em><em>upport&nbsp;<\/em><em>s<\/em><em>ocial and&nbsp;<\/em><em>e<\/em><em>motional&nbsp;<\/em><em>l<\/em><em>earning:&nbsp;<\/em><em>A&nbsp;<\/em><em>c<\/em><em>ase&nbsp;<\/em><em>s<\/em><em>tudy of San Jose State University and Lakewood Elementary School<\/em>.&nbsp;Learning Policy Institute.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/learningpolicyinstitute.org\/product\/social-and-emotional-learning-case-study-san-jose-state-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/learningpolicyinstitute.org\/product\/social-and-emotional-learning-case-study-san-jose-state-report<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently,&nbsp;I was&nbsp;watching&nbsp;the webinar series&nbsp;\u201cWho Gets to Thrive? The Science of Learning and Development as a Tool for Anti-Racism.\u201d In the second episode,&nbsp;Angela Ward,&nbsp;the&nbsp;supervisor of&nbsp;race and equity&nbsp;programs&nbsp;for&nbsp;Austin Independent School District,&nbsp;says,&nbsp;\u201cWithout&nbsp;reflection, we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"2880","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4450,"href":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions\/4450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isa.swintonstudio.com\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}