Advisory/homeroom is a period of time during the school day when teachers meet with a group of students to advance objectives that are not expressly academic teaching and learning. Advisory is often used as a space for community building, direct SEL instruction, and strengthening relationships between students and staff.
Short article from Educational Leadership describing the impact of strong school connectedness on academic achievement, behavior, absenteeism, and school completion, as well as and practices that enhance it.
San Francisco's guide focused on the use of Circles as a proactive measure to build trust and community in a classroom. Includes sample activities and lesson plans for introducing students to restorative practices.
Sacramento City's interactive introduction to classroom-based restorative practices for a teacher audience, covering concepts of the social discipline window, fair process, affective language, restorative questions, and circles.
Classroom Meetings in Cleveland are used daily for community building and classroom level problem-solving and decision-making. This resource page has activities, best practices, handouts, samples that show integration with academic content, and other tools to help plan a larger scale rollout of class meetings.
One-pager describing and providing examples of 3 signature practices that bring SEL experiences into any learning setting and build a foundation of safety, consistency, and belonging.
Overview of a Nashville middle school's model for student-led conferences, appropriate for grades 4-12. Search "Student-led conferences" on this site for all resources related to this overview.
Example template for a student/family/school agreement, for use during student-led conferences. Addresses support needed for growth in academics, perseverance, ownership, and critical thinking.
Handout for family members and caregivers to use at student-led conferences, with suggested questions to prompt students to share about their portfolio and a reflection to reinforce students and give feedback.
Tool for students to prepare to lead conferences with their parents and teachers, including a checklist and sample script for students to talk about their strengths, challenges, and work portfolio.
Nashville's handbook for student-led conferences describes in detail the role of students, teachers, families, and the school in making the conferences successful, student-centered, and useful.
Oakland produced a set of classroom posters featuring the 5 SEL competencies, and provided this guide for teachers to build learning experiences around each poster.
This research brief looks at the commonalities among California middle schools that reported stronger-than-typical social emotional learning outcomes. These 6 characteristics are elaborated into recommendations for school districts supporting SEL at scale.