Medium Post

By The BELE Network

In December, Transcend Education and the American Association of School Superintendents (AASA) led their second webinar in the “Road to Reinvention” series. Edgecombe County Superintendent Dr. Valerie Bridges shared how her district has been reinventing itself using Transcend’s Designing for Learning resources, which dive into the science of how people learn and develop. Edgecombe has centered students and the community, launched microschools, and collaborated with state policy leaders to enable schools to design models that work best for their students including incorporating block schedules and HR shifts. The webinar also featured student Sha’Kiyaiah Highsmith, who shared her personal experience as a student in an Edgecombe microschool and the ways it has contributed to her love for learning and allowed her to develop meaningful relationships with her teachers.

Read on for the full video, webinar recap, key clips and takeaways.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. In anything you do, always begin with empathy. Something as simple as recording instead of taking notes while collecting feedback or conducting an interview puts you in a position to be an active listener.
2. For optimal results, collaboration with students, parents, and community members is critical to transforming the learning experience.
3. Students are more engaged and learning outcomes are more equitable when every student has affirming developmental experiences.

Watch this highlight reel of BELE Network partner Dave Paunesku of PERTS discussing the BELE Framework and Edgecombe County Superintendent Dr. Valerie Bridges explaining the county’s strategic plan:

For leaders, educators, and designers of innovative schools, if you aren’t a member of the Transcend Design Community, read more and join the community today.

You can view the full webinar at the top of this page, or dive in further and learn about the steps necessary to respond, recover and reinvent through their full resource. Once you have, tell Transcend and AASA about your experience and perspective using this survey.

Keep an eye out for upcoming webinars in this series in February, April, and June on Transcend Education’s event page.

Transcend Education’s work with school communities and the larger ecosystem is guided by five fundamental beliefs: all children have infinite potential; to realize this potential, we must reimagine “schooling” as we know it; the work is most successful when pursued through a rigorous, community-driven R&D process grounded in equity; while never easy, innovation is absolutely possible, accelerating progress requires strong local leadership, surrounded by a conducive ecosystem.

The BELE Network is dedicated to reimagining our inequitable school system that has failed too many for too long, and is committed to transforming our classrooms into learning environments that nurture the intellectual, emotional and cultural growth of all students — especially students of color.

Learn more about BELE on our website, and access our resource library to get the best and most up-to-date thinking on how to make learning environments more equitable.

UMOJA’s Resources to Support the SEL Needs of Students

By The BELE Network

At the intersection of multiple crises, how we show up to support our students matters. In order to fully embrace social and emotional learning as a practice, it’s important that we do our part to create opportunities and spaces for young people to process and understand the global pandemic, reckoning with racial injustice, and the tumultuous US election.

To this end, UMOJA Student Development Corporation released an Election 2020 toolkit of resources to support the SEL needs of students during these turbulent and often uncertain times. Even though the election has passed, this toolkit still contains a wealth of information and resources that educators can use to facilitate important discussions and exercises to explore what we’re experiencing. Because of these important components, this toolkit will remain a valuable reference for how we can support students through facilitated conversations and exercises, in managing stress, anxiety, and competing information as we enter the new year.

Perhaps most importantly, this toolkit also includes proposed modifications that optimize each of their recommendations for a virtual learning environment, as well as to meet the specific needs of all students. Read more about their guidance and strategies here.

Umoja builds deep social emotional learning skills in educators to transform the ways young people experience schools and the ways schools exist to serve society. Umoja believes in schools that center equity, love, and connection as the foundation to all learning and preparation for successful life beyond high school. To learn more, visit www.umojacorporation.org

Student Engagement Strategies That Go Beyond Zoom

By The BELE Network

As school has moved to a virtual setting, we’ve begun to see how school systems are adapting and evolving curriculum to fit new learning environments. As education practices change and school leaders work to implement learning models that address the needs of the moment, it’s just as important that we improve how we are engaging with students beyond Zoom attendance and build strong relationships with them in a way that motivates them to thrive and progress.

Research has shown that developmental relationships with teachers, parents, and friends directly and indirectly affect school outcomes. The BELE Network is providing guidance on how teachers can build relationships with their students in a virtual setting and defining student engagement during remote learning that meets the needs of students. Additionally, PERTS launched Co-pilot Elevate, a data-driven professional learning program that elevates student voice to help educators equitably create experiences that support academic and social-emotional learning.

Be Intentional

Students are motivated by teachers who share brief and engaging personal stories. In one way or another, we have all been impacted by the events of 2020 and they present an opportunity to connect on an emotional level. Create space to check in with students and share enough to let them know you are interested in building positive and honest relationships. Consistent check-ins can also help you assess the needs of the students week by week and allow you to adapt your teaching in a way that creates an environment where students are motivated to be productive and speak out. Students agreed there was a connection between the ability of a teacher to create a positive relationship with them and how motivated they were in that teacher’s class.

Encourage Feedback and Build Power Together

As we continue to adapt to this new way of learning and teaching, seeking feedback from students is a great way to ensure teachers and leaders and responding to their needs. Being responsive to student feedback will encourage students to speak up and continue to offer feedback. Students appreciated being given choices and making decisions, even small ways, such as choosing which partner they could work with or deciding to stay inside or go outside to play a game. Students also felt motivated by teachers who related to them and didn’t talk down to them and treated them like someone they can have a conversation with. Steps to building power with students can look as simple as changing your tone in conversation and asking students to provide input on next steps for assignment. This lets them know that you value their voice and you want to work in partnership with them.

Prioritize Creating an Equitable Learning Environment

As a result of COVID-19 and remote learning, we are more aware than ever of the challenges students are facing that may impact how they show up in class. From family deaths, economic impact, to technology divide, this is a moment to acknowledge the inequities that persist outside of the classroom and create an environment where students want to and can show up everyday to interact with their teachers and peers. Just as we figure out innovative ways to engage with students, it’s just as important that we improve disciplinary practices that do not disproportionately disadvantage students who have been historically marginalized. Our approach to disciplinary practices must consider outside factors contributing to students’ behaviors and address them from a human-centered approach. Resources like the BELE Network Framework includes core policies to address students’ behavior through engaging in healing centered practices, also known as trauma-informed practices, eliminating zero-tolerance policies, and supporting teachers to address behavioral problems with empathy.

It’s critical to the success of our students that we invest in the capacity and resources to equip teachers with the resources necessary to help them build relationships with students that nurture their development. Let’s continue to create equitable learning environments where students can thrive in and out of the classroom.