School-Connect – Optimizing the High School Experience

Category: Teaching Strategies/Tools
KATHY BELAND

SMART Boards, interactive white boards that integrate with media, are one of the fastest growing tools of the teaching trade. Two schools I visited recently use SMART Boards in conjunction with School-Connect lessons. They use them primarily to post essential questions and key concepts; record student responses; and illustrate lesson themes with photos, graphics and video clips pertinent to their students’ lives. Teachers spoke enthusiastically about the technology and at one school worked with each other in groups to share ideas and media sources. Several teachers from other School-Connect schools tell me they use PowerPoint presentations in a similar way.

At their best, SMART Boards can be a tool for brain-based teaching, as Judy Willis demonstrated recently at a Learning & the Brain conference I attended in Washington, DC. http://www.edupr.com/. Dr. Willis is a neurologist-turned-middle school teacher (coincidentally, she taught recently at the middle school that I helped found in the 1970’s) and the author of many books on brain-based teaching strategies. Photos, video clips, and music, she says, peak student curiosity with novelty and surprise, which is essential to engaging adolescent minds.

As Dr. Willis spoke, my own mind was whirring. I can see how a photo of an ice berg, let’s say, showing a large mass below the water’s surface and a small tip above, might be a good thinking prompt for essential questions on “refuting labels and stereotypes” or identifying a problem.” (I love metaphors!) Or that a local news clip might connect a lesson theme to the community students live in. (Always good to have real life stories.)

While excited by its potential, I am also leery of technology getting in the way of open communication and student thinking. When student attention is focused on an entertaining medium at the front of the class, it is not on one another in an open interchange of ideas and opinions. And when content—e.g., definitions of key terms—is recorded ahead of time and displayed on a board, students may be deprived of arriving at this knowledge themselves during the course of a lesson and miss out on that sense of discovery.

This is why Dr. Willis cautioned teachers to step away regularly from the board, use pair-shares, and, when group discussions get going, to step to the periphery of the classroom so that students speak directly to one another. These strategies for engagement, which are emphasized in School-Connect, can be a challenge for high school teachers, who have been pressured to move quickly through content as a result of teaching to the test.

We would like to hear from those of you using SMART Boards (or PowerPoint)—especially in conjunction with School-Connect. How do you use them? Are they worthwhile and, if so, why? How do you balance their use with engaging students in real dialogue with each other?

Note: To find out more about SMART Boards, and their use in schools go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_Board_interactive_whiteboard

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Category: Implementation Models
KATHY BELAND

Tight schedules and budget cuts have made student advisory one of the primary implementation models used to deliver School-Connect lessons. On the plus side, advisories involve most teachers and all grade levels, encouraging stronger staff-student relationships and a school-wide approach. When advisories are scheduled for two or more times a week and teachers attend in-services on SEL and running advisories, schools can have a positive experience with them.  On the minus side, many schools hold advisories less often and do not provide the type of training and support that help teachers feel comfortable in leading advisories and facilitating SEL.

We would like to hear from schools implementing successful student advisories. What is your “dosage”? How do you prepare teachers?  What are the outcomes?

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Category: Books/Resources
KATHY BELAND

In over 40 years of research, famed psychologist Paul Ekman probed nearly every conceivable question about human emotions: What triggers emotions? How do our bodies signal emotions to ourselves and others? Can we really control our emotions?  The question for which Dr. Ekman is best known—Which emotions are common to humans the world over?—led to a renaissance in the scientific understanding of emotions and their effects.

Emotions Revealed explores the evolutionary development and behavioral manifestations of the seven “basic emotions,” which include anger, sadness, fear, surprise, disgust, contempt, and happiness. We learn, for instance, each emotion’s unique signals and easy-to-miss expressions. This ability to identify the early stages of emotional response in ourselves and others helps us to manage our responses and handle a variety of social interactions in school, the workplace, and life in general.

This book provides illustrative stories and additional exercises that can enrich the five School-Connect lessons dealing directly with emotions, as well as other lessons that draw on this base of knowledge. Emotions Revealed is a fascinating and worthwhile read—and by far my favorite SEL resource!

Would anyone like to comment on this book or Dr. Ekman’s work?  Have you used his strategies in the classroom, beyond the School-Connect lesson featuring his photos (Lesson 1.4)?

On another note: Have you watched the television series Lie to Me?  Did you know that each show is built on a piece of Dr. Ekman’s research?  Watch episodes and learn more about the research base at http://www.fox.com/lietome. Learn more about Dr. Ekman’s research and products at http://www.paulekman.com.

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Category: SEL-Related Research
KATHY BELAND

For me, the frontrunner of newsletters is the Scientific American (SA) Newsletter. It is easy to use, visually appealing, and reports the latest scientific research in laymen’s terms. The newsletter has two themed categories that relate to SEL—“Mind Matters” and “60-Second Psych PodCast.”  Two examples:  In the June 15 Mind Matters, scientists reported on how emotions affect our perceptions of the physical world.  And a May 7 Podcast cited new research on risk-taking behavior in teens.

I’m interested to hear how teachers might incorporate findings reported in SA into current School-Connect lessons, or if you would just like to comment on the findings. To sign up for the newsletter go to www.scientificamerican.com and click on register/log-in on the menu bar.  Newsletters are delivered by email approximately every two weeks.

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