Formando Vidas SEL

Category: SEL (Social Emotional Learning)

Why Parent Involvement in Learning is Key to Student Success
Why Parent Involvement in Learning is Key to Student Success

Creating and maintaining supportive relationships is one of the building blocks of SEL. To do this, students need to learn empathy, develop interpersonal skills, and learn to make caring decisions. There are a few ways to influence this but let’s think about a crucial relationship that can help in this process: the relationship with their parents.
What relationship has more impact on a child’s life than the one with their parents? Learning starts at home, where a child’s first social norms and expectations are introduced. By observing and interacting with their parents daily, children begin to form their expectations about behaviors, coping strategies, empathy, and how to relate to others. It all starts with watching their parents at home. Because of this, parental support and involvement throughout their learning journey is key to a student’s success. When what is being taught at school is reinforced and encouraged at home, the student will have a higher likelihood of remembering the information and be more successful at applying it. Studies have shown that when parents are involved in their children’s learning, their grades, attendance, and social skills are all majorly improved. When parents are encouraging and helpful with their child’s education, the student is more likely to perceive their schooling positively.
Engaging parents is crucial
Because of this, we include weekly summaries with our curriculum to help engage parents in the learning process, inform them of their child’s progress, and give them the understanding to help bring Social Emotional Learning into their homes. Whether you’re a parent of a student or a teacher encouraging parent involvement, here are a few ways to help parents engage with their student’s learning:
1. Find ways to incorporate what the child is learning in activities at home.
2. Set a good example by showing your own love of learning.
3. Look at their homework even when they don’t ask for help. Try to understand what they are learning and show interest.
Above all, the best thing parents can do for their child’s learning journey is to engage in their education and approach it with positivity.
With regular help from their parents, it’s only a matter of time before the student succeeds.
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Why Parent Involvement in Learning is Key to Student Success

Creating and maintaining supportive relationships is one of the building blocks of SEL. To do this, students need to learn empathy, develop interpersonal skills, and learn to make caring decisions. There are a few ways to influence this but let’s think about a crucial relationship that can help in this process: the relationship with their parents.
What relationship has more impact on a child’s life than the one with their parents? Learning starts at home, where a child’s first social norms and expectations are introduced. By observing and interacting with their parents daily, children begin to form their expectations about behaviors, coping strategies, empathy, and how to relate to others. It all starts with watching their parents at home. Because of this, parental support and involvement throughout their learning journey is key to a student’s success. When what is being taught at school is reinforced and encouraged at home, the student will have a higher likelihood of remembering the information and be more successful at applying it. Studies have shown that when parents are involved in their children’s learning, their grades, attendance, and social skills are all majorly improved. When parents are encouraging and helpful with their child’s education, the student is more likely to perceive their schooling positively.
Engaging parents is crucial
Because of this, we include weekly summaries with our curriculum to help engage parents in the learning process, inform them of their child’s progress, and give them the understanding to help bring Social Emotional Learning into their homes. Whether you’re a parent of a student or a teacher encouraging parent involvement, here are a few ways to help parents engage with their student’s learning:
1. Find ways to incorporate what the child is learning in activities at home.
2. Set a good example by showing your own love of learning.
3. Look at their homework even when they don’t ask for help. Try to understand what they are learning and show interest.
Above all, the best thing parents can do for their child’s learning journey is to engage in their education and approach it with positivity.
With regular help from their parents, it’s only a matter of time before the student succeeds.

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July 28, 2021
Hope Can Be Taught: 7 Steps To Nurturing Hope
Hope Can Be Taught: 7 Steps To Nurturing Hope

The science behind hope is based on more than 10 years of research and 150 published works by Dr. Chan Hellman, Ph.D., Founder and Director of the OU Hope Research Center. According to his research, the strategies developed to nurture hope can show a statistically significant improvement in a child or adult in about one hour of Hope work.

These strategies can be introduced in a short amount of time, allowing for momentum in growth and added efficiencies in the educators’ teaching schedule. The simple methodology behind the Science of Hope is based on three steps:
1. Set short- or long-term goals toward purposeful behavior.
2. Identify the pathway or roadmap to attain that goal.
3. Find the willpower to focus your attention on the pursuit of the goal.
However, there are a few more components to fully round out the process for building and nurturing Hope. Here’s the full outline of strategies used to Nurture Hope:

Introduce Hope

When just getting started, students need to know that Hope is much more than wishful thinking. It’s a belief that the future will be better than the present. Hope is a confidence in a better tomorrow and the mindset that each individual plays an integral role in making that future possible. The first step in nurturing hope is introducing hope and discussing its core components.

Goal Setting

Setting goals means deciding on or identifying something that is wanted and valued. This must be personally relevant! Most high trauma youth are in survival mode and are likely to initially set short term goals. When goals are clarified, it increases the agency (or willpower) to attain them.

Identifying Pathways

This is the step in the process where students discover various ways to achieve their goals. This is the creation of the roadmap to get from Point A (where we are) to Point B (where we aim to go next). It’s important to list and discuss potential pathways, consider the barriers that will come up, and which alternative pathways might be an option.

Cultivate Willpower

Harnessing willpower is finding the inner force to make the goals a reality. This is the mental energy that is required to complete the goal. Cultivating willpower including identifying and describing the motivation behind the goal.

Problem Solve

It’s difficult to be hopeful, especially when students have faced significant trauma. But by helping children look for obstacles while discussing ways to overcome them, we help them develop their problem solving skills as they nurture the hope. Failed attempts and not quitting are sometimes a part of the journey.

Create a Hope Visual

A gallery of Hope serves as a Visual Map for this Journey to Hope. This visual, created with the student, can serve as a reference tool throughout the duration of the process. It should highlight where the student is headed and the process or steps required to get there.

Re-Goaling

After the goal is attained, it is important to remember that we all have the ability to “re-goal.” Hope can continue to grow. We can work through the process again fully in order to reach another set goal.

When educators use a social emotional curriculum infused with Hope, it reduces the impact of toxic stress and builds resilience in students, especially those who have experienced trauma and adverse childhood experiences. My Best Me is a series of lessons designed to deliver SEL competencies and help students discover their true identity and purpose. It’s also certified to increase hope, and lessons can be taught in just one hour a week.
July 14, 2021
Four Benefits of a Digital Textbook

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Four Benefits of a Digital Textbook

When buying a curriculum for your classroom, it’s important to weigh your options. We offer hard copies and digital copies so you can work with us no matter which avenue you choose. However, there are many benefits to consider when looking at a digital curriculum. Here are four benefits to digital textbooks for you and your students.

Digital Textbooks Are Eco-Friendly

The mass amount of paper and resources used to print textbooks can be a tax on the environment. How the books are disposed of isn’t always environmentally friendly either. If students lose their textbook and it needs to be replaced, that is another book printed. What about when a new edition of the text comes out? The older versions are eventually disposed of and need to be replaced with a new set. The cycle continues until someone chooses a more eco-friendly alternative: a digital textbook. Digital texts can be updated online for each new edition and can’t be lost by students, making their footprint significantly smaller.

Accessibility is Greater in a Digital Textbook

With print textbooks, hard copies rely heavily on text as their primary learning tool. This can be helpful and foster reading practice for many situations, but it isn’t always the best learning solution. If a child is an auditory learner, dyslexic, or struggles with reading large amounts of text at once, listening to their text can make a huge difference in their retention rate. If the student is struggling with reading the text, it can be adapted to an audio file and played as the student reads along, helping them with their reading and knowledge retention.

You Can Easily Search a Digital Textbook

When working on assignments, studying for a test, and refreshing themselves on a concept, students need textbooks to be available in a format that makes them easily searchable. With digital texts, this is instantly easier. Using the search function, hundreds of pages of content are suddenly searchable by keywords. Do you want your student to have a better understanding of how certain concepts connect? Using the keyword search method, they can see every chapter and section that uses that term, allowing them to see how chapters work together.

With the My Best Me curriculum, educator’s receive access to a Digital Teacher Guide, too. This makes searching within the material list, glossary, resource page, and other instruction elements easy! Additionally, there are active hyperlinks to parent guides, student activity pages, and any interactive media used (videos, documents, etc.)

No Waiting for Textbooks

Because digital textbooks have easy, online access, there is no need to wait for an order of textbooks to come in. Transfer students won’t need to share with another student or take home scanned copies for their first few weeks of homework as they wait. By simply ordering online, the student can be provided with their own digital textbook right away to keep them from getting behind by not having the resource they need.

My Best Me can be purchased as a classroom pack of digital licenses. This is perfect for schools utilizing online classrooms, digital learning, or remote opportunities.

Digital textbooks provide advantages for the student, teacher, and school. When considering a curriculum for your classroom, don’t forget the benefits of going digital.

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June 16, 2021
The Impact of Social Emotional Learning

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The Impact of Social Emotional Learning

As an educator, finding ways to help a student battling various academic and social issues can be a real challenge. But integrating social-emotional learning (SEL) techniques can offer much relief. A recent study reveals that SEL can positively impact conduct problems, emotional distress, academics, and drug use for up to 18 years. This piece focuses on the impact of social-emotional learning on the overall life of a student.

What is Social Emotional Learning?

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in education refers to a methodology designed to help students comprehend their emotions and fully interact with those emotions while demonstrating empathy for others. The learned behaviors will then be utilized to help students choose positive, responsible decisions, create strategies to achieve their goals and cultivate positive relationships with those around them.

What Are the Impacts of SEL on a Student?

Academic Achievement

A recent study on the impacts of SEL on the intellectual life of students reveals the program can help increase a student’s test score by 11 percent. Compared to the students who didn’t participate in SEL programs, those who participated recorded improvements in their classroom behaviors and increased their ability to manage stress and depression. The students who benefited from the SEL program also developed more positive attitudes about themselves, the school, and fellow learners.

Positive Life Outcomes

Studies reveal teaching social skills at an early age helps students avoid psychiatric issues, substance abuse problems, and other risky behaviors. Early intervention with SEL programs show outcomes that stretch far into adulthood by minimizing the life risks commonly associated with social problems.

SEL Helps With Trauma

Integrating social-emotional learning programs into your learning and teaching environment can help equip young students with strategies to cope with everyday disappointments, as well as trauma. A recent study revealed a large percent of the young American population has witnessed at least one violent incident in their lifetime.

SEL programs help such students to respond to the effects of traumatic events by equipping them with social-emotional competencies. The programs are designed to re-shape the brain and reverse the effects of chronic stress due to past traumatic events. SEL can be a top-notch tool for repairing the damage of trauma and building lifetime coping skills, especially for the most at-risk students living in poverty and who may have experienced traumatic events.

Reduced Aggression

SEL can help you reduce aggression in a classroom setting so that you focus on imparting knowledge. Several studies reveal students who receive SEL training were 42 percent less likely to display aggressive behaviors in schools. SEL programs integrate mindfulness techniques that effectively reduce reactive behavior and aggression in students.

Let Hope Rising SEL Integrate Hope into Your Classrooms

If your students are struggling in class and your school performance is unimpressive, they could be finding the conventional school and learning environments as sources of anxiety and stress. This could manifest in diminished motivation, engagement and may eventually lead to harmful behaviors. Social Emotional Learning programs have had positive effects on children’s behavioral, social-emotional, and academic lives. Although SEL is not a designated subject such as English or Math, you can weave it into your school’s curriculum and leverage it as a tool to solve some of your pertinent challenges.

If you are looking for a solution to bring SEL to your schools, we invite you to explore My Best Me, our hope-certified SEL Curriculum.

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May 28, 2021
Forgiveness, a Sister’s Gift

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Forgiveness, a Sister’s Gift

My daughter, Melissa’s, story of forgiveness is a beautiful example that I point to and remember for myself. Here’s her story:

My son, David, was born 2 weeks before Melissa turned 2 years old. They grew up both tolerating and loving each other like most siblings. By teenage years, they were close friends until my son started making poor decisions in his life.

Melissa watched (and tried to help) as my David continued to go the wrong direction which in turn left our family in heartache. With all the turmoil, my daughter began being bitter and unforgiving toward her brother. At one of David’s lowest points, Melissa put her feelings aside and reached out to David in compassion. She extended forgiveness at a point when he deserved it the least. This gift of love from his sister mended their relationship. Where David had felt judgment and separation from Melissa, he felt restored by the love of his sister.

Here’s the rest of the story—about 6 months after this reunion of brother and sister, David had been walking on a positive path but suddenly passed away. The last 6 months of his life, he and Melissa enjoyed a loving relationship with lots of laughs and great memories that ended all too soon. At David’s funeral, Melissa wrote, “forgiveness is a gift you give yourself”. Little did she know at the time she extended it to David how much that gift of forgiveness would mean to her after his death.

Who do you need to forgive…

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January 10, 2021