Designing a Resilient Classroom for Return to School

How are you feeling right now? (“Name it to Tame It”)

Identify which COLOR you’re in, and then pick a WORD that matches your mood.

Welcome &

Connect...

Consider...

1. What color quadrant did you select and what word matches your mood.
2. If you were to use this with your students, what is your hunch about which quadrant most of them would choose upon their return to school?

Learning Targets

• Increase awareness of how a sense of belonging and community can foster resiliency in the classroom.
• Explore how to strengthen Tier 1 First Best Instruction in order to intentionally design a #RSPCTfull return to school.
• Prioritize ONE next step to “lead up” your site

It’s not our job to fix the trauma. It’s our job to create the safe and trusted environment in which healing can happen naturally.

~Lori Woodley from A Trusted Space

When returning to the many unknowns of school next year, what will be in your primary focus as you consider the varied needs that will inevitably arise?

What we know for sure:

Providing ROBUST

First Best Instruction will give you the biggest bang for your buck!

What research tells us...

A sense of belonging is one of the most important activators of a child’s engagement in learning… and the most powerful antidote to stress is the effect of the human relationship and the presence of trust. ~Pamela Cantor

The goal of #RSPCT focuses on building a positive school climate, a culture of collective responsibility and a community that thrives because of a sincere sense of belonging and connectedness. Conditions for learning are optimized at high levels because priority is placed on creating equity by addressing the whole child, by providing engaging instruction, and by curating authentic academic experiences.

#RSPCT

Take a moment and identify which word or phrase resonates with you and put it in the chat.

Creating a seamless experience for students

Restorative Practices

PBIS

Social- Emotional Learning

Trauma-

Informed Practices

#RSPCT

Calm Classroom/ Mindfulness

Intentionally Designing a #RSPCTfull Return to School

RP: Prioritize relationships and connectedness

When community and relationship are a priority and part of the school and classroom culture, teachers and administrators can respond to

conflicts or behavioral errors with a restorative approach and other means of correction.

Restorative

Practices

The goals of a Restorative Approach aim to create:

1. Opportunities for learning:
1. Students begin to build understanding of the impact their own behavior has on others
2. Adults begin to understand the power of relationship when responding to behavior

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• Opportunities to build connectedness and belonging:
• It is everyone’s responsibility to collaboratively restore relationship

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SEL: Addressing the whole child

We believe that SEL is the gateway for learning. When we intentionally teach & embed SEL competencies within academic instruction, we can increase prosocial skills, executive function capacity, empathy and enhance higher level critical thinking skills.

Social-Emotional Learning

CASEL 5 Definition:

Social and emotional learning is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to:

• understand and manage emotions,
• set and achieve positive goals,
• feel and show empathy for others
• establish and maintain positive relationships
• make responsible decisions.”

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CASEL 5 Core Competencies:

1. Self-Awareness
2. Self-Management
3. Social Awareness
4. Relationship Skills
5. Responsible Decision-Making

PBIS:Create structure and a sense of safety

If we create predictability through structure, routines and the presence of reliable adults, we create a culture of belonging that promotes social-emotional and resiliency skills.

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PBIS

Principles

1. Create a safe, predictable and positive learning environment for ALL students, regardless of:
1. Need
2. Exposure to traumatic events
3. Learning location
2. Assess and provide more support based on additional need ,
3. If you can predict it, you can prevent it.

Is what we’re doing working?

How are we doing it?

What are we doing?

PBIS CORE ELEMENTS

OUTCOMES

C: Calm Classroom/Mindfulness: �Develop self-awareness & Self-management

Mindfulness can help both teachers and students to reduce stress and anxiety. It can help us train our brains to be aware of our feelings, our bodies, and our environment in the present moment.

Calm Classroom and

Mindfulness

Using mindfulness techniques and strategies can:

• Cultivate peaceful and engaged classroom
• Help to develop self-awareness, mental focus and emotional resilience
• Reduce stress and anxiety in the classroom

Trauma-Informed: Embrace empathy to create equity

When using a trauma-informed lens, we engage in a mindset shift that allows us to look to the root of human need. Since we have all experienced collective trauma this past year, we must remember that we all have to Maslow before we can Bloom.

Trauma-Informed

Practice

Trauma-informed practices focus on creating safe and supportive learning environments by helping students develop positive relationships with peers and adults.

• Create a safe space
• Establish predictability
• Build a sense of trust
• Offer choices
• Stay regulated

Take a moment to consider…

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• What has affirmed your thinking?
• What has surprised you?
• What is something you want to try to include next year?

PBIS, SEL, Trauma-Informed

RP, SEL, PBIS, Trauma-Informed

PBIS, RP, Trauma-Informed

SEL, Mindfulness

PBIS, SEL, RP, Trauma-Informed

By integrating moments of reflection, positive interactions, and appreciations, we craft the climate and culture where everyone in the room feels they belong:

• Incorporating Classroom Community Building Circles
• Using Affective Statements
• Utilizing Restorative Questions

Restorative Practices

When we implement these practices, we are intentional about the purpose, frequency, and integration of the SEL competencies by:

• Self-assessing regularly to set up a supportive classroom climate
• Embedding SEL competencies into daily activities and instruction
• Build student SEL competencies and expertise through reflection and metacognition

Social-Emotional Learning

Co-creating clearly defined classroom commitments create consistency and predictability which in turn establishes safety for students who may have experienced trauma. Explicitly taught routines help clarify expectations and provide opportunities to build SEL competencies.

• Co-create classroom commitments
• Use behavior specific praise and acknowledgement at high rates (5:1)
• Explicitly teach classroom routines

P.B.I.S.

• Identify most common routines (no more than 5)
• State in the positive
• Teach as “social skills” vs. “rules”
• Begin with non-negotiables (just you)
• Include student voice with additions to grid

Calm Classroom/

Mindfulness

Mindfulness helps us train our brains to be aware of our feelings, our bodies, and our environment in the present moment.

• Practice Calm Classroom or Mindfulness Strategies daily
• Train our brains to be aware of our feelings
• Apply strategies to manage emotions.

Intentionally attending to trauma- informed practices and how we respond to behavior will provide a more well-rounded approach to how we support the well-being of our students.

• Reframing the behavior from “won’t” to “can’t YET”.
• Looking for signs & symptoms of trauma when students are “hard to reach.”
• Responding in empathetic ways to behavior.

Trauma-Informed Practices

Thank You!

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Your dedication and commitment are invaluable and don’t go unnoticed.