I’m back and I’m “tan, rested, and ready.” Well, I spent time in 50 degree and cloudy Germany, so I don’t know how “tan” I am. But I digress. Back to trying to create a better learning system for our kids.
While away, an article appeared in EducationWeek online discussing strategies to combat student disengagement. The article, written by Michelle Singh, CEO of LCT-E Learning Solutions, a teacher professional development consulting firm, begins,
“Envision a stroll through your school’s corridors. You peer into classrooms expecting to see a spark of engagement in the eyes of every student, but the reality is often a different picture. There’s the student in the back row, lost in thoughts far away from the ongoing lesson. Other students arrive late or not at all. These scenes all signify a deeper challenge: student disengagement at every grade level.”
“Student engagement is a complex problem that demands more than a one-dimensional solution. It calls for a proactive approach from school administrators to understand and address the root causes.”
“Heaps of research shift the onus of student disengagement to school-level factors rather than individual student characteristics. Relationships between educators and students are foundational for improving student attendance, retention, and fostering a sense of belonging. Positive interactions between teachers and students can improve students’ overall educational experience.”
“School leaders, in turn, must adopt a holistic perspective that integrates students’ social-emotional and cultural well-being along with their academic needs. This approach isn’t just for the benefit of students; it helps educators as well. Teachers, as key influencers in the learning environment, need support to effectively mentor and guide their students.”
“When I teach educators how to combat student disengagement effectively, I focus on a suite of five adaptable strategies that I call the EQUAL method: evaluate, qualify, uplift, activate, and leverage.”
“Evaluate the school culture with a cultural audit.”
“Principals should initiate a cultural audit annually to evaluate the school’s cultural inclusivity. Send out a user-friendly online survey to ask students, teachers, and parents succinct questions about the visibility of diverse cultures in classroom materials and students’ overall sense of belonging.”
…
“Qualify teacher practices with an inclusivity checklist.”
“Principals can play a pivotal role in advancing inclusive teaching practices by developing and implementing an inclusivity checklist. This should be a collaborative process, involving input from a diverse group of educators to ensure the checklist is comprehensive and relevant. This checklist can be used by each teacher individually to self-assess, enrich, and diversify their lesson plans.”
…
“Uplift student skill sets with ready-to-use SEL activities.”
“Principals can enhance classroom engagement by encouraging teachers to start and conclude each class with a series of concise, guided social-emotional-learning activities.”
“To facilitate this, principals can distribute SEL activity one-pagers. These resources can be tailored to different age groups and should include clear, step-by-step instructions for each activity. For instance, a one-pager for a primary grade might include a five-minute mindfulness exercise with illustrated breathing techniques like box-breathing, while one for older students could outline a quick, reflective journaling prompt about gratitude or empathy.”
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“Activate stakeholder relationships with community connections.”
“Principals can bring vibrancy of the local community into the school environment by planning a ‘bring a community member to school’ cay, a ‘community project’ day, or ‘local hero’ talks.”
“To facilitate these events, school leaders should create a straightforward planning checklist or template to ensure efficiency and consistency in organization. Principals can appoint a leadership outreach team to enlist the support of local entities. That team might contact local business associations, cultural institutions, libraries, and service clubs to participate or contribute resources.”
…
“Leverage equitable assessments with flexible assessment frameworks.”
“Principals can empower student success by encouraging teachers to offer students a choice in how they demonstrate their knowledge at least once each term.”
“To effectively support teachers in this initiative, principals should give teachers the tools to apply these diverse assessment methods confidently, including resources like flexible rubrics and concise training videos. Principals should develop and provide teachers with a menu of assessment options that allows them to tailor assessment to students’ unique abilities and interests, broadening the ways students can express their learning. This menu might include a variety of formats like oral presentations, posters, projects, written essays, or digital portfolios.”
This all sounds well and good, but evidently Ms. Singh hasn’t paid attention recently to the criticism meted out by the conservative right regarding anything remotely looking like social-emotional learning. I’m guessing it would be a rare, and courageous, school leader who today would try to implement Singh’s EQUAL methods.
Additionally, one has to wonder if traditional schools are outfitted and prepared to implement such methodology. I can hear the faculty meetings already. “We just don’t have time to evaluate, qualify, uplift, activate, or leverage, unless it has to do with preparing kids to do well on high-stakes reading, writing, and mathematic tests.”
No, the future of such engagement strategies Ms. Singh lays out in her EducationWeek online article should be applied to all those learning pods and microschools growing in numbers out there. Those are the places that will appreciate, and execute, social-emotional strategies like EQUAL.
Finally, and we’ve talked about this before, if you want to engage a young learner, there is a simple question you must ask:
“What would you like to learn today?”
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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