In my conversations with educators, the issue of assessment time has come up a lot lately. Here’s the issue: On the one hand, many educators like the idea of directly assessing student social and emotional skills; and those who do …
Read MoreWhy Invest Time in Social Emotional (SEL) Assessment?
As you know, I spend a lot of my time thinking and talking about how to assess student social and emotional learning skills. Among the many reasons for this singular focus, one rises to the top: it matters. I do …
Read MoreSocial and Emotional Learning (SEL) Assessment in Action
What the $#&^!@* is Direct Assessment of Student Social and Emotional Learning Skill? I think you’ll agree with me that terminology is, well… boring. But let’s also admit that not understanding terminology can cause problems, like, for example, leading you …
Defining Social Emotional Learning Skills There are many frameworks, models, and definitions of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). As a result, when trying to comes to grip with what SEL is, it can get overwhelming. While there’s little doubt that …
Recently, the xSEL Labs team met with a group of educators in an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse school district that is using our SEL assessment to inform their SEL instruction. As is so often the case, the district team asked …
Read MoreSocial and Emotional Learning (SEL) and Restorative Practices
People often have very strong opinions about student assessment, particularly when it comes to social and emotional learning assessment. This is especially true when discussing the use of SEL assessment for screening. One colleague is adamant that SEL assessment should …
Forgive me for being master of the obvious here, but SEL assessment data alone won’t change the world. But they can help. These two blog posts (starting with Making Sense of your SEL Assessment Data) are designed to help educators …
Read MorePlanning and Acting on Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Assessment Data
A colleague of mine in the education community and I were discussing SEL assessment a couple of years ago. Her district had recently administered SELweb EE, our SEL assessment system, to assess children in first through third grades and they …
Read MoreUnderstanding and Analyzing Social-Emotional (SEL) Assessment Data
My colleagues and I think a lot about how to use SEL assessment data for continuous improvement to make life better for teachers and the kids they serve, and for researchers who care about student social-emotional outcomes. And so it’s …
Read MoreSix Steps for Continuous Improvement in Social Emotional Learning (SEL)
(Originally appeared in the Transforming Education blog on July 11, 2018.) Multi-tiered systems of support, or MTSS, are based on a simple and positive premise: We should use data to teach in ways that build on student strengths and address …
