Expand AllClick here for a more accessible versionCaring School Community™ (CSC) is a modified version of a
program formerly known as the Child Development Project. CSC is a multiyear
school improvement program that involves all students in grades K–6. The
program aims to promote core values, prosocial behavior, and a schoolwide
feeling of community. The program consists of four elements originally
developed for the Child Development Project: class meeting lessons, cross-age
“buddies” programs, “homeside” activities, and schoolwide community. Class
lessons provide teachers and students with a forum to get to know one another,
discuss issues, identify and solve problems collaboratively, and make a range
of decisions that affect classroom life. Cross-age buddies activities pair
whole classes of older and younger students for academic and recreational
activities that build caring cross-age relationships and create a schoolwide
climate of trust. Homeside activities include short conversational activities
that are sent home with students for them to do with parents or caregivers and
then to discuss back in their classroom. The activities incorporate the
families’ perspectives, cultures, and traditions, thereby promoting
interpersonal understanding. Schoolwide community-building activities bring
students, parents, and school staff together to create new school traditions.
Competent Kids, Caring Communities is designed to promote
important life skills in students through an average of 35 separate sets of
lessons for each year for kindergarten through fifth grade. Lessons follow a
common structure, including an introduction to each that provides teachers with
a research-based rationale. Opening questions are designed to motivate students
and focus their attention. In addition to the classroom activities, one
component promotes family-school collaboration, including sessions for families
designed to be led by school or district leaders. Family sessions provide
information on the social and emotional competencies the program is designed to
promote. They focus on developing shared understanding and goals, joint
decision making between schools and families, and positive school climate. The
family-school collaboration component also includes activities to support new
skills and concepts at home.
Facing History and Ourselves’ unique approach to pedagogy, classroom
resources, professional development, coaching, and support equips teachers with
the tools and strategies they need to help students become thoughtful,
responsible citizens. By integrating the study of history, literature, and
human behavior with ethical decision making and innovative teaching strategies,
our program enables secondary school teachers to promote students’ historical
understanding, critical thinking, and social-emotional learning. As students
explore the complexities of history, and make connections to current events,
they reflect on the choices they confront today and consider how they can make
a difference.
Getting Along Together is
a program developed by the Success for All Foundation, Harvard University, and
the University of Michigan that helps students build social and emotional
skills (SEL) and apply them both in and out of the classroom. Getting
Along Together has a three-pronged focus: students learn thinking and cognitive
skills, emotional management, as well as interpersonal and social skills.
Collectively, these skills and strategies create a peaceful school environment
where students are empowered to manage their own behavior, decrease conflict,
and increase receptivity to learning. Getting Along Together helps
students with focus, memory, and self-control, as well as building empathy,
friendship skills, cognition, and coping skills for common social problems.
Michigan Model for Health is a nationally
recognized, comprehensive, evidence-based curriculum built around skills-based
instruction. This program was developed
in coordination with the Michigan Department of Education and the Michigan
Department of Health and Human Services.
The MindUp program
provides separate sets of lessons for three levels: prekindergarten through
second grade; third through fifth grade; and sixth through eighth grade.
Beginning after the third lesson, MindUp
establishes core practices of deep breathing and attentive
listening, which are then practiced several times a day throughout the school
year. These practices are designed to enhance students’ self-awareness, focus
attention, promote self-regulation, and reduce stress. In addition there are 15
structured lessons at each level that span four units. Each lesson provides an
explanation of how the content and objective of the lesson is supported
by brain research. The lessons also include a “getting ready” activity, a MindUp warm-up, and detailed
instructions to the teacher on how to engage students and support their
exploration and reflection on the topic. In addition, there are suggestions for
creating an “optimistic classroom.” Throughout, the program works to promote
generalization and support connections to academic instruction, and there are
suggested lesson extensions to support social and emotional development,
mathematics, physical education, health, science, literature, and journal
writing.
The Open Circle program, for use in kindergarten through fifth grade, is
designed to equip teachers with effective practices for creating a cooperative
classroom community and establishing positive relationships and effective
approaches to problem solving within the classroom. The program has, on
average, 34 structured lessons each year that cover relationship building and
communication skills, understanding and managing emotions, and problem
solving. Lessons begin with a review of the previous lesson, introduce new
concepts, develop and practice new skills, provide homework/extension
activities, and suggest connections to literature. Supplementary lessons are
also provided to support each core lesson. The Open Circle program also has a separate unit on
bullying, as well as separate components to support school-wide implementation
and family involvement. Open
Circle provides information on “Key Cultural Factors” and
“Dimensions of Difference and Similarity” to support implementation with
diverse groups. The program provides frequent suggestions and reminders for
teachers regarding cultural sensitivity and ethnic norms.
Raising
Healthy Children, a school-wide approach
designed for use with students in kindergarten through sixth grade,
incorporates school, family, and individual programs to create a caring
community of learners. The classroom component, Get-Alongs, includes eight classroom-based
units with daily lessons and activities that span an eight-month period
(approximately one unit per month). Academic integration strategies and
recommended literature are also included. Teacher workshops on classroom
management, instructional strategies, and social and emotional learning impact
teacher practices in the classroom and throughout the school. School-wide
implementation teams and ongoing coaching also facilitate this school-wide
approach. Family involvement occurs through homework assignments that are part
of the Get-Alongs units,
family workshops, outreach, and other family activities.
Through full
integration of social and emotional learning (SEL) and restorative practices, Restore360 helps all members of the school community to strengthen
their connections with each other, create a more positive school climate;
bolster their social and emotional skills and
cultural fluency; and develop skills to resolve conflicts and problems
in a restorative way rather than a punitive way.
The RULER Approach to
Social and Emotional Learning is a school-wide approach designed for
use in kindergarten through eighth grade to promote emotional literacy, which
includes Recognizing,
Understanding,
Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating emotions (the
“RULER” skills). RULER implementation
involves systematic professional development for the adults involved in the
education of children (school leaders, teachers, support staff, and families)
so that emotions become central to learning, teaching, and parenting. In the
first year, teachers learn and then teach the “anchors” of emotional literacy:
four tools that were designed to help both adults and students to develop their
RULER skills,
self- and social awareness, empathy, and perspective-taking ability, as well as
to foster a healthy emotional climate. Subsequently teachers learn how to
integrate the approach into their standard curriculum and experience The Feeling Words Curriculum, a
language-based emotional literacy program for students.
Tribes
Learning Communities aim to engage all
members of the educational community — district and school administrators,
teachers, family members, and community members — in ongoing, goal-oriented
collaboration to create a caring and supportive environment that establishes
positive expectations and promotes the active participation of all students
from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The Tribes
process includes four community strategies: attentive listening,
appreciation/no put downs, the right to pass—the right to participate, and
mutual respect. Key program structures and educational practices supported by
the program include cooperative learning groups (comprised of three to six
students) that work together throughout the entire school year and Community
Circles, which provide opportunities for students to work together to solve
classroom problems and build relationships. The curriculum also suggests a
strategy for exploring academic content. Tribes
materials incorporate a variety of cultures, ethnicities, and
backgrounds throughout the text and images. Suggestions are provided for
adaptation and sensitivity to students’ ethnic backgrounds and cultural
beliefs, as well as tailoring language to meet the needs of English Language
Learners and students from diverse backgrounds.