Guidance on How to Use the Foundational Practices and Strategies

Overview

The following article provides information on how to best use Foundational Practices and Strategies.

Foundational Practices

These resources include descriptions of easy to implement, everyday practices that help create a positive learning environment. The foundational practices can be implemented by every teacher as part of a school’s efforts to foster a safe, inclusive, and engaging learning environment for students. These practices are organized into six different themes:   

1. Equity and Inclusion practices offer suggestions on how to ensure that instruction is designed and delivered in ways that support all students.  
2. Positive Climate practices include tips for creating shared expectations, establishing routines, and developing strong relationships. We recommend starting with these practices if a school is new to these resources. 
3. School & Family Relationships practices offer ways that schools can involve families in their social and emotional learning efforts. 
4. Student Voice and Engagement practices identify ways to give students agency in the learning process. We know from the research that when students can have ownership in their learning, they are more likely to be engaged. 
5. Instructional Practices offer ways that teachers can directly integrate social and emotional learning into instruction.
6. Trauma-Informed Practices include a selection of practices designed to support students who may be dealing with stress, chaos, or negative out-of-school environments.  

If your DESSA-mini results indicate that >20% of your students have a need for instruction, we recommend beginning with the Positive Climate practices, and then working throughout the year to incorporate more of the foundational practices into the school day across every classroom.  

Your school might also target one of the six areas listed above as part of continuous improvement efforts – for example, if you already have a well-established social and emotional learning program but are looking for ways to develop stronger family relationships, start there. 

Strategies

An abundance of research suggests that social and emotional learning is most effective when lessons provide explicit instruction as well as opportunities to practice social and emotional skills throughout the day. Effective instruction should follow the SAFE acronym: 

1. Sequenced – activities should have an established connection and flow to foster skills development. 
2. Active – students need the opportunity to be active participants in their learning to master newly taught skills. 
3. Focused – the activities should clearly emphasize developing personal and social skills. 
4. Explicit - the instruction should clearly target and explain how students can develop specific social and emotional skills. 

The strategies in the DESSA System have been designed to support teachers’ ability to deliver effective, explicit instruction of research-based strategies to help students develop their skills in the key social and emotional competencies that are measured by the DESSA. 

The strategies can be used across all Tiers of instruction. At Tier 1, they can be delivered to the whole class for teachers who are looking for strategies to help their students develop in specific competency areas. At Tiers 2 & 3, they can be delivered in small groups and/or tailored to be delivered 1:1 for students who need more targeted support to benefit from instruction.

To decide where to start with strategies, we recommend the following options: 

1. Lead with strengths: Research suggests that students are more likely to benefit from social and emotional skill instruction that allows them to leverage existing strengths. Our strategy recommendation generator (only available with purchase of the Strategies and Interventions Package) will identify the competency where students display the highest ability, and then recommend a strategy linked to that area. 
2. Growth opportunities: You might select strategies aligned to specific areas of need for students. For example, if you administer the full DESSA to a group of students whose DESSA-mini results indicated a need for instruction, you could select a competency that represents the greatest growth opportunity for the group or for your class. By focusing on a strategy with the whole class, students with a need for instruction will benefit from the support and positive modeling of the selected skills by their classmates. Our strategy recommendation generator (only available with purchase of the Strategies and Interventions Package) will identify the competency where students show the greatest need and recommend 2 strategies connected to that area. 
3. Suggested sequence: If you are unsure of where to begin, we recommend the following sequence. We recommend starting with Optimistic Thinking because a positive mindset can help students become more open to learning, and more resilient in the face of setbacks. Then, we focus on the intrapersonal skills. Improving self-awareness and self-management skills first can help students be more successful as they work on their skills with others.  
   • Optimistic Thinking 
   • Self-Awareness 
   • Self-Management 
   • Social Awareness 
   • Relationship Skills 
   • Decision-Making 

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Regardless of which practices and/or strategies you choose to implement, we highly recommend that you focus on no more than three at a time and give teachers opportunity to practice – make sure you also give students the opportunity to practice the newly learned skills.  

If possible, take time to observe (or have teachers observe each other) these strategies and practices to give feedback and support. Reflect on what went well, and what can be improved and discuss and actively plan on how to give students the opportunity to practice skills.  

Work to embed skills and strategies within the instructional day rather than making SEL a "separate" part of the curriculum.