Videos and Stories From the Field

The SEL 3 Signature Practices are one way to organize a learning experience, and many skillful educators and facilitators have used them effectively over time. We have seen many powerful and creative ways people have made the practices their own, contextualizing them in just-right ways for their own workplaces and communities. CASEL is grateful to those who are building on and spreading this work, and we highlight some examples below.

We will continue to update this page. If you’re inspired by what you see and would like to share your work, please reach out to us. 

At the school district level, North Rockland Central School District (NY) uses a monthly calendar of Brain Balancers, their twist on the SEL 3 Signature Practices. Each month, school leaders and teachers receive a new and exciting theme with a choice board including 16 diverse, ready-to-use activities created and curated by Reyna Texler, SEL Specialist and CASEL Fellows Academy alum.

Complete with clear instructions, eye-catching visuals, and videos, district and school staff can easily integrate these welcoming, transitioning and closing activities into central office meetings, classrooms, and everything in between! They have generously agreed to share their activities – just click the button below to explore!

North Rockland Brain Balancers

At the classroom level, the SEL 3 Signature Practices are flexible enough that teachers can integrate them into any content area. In the video below, David Hall, a physical education teacher, describes practices he uses with students of different ages, and the purpose of each.

A professional learning facilitator, working with a group of adults, can incorporate the SEL 3 Signature Practices into the way they introduce the topic, create space for thinking and processing, and close in a way that supports participants to act on what they learned. For example, here is a way a facilitator might lead an all-staff meeting to prepare for the school’s open house: 

To introduce the topic the facilitator invites all participants to share a story with a small group about a time they were able to make a meaningful connection with a student’s caregiver or with their own child’s teachers.  They then ask a few individuals to share with the full group what they see as key to making families feel welcome and valued.

To create space for thinking and processing after introducing a new strategy to enhance family engagement, the facilitator asks participants to pair up and take a timed walk around the building or around the block together, discussing the concept as they walk and sharing examples of how it does or doesn’t align with their experience.

To close, the facilitator reserves the last 5 minutes for participants to write a letter to their “future self” about what they learned and want to apply to their work, to be delivered weeks later once they are in the thick of the school year.

In a graduate level course for pre-service teachers at San Jose State University, Dr. Patty Swanson begins with an open-ended data reflection activity in small groups to introduce the topic, and later introduces an engaging activity where participants put themselves in their students’ shoes and discuss emotional reactions to a challenging math problem. While the focus is on teaching math, Dr. Swanson integrates SEL explicitly and highlights how learning and succeeding in middle school depends on SEL, while also using instructional strategies that move participants to activate their own social and emotional skills.

This video was produced by the Center for Reaching and Teaching the Whole Child and modified with permission.

In a virtual setting, different web-based tools can be used to support group interaction and collective processing, and facilitators should prioritize brain breaks and focused time in the agenda for participants to reflect, process, and apply what they are learning with engaging strategies. See several ways Dr. Pamela Randall and Claire Schu from CASEL used the SEL 3 Signature Practices in a webinar with more than 1,000 participants.

Edutopia has featured the SEL 3 Signature Practices in these videos, both of which illustrate four concrete examples.

Edutopia is also an excellent source of ideas for engaging strategies. Try their 60-second strategy video series.