The Greece Central School District has created an unpacking protocol which may be used to provide staff with an opportunity to develop an understanding of the SEL skills and the student behaviors associated with the skills at each grade level. By using this protocol, teachers will have the ability to develop aligned resources targeting each specific skill, collaboratively define what proficiency looks like for each skill, and confidently assess students in each skill area.
The district uses individual grade level templates so that each teacher can better understand the skills expected at their level by examining the expectations at the levels directly above and below their own. This vertical look will allow for a more consistent understanding for each grade level.
Although designed for classroom teachers to use, it may be useful to have all staff complete this protocol for a grade level that they work with so that all staff members have an understanding of the skills and behaviors students are expected to exhibit.
This protocol was designed to be efficient so that a team could complete the unpacking within a staff meeting or PLC meeting, also can be adapted to meet the needs of a ½ day meeting. It generally should take 5 minutes to unpack each skill. The steps of the protocol include:
Step 1: Circle the nouns, underline the verbs, and box the qualifiers for your grade level; discuss
Step 2: Rewrite the grade level descriptors in your own words
Step 3: Notice and discuss the words that are different in the grade level before and after yours
Step 4: Discuss or share examples of student behaviors that fit Area of Strength (S), On Target (T), Area of Need (N)
As teachers, it is important to note the difficulty in speaking to parents about student’s social challenges. A few ways to help become more comfortable in discussing a child’s social learning difficulties are …
- Noting that the difficulties are social learning challenges, not behavior problems
- Developing a solid understanding of each SEL standard and what they mean and look like in action, so it is more comfortable to speak about
- Discussing with parents that social learning is a learning system just like math and ELA, we teach social learning in a developmentally appropriate manner
- Speaking about specific observations of your child, for example I observed your child doing this and responding way rather than your child is immature
- State expectations first, what we are looking for is…
- Narrowing the focus to one specific area and identifying a strategy that you currently target.