How Panorama Aligns with CASEL’s Social-Emotional Learning Roadmap for Reopening School

The five core social-emotional learning competencies from CASEL (the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) take on increased significance as we navigate a very different learning environment in 2020-21.

In a new resource from CASEL and more than 40 contributing partners—called "Reunite, Renew, and Thrive: SEL Roadmap for Reopening School"—district and school leadership teams can explore equity-focused SEL strategies to build the skills, competencies, and learning environments that students and adults will need to "reunite, renew, and thrive" upon the return to school.

The roadmap outlines four SEL Critical Practices along with resources, activities, and essential questions, and action steps to prepare and implement SEL practices throughout the school year.

Inside the resource, CASEL lists Panorama as a tool for elevating stakeholder voices, gathering data for continuous improvement, and assessing the impact of social-emotional learning this year.

📣 NEW resource from @CASEL with guidance on how SEL can be a foundation for reopening, with @PanoramaEd surveys listed as a tool for assessing impact & stakeholder needs https://t.co/kfqyQrI6TC #wholechild #edchat #socialemotionallearning #suptchat #SELroadmap #SEL pic.twitter.com/xn3NF2DiXN
— Panorama Education (@PanoramaEd) July 9, 2020

SEL Critical Practice 1: Take time to cultivate and deepen relationships, build partnerships, and plan for SEL.
SEL Critical Practice 2: Design opportunities where adults can connect, heal, and build their capacity to support students.
SEL Critical Practice 3: Create safe, supportive, and equitable learning environments that promote all students' social and emotional development.
SEL Critical Practice 4: Use data as an opportunity to share power, deepen relationships, and continuously improve support for students, families, and staff.

Below, we summarize key takeaways from the roadmap and share how Panorama's platform, resources, and professional development align with each of CASEL's SEL Critical Practices. As you consider ways to implement social-emotional learning this year, we hope that these recommendations and resources give you a starting point.

SEL Critical Practice 1

Take time to cultivate and deepen relationships, build partnerships, and plan for SEL.

Key Takeaways:

The return to school will come with a significant set of challenges. In order to navigate what will likely be a fluid and volatile first few months, district and school leaders need to evaluate, understand, and tend to the social-emotional needs of both children and adults.
It will be critical to re-engage students, support (and build capacity for) caring adults, rebuild relationships, foster a sense of belonging, implement and adapt tiered interventions, and help individuals heal from trauma. This will ensure that our communities can cultivate the empathy, resilience, and collective resolve necessary to handle the transition back to school.

CASEL Recommendation

Panorama Alignment

“Elevate the voices and perspectives of students, families, educators, and other adults to develop responsive transition plans.”

Use Panorama’s Back-to-School Survey to capture and act on student, family, and staff feedback during the critical first few weeks of school and address the community’s needs in real-time when the academic year begins.

Example survey topics include: Academic Needs, Student Engagement, Student Relationships, Cultural Awareness and Action, Staff Professional Needs, Family-School Communication, and School Public Health Measures.

"Examine where SEL efforts have been impactful and where more support is needed.”

Use Panorama for Social-Emotional Learning, a research-backed SEL assessment and analytics platform, to gauge student SEL when the year begins and identify opportunities for additional support.

Panorama’s platform allows teams of administrators and educators to engage in data-based decision-making around SEL supports, with the ability to disaggregate data and filter results to group students for differentiated interventions.

Panorama's Social-Emotional Learning Assessment was recently ranked #1 in SEL measurement in a report from the Tyton Partners and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

SEL Critical Practice 2

Design opportunities where adults can connect, heal, and build their capacity to support students

Key Takeaways:

Adults can’t pour from an empty glass. Invest in building adult capacity and carving out spaces for adults to practice self-care. The well-being of teachers and staff is not a novel issue, but the pandemic has exposed and exacerbated stress and anxiety among educators.
Districts must prioritize understanding and supporting the social-emotional needs of the adults responsible for fostering students’ learning and development. As Molly Jensen, a school counselor at Racine Unified School District in Racine, WI, put it: “We need to acknowledge the fear and anxiety that many educators will have when coming back into school buildings. We have to consider the adult perspective alongside the student perspective when we think about reopening.”

CASEL Recommendation

Panorama Alignment

“Build educators’ capacity to support students’ SEL.”

Panorama for Adult SEL helps districts listen to teacher and staff needs around SEL and identify where to provide support. Our platform makes it easy to survey educators and surface key insights so you can support adult well-being and capacity for SEL.

"Allow space for connection, listening, and healing among all leaders and staff in the school building.”

Every year, Panorama’s Teaching and Learning team designs and delivers professional development for thousands of schools and districts on a variety of topics, including: SEL data inquiry and action planning, strategies for adult SEL and well-being, and mindfulness-based practices for educators and students.

In addition, Panorama’s free Adult SEL Toolkit equips district leaders to strengthen adult SEL and mindsets with activities and worksheets aligned to CASEL’s Focus Area 2 for SEL implementation.

SEL Critical Practice 3

Create safe, supportive, and equitable learning environments that promote all students' social and emotional development.

Key Takeaways:

There are still many unknowns when it comes to the 2020-21 academic year, but students will be returning to schools with heightened stress and anxiety. Supportive adults and family-school partnerships will play a large role in creating safe, consistent conditions that support students’ academic, social, and emotional development.
Existing inequities have come into sharper focus (and amplified) with the shift to distance learning. Equity for students and their families will need to be top of mind when districts think about a phased re-entry or a hybrid learning model for reopening.

CASEL Recommendation	Panorama Alignment
"Identify and implement a comprehensive system of support for students with additional needs."	Use Panorama Student Success to support your multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) or response to intervention (RTI) program. Panorama pulls together all of the most important information on your students—across academics, behavior, and social-emotional learning. We make it easy to identify at-risk students, build intervention plans, and progress monitor in one place.
"Engage students in developmentally appropriate conversations and lessons to discuss past, current, and future impacts of the pandemic and racial inequities on themselves, their families, their communities, and the broader world."	Use the Panorama Equity and Inclusion Survey—developed with the RIDES Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education—to start a conversation with students and gather their feedback on how they are experiencing diversity, equity, and inclusion in school. Learn how the Morris School District (NJ) used Panorama survey data to build an Equity and Inclusion Action Plan that ultimately led to improved academic and behavioral outcomes.
"Intentionally build structures that promote supportive adult-student relationships and a sense of belonging. Weave in opportunities for students to practice and reflect on social-emotional competencies."	Panorama’s online professional learning library, Playbook, contains hundreds of SEL interventions, activities, lesson plans and strategies that are low lift and can be embedded into the classroom. These resources come from Panorama's expert partners, including: Second Step, 7 Mindsets, Diversity Talks, CREATE, CharacterStrong, Move This World, Teaching Tolerance, Transforming Education, CharacterLab, Open Circle, Better Kids, Read to Lead, and Growing Leaders.

SEL Critical Practice 4

Use data as an opportunity to share power, deepen relationships, and continuously improve support for students, families, and staff.

Key Takeaways:

Facilitate continuous feedback loops with students, families, and staff to ensure that new programs and policies are meeting the needs of all students.
After collecting feedback data, establish time and space to reflect on data, engage stakeholders in focus groups, and identify inequities that appear in the data to continuously improve supports. (Download our Student Voice Data Exploration Guide to access our printable templates and worksheets for your next data planning meeting.)

CASEL Recommendation	Panorama Alignment
“Elevate student voice in reflecting and acting on data around their learning and engagement.”	Use Panorama’s Student Surveys to ensure student voice in decision-making on their own learning, school practices, and priorities. Our survey instruments are developmentally appropriate and adaptable to an in-person, hybrid, or distance learning environment.
"Support educators in reflecting on data around their own instructional practices and learning environment, especially when trying out new strategies or modes of teaching.”	Every year, Panorama’s Teaching and Learning team designs and delivers professional development focused on growing educator capacity to use data effectively. We've guided hundreds of districts through the process of gathering, reviewing, and taking action on student voice data. Our new Student Voice Data Exploration Guide—used by the likes of D.C. Public Schools and Portland Public Schools (OR)—breaks down our data inquiry process into easy steps and includes templates that you can customize for your own data planning purposes.
"Partner with families and community members to continuously improve experiences and outcomes."	Use the Panorama Family-School Relationships Survey—developed with Dr. Karen Mapp at the Harvard Graduate School of Education—to elevate family perspectives and establish a continuous feedback loop with your parents and caregivers. Learn how Saddleback Valley Unified (CA) used Panorama's family surveys to have a conversation with families and act on their needs during distance learning.