When selecting a new tool for their district’s toolbox, district and school leaders have a critical job. They must prioritize student needs while also considering teacher capacity, alignment with standards, and input from stakeholders and the community at large. How can educational leaders sort through all these sources of information to find the solution that best fits their needs?
That’s why we’ve simplified the process and highlighted eight key areas of focus when choosing a universal social-emotional learning (SEL) screener. These screeners are key to student success, as districts who administer an SEL assessment take the first step in prioritizing students’ social and emotional well-being.
In fact, SEL success is proven to impact academic and behavioral performance, so it is essential to incorporate for a whole-child approach. Districts that take the time and resources to administer an SEL universal screener deserve results that are high-quality, accurate, and will lead to measurable results across their student body.
Get started with our open-source SEL Survey
Table of Contents:
First Things First: What is SEL?
What is an SEL Universal Screener?
7 Qualities of an Effective SEL Universal Screener
Understand and Act on SEL Assessment Data with Panorama for SEL
First Things First: What is SEL?
Social-emotional learning (SEL) describes the mindsets, skills, attitudes, and feelings that help students succeed in school, career, and life. It focuses on how motivation, social connectedness, and self control enable every student to learn and thrive.
Many school districts focus on five core SEL competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. These competencies form the foundation for students' social and emotional development.
💡Social-emotional learning goes by many different names:
Regardless of what your district calls it, this type of learning is essential for students to become thriving, well-rounded individuals. |
What is an SEL Universal Screener?
An SEL universal screener is an assessment tool used by schools to measure and evaluate students’ social-emotional competencies. The term universal means that the assessment is administered to all students, so educators gain a comprehensive understanding of the strengths and needs of the entire student population.
Additionally, as a screener, the assessment is intended to identify students in need of support so they can receive the help they need, often in the form of Tier 2 or 3 interventions. School-wide or grade-wide data can be used to inform best practices and foundational Tier 1 supports.
7 Qualities of an Effective SEL Universal Screener
1. Evidence and Research
An SEL screener should be both valid and reliable, meaning it measures what it claims to measure and provides consistent results over time and across different groups of students. The screener’s publisher should be able to provide evidence of the accuracy of the assessment.
The screener should also be created on a solid foundation of research, ideally with the support of SEL experts and assessment designers.
2. Flexible and Customizable
An SEL screener out of the box will not be the right fit for every district. Districts who need more than one-size-fits-all assessment should be able to customize the screener to meet their needs. And while a screener should be flexible enough to align with district priorities or state initiatives, it must maintain its efficacy and validity.
3. Aligned with SEL Frameworks
The most common and well-respected SEL framework is from CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. Any SEL screener should be aligned with CASEL’s framework and competencies. If your state or district has its own framework, be sure to cross-reference it with the SEL screener.
You may also want a screener that aligns with any SEL curriculum you plan to use. This can simplify the translation of any data gleaned when it comes time to put your SEL initiative into practice. The SEL screener should also be easy to incorporate into your MTSS framework with tiers for SEL strategies and interventions.
4. Inclusive
An SEL assessment should be accessible by all members of the community. It should be available in the diverse languages represented in your district. The assessment creators should take steps to eliminate bias in responses and prioritize cultural sensitivity in questions. Digital assessments should pass all relevant accessibility tests and ideally include options for print access.
5. Easy to Administer
It doesn’t matter how good an assessment is if it doesn’t receive responses. When choosing an assessment, check how long it takes to administer. A 15-minute assessment would be much easier for teachers to fit into the school day than a 30-minute assessment. The screener should also integrate with the district’s current tech stack and be simple enough for students to navigate themselves, or with guidance from teachers for younger students.
6. Actionable Data
Having high-quality data is fantastic, but it’s what you do with it that matters. A social-emotional screener should both flag individual students in need of support and identify school-wide trends. Bonus points if it provides recommended strategies to address gaps with interventions and progress monitoring.
Panorama for Social-Emotional Learning (demo data displayed)
7. Data Privacy
When dealing with student data, privacy is of the utmost importance. When researching a new SEL assessment, be sure it complies with relevant laws like FERPA and COPPA. Read the privacy policy on the publisher’s website to look for compliance with security measures, signatures of data privacy pledges like the Student Privacy Pledge, or membership in the Student Data Privacy Consortium. When in doubt, you should be able to contact the company directly to ask privacy questions before signing up.
Understand and Act on SEL Assessment Data with Panorama for SEL
Panorama for SEL is a comprehensive platform to measure, understand, and improve students’ social-emotional well-being. Panorama empowers schools to create a supportive learning environment where every student has the opportunity to develop the skills they need to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.
The Panorama for SEL platform includes:
- SEL Survey: Research-backed assessments that measure students’ social-emotional competencies, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Surveys are designed for different age groups, from elementary to high school, and can be customized to fit the specific needs of a school or district.
- Intervention Tracking and Progress Monitoring: Create, track, and progress monitor SEL and behavior intervention plans for students at all tiers of instruction. Monitor and report on the social-emotional development and progress of interventions at the student, school, and district level. Explore hundreds of intervention strategies across academics, behavior, and SEL in Panorama Playbook.
- Check-ins: Use Panorama’s flexible check-ins tool in conjunction with SEL surveys to identify the students who need support right now. Administer a check-in anytime in Panorama and get students’ responses back instantly. Explore results for individual students and groups of students, and quickly deliver Tier 1 or targeted supports in response to the data.
We’ve worked with thousands of schools and districts across the country to support the whole child, serving over 15 million students in all 50 states. Get in touch with our team to learn about partnering with Panorama today.
Access our open source Social-Emotional Learning Survey
