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On June 22, 2021, we will launch updated strategies for the Math PK-2 model, as well as additional updates to the Navigator that highlight equity, SEL, and culturally responsive teaching. To learn more, visit our Site Updates (available in the "About" menu at the top of any page).
Hover to see how factors connect to Social Awareness & Relationship Skills. Then click connected factors to explore strategies related to multiple factors.
Learning is powerful when we learn with and from each other. Social Awareness & Relationship Skills are essential for forming and maintaining positive relationships so that peers and educators can become learning partners. When each individual sees how they can use their strengths to contribute to the success of a group, they can better engage in class.
Social Awareness is the understanding of social norms for behavior and the ability to recognize and understand the perspectives and feelings of others. Social Awareness allows students to empathize with people from diverse backgrounds that are different from their own. During adolescence, the need to belong and "fit in" with peers is heightened. Adolescents are therefore particularly sensitive to social comparisons, peer influence, and social rejection. As relationships with peers become more important, their behavior in the classroom may be restricted by their concerns about what their peers think of them.
Relationship Skills are specific interpersonal skills based on Social Awareness that allow students to communicate and get along with others, cooperate, and prevent and resolve interpersonal conflicts. These skills can also include cross-cultural competence such as understanding different norms and conventions and using appropriate verbal and nonverbal behavior in diverse cultural situations. Greater intercultural contact can help build these skills.
During the adolescent years, peers have a significant influence on reading practices. Discussing books with friends allows students to critically engage with reading material. Also, students with strong Social Awareness & Relationship Skills show lower levels of conduct problems and emotional distress and better social adjustment and academic achievement. Students with learning disabilities, and particularly those with ADHD, tend to have more difficulty with peer relationships and are more likely to be rejected and excluded by their peers, often due to stigma.
Physically acting out a text or enacting major themes from texts enhances reading comprehension, particularly as texts become more complex.
When annotating, students engage deeply with a text and make their thinking visible while reading.
Students practice making and finding meaning in texts through book discussions moderated by teachers to varying degrees.
Developing empathy in educators and in learners is an iterative process that requires taking the time to understand and honor others' perspectives.
Building positive and trusting relationships with learners allows them to feel safe; a Sense of Belonging; and that their academic, cognitive, and social and emotional needs are supported.
Checking in with learners, or taking the time to talk with individual learners about their experiences or goals, is important for fostering a positive classroom environment.
Checklists and rubrics help students understand expectations as they navigate more complex tasks and assignments.
When peers are able to work together to plan, draft, edit, and revise during the Composition process, their writing quality improves.
For adolescent learners, the Composition process can become more robust, as learners begin to express ideas through multiple media, which includes visual, audio, and digital production.
When preparing for and debating with peers, students analyze, form, and express verbal arguments, fostering their critical thinking and literacy skills.
Developing cultural awareness as an educator is an ongoing process that includes building empathy for the full diversity of students, intentionally recognizing how one's own identity intersects with students' identities, and creating an awareness of how the learning environment can impact students' Sense of Belonging.
Discussing race with students can range from celebrating the importance of diversity to understanding the impact of racism from the perspective of those who have been historically marginalized.
A first step to supporting learners is truly understanding who they are.
Increasing how much and how frequently students write improves both their writing quality and content knowledge.
Family engagement happens when educators and schools collaborate with families to collectively support their child's learning in meaningful ways, both at school and at home.
Visiting places connected to classroom learning provides opportunities to deepen understanding through firsthand experiences.
Flexible grouping is a classroom practice that temporarily places students together in given groups to work together, with the purpose of achieving a given learning goal or activity.
+When students are aware that learning involves effort, mistakes, reflection, and refinement of strategies, they are more resilient when they struggle.
As students move through multimodal stations pertaining to a particular unit, the social and physical nature of the activity supports deeper understanding.
Games help students practice their literacy skills in a fun, applied context.
During guided inquiry, teachers foster student autonomy by designing lessons centered on meaningful questions in which students locate, analyze, and present relevant information on their own or in small groups.
Learning about students' cultures and connecting them to instructional practices helps foster a Sense of Belonging and mitigate Stereotype Threat.
Having private or semi-private spaces where students can go to support Self-regulation and individual deliberate practice.
As students work with and process information by discussing, organizing, and sharing it together, they deepen their understanding.
Journaling allows students to reflect on their thinking and feelings, process their learning, and connect new information to what they know, supporting their identity development and Sense of Belonging.
Short breaks that include mindfulness quiet the brain to allow for improved thinking and emotional regulation.
Creating student-driven, flexible learning spaces involves setting up the classroom to support the desired learning outcomes for each activity.
Brain breaks that include movement allow learners to refresh their thinking and focus on learning new information.
Multiple display spaces promote collaboration by allowing groups to share information easily as they work.
Multiple writing surfaces promote collaboration by allowing groups to share information easily as they work.
When students provide constructive feedback on each other's work, they learn to give relevant suggestions, receive specific ways to improve their writing, and engage in Metacognition.
Having students teach their knowledge, skills, and understanding to their classmates strengthens learning and increases Motivation.
Maintaining consistent routines, structures, and supports ensures that students are able to trust and predict what will happen next.
When students write from a non-dominant or marginalized perspective, they consider and give voice to points of view that are often missing.
Project-based learning (PBL) actively engages learners in authentic tasks designed to create products that answer a given question or solve a problem.
Using texts to discuss complex emotions and perspectives with students can help them see how they influence behavior and draw their own personal connections.
When students explain to others, they deepen their understanding and gain confidence in their learning.
With figurative language and creative sentence structure, poetry supports the development of a deeper understanding of the different ways language makes meaning.
Books on social and emotional learning (SEL) topics, such as developing empathy and productive persistence, help teach these skills.
Selecting culturally responsive reading materials, including multicultural and diverse texts, is critical for supporting all students.
Shadowing a student involves an educator, administrator, or designated adult observing a learner across different parts of their day to deepen their understanding of that learner's experience beyond their classroom.
A strengths-based approach is one where educators intentionally identify, communicate, and harness students' assets, across many aspects of the whole child, in order to empower them to flourish.
Student-led conferences are meetings between students, parents, and teachers where the student actively leads the conversation by reflecting on their progress toward goals and sharing examples of their work.
Think-pair-share encourages meaningful student discussion by allowing for extra processing time and multiple shares.
Translanguaging is a flexible classroom practice enabling students to listen, speak, read, and write across their multiple languages or dialects, even if the teacher does not have formal knowledge of these additional languages.
Wait time, or think time, of three or more seconds after posing a question increases how many students volunteer and the length and accuracy of their responses.
Writing conferences allow students to fully immerse, share, reflect, and receive feedback during the writing process, promoting Motivation for continuing the sometimes lengthy revision process that occurs in the upper grades.
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This is our homepage. You can access many of the features of the Navigator here, and learn more about how learner variability intersects with topics in education and learning. To start, select a content area – we call them Learner Models – to visit a factor map.
Factor maps show research-based concepts, "factors," that likely impact learning. They are organized into four categories: Learner Background, Social and Emotional Learning, Cognition, and Content Area. The map is interactive. Move your cursor over a factor to see connected factors. Select any factor to visit its summary page. We'll look at factor summary pages next.
This is a factor summary page. It provides a brief definition and review of the factor, a factor connections diagram, additional resources, and strategies that support this factor. On the strategy card, the multi-colored boxes show all the factors that it supports. Select a strategy to visit its summary page.
Strategy summary pages have an overview, information about using the strategy in different learning environments, resources of interest, the factors this strategy supports, and related strategies you can explore. To view all the strategies in a content area, use the strategies tab at the top of the page. We'll look at all the Strategies for this learner model next.
The strategy page shows ALL of the strategies for that learner model. You can select factors of interest for you or your learners, and it will narrow the strategies to only those that match all of the factors selected. This makes it easy to find key strategies to better design for learner variability. Again, select the strategy name to visit its summary page. Use the plus signs on each strategy card to add a strategy to a workspace. We'll explore those next.
The “Tools & Workspaces” tab on the navigation bar or the “My Workspaces” button on the account menu takes you to a page that shows your workspaces. There are two tabs on the My Workspaces page: a Workspaces tab and a Reports tab. The Workspaces tab lists workspaces you can personalize and update. You can create new sections, move cards between sections, add annotations, share with collaborators, and write reflections. The second tab, "Reports", are a kind of workspace created through the Instructional Design Tool or the Product Assessment Tool and have fewer personalization options.
There are three, step-by-step tools you can access on the Navigator to help make workspace or a workspace report. The Learner Centered Design Tool has four steps and helps you create a workspace. First, enter basic information and select a content area of interest. Second, select a few factors that you want to focus on. Third, review connected factors you may not have considered. Note – you don't have to select any extra factors on this step if you don’t want to. The fourth and final step, review and select strategies that you want to use, and save them to a workspace.
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Learner variability is the recognition that each learner is a unique constellation of strengths and challenges that are interconnected across the whole child. Understanding these connections and how they vary according to context is essential for meeting the needs of each learner.
It disrupts the notion of a one-size-fits all education. Understanding learner variability helps educators embrace both students’ struggles and strengths as we connect practice to uplifting the whole learner.
Throughout the site, we talk about "factors" and "strategies." Factors are concepts research suggests have an impact on how people learn. Strategies are the approaches to teaching and learning that can be used to support people in how they learn best.
Use the Learner Centered Design Tool to build a workspace. Go to Learner Centered Design Tool.
Or, create a new blank workspace for your product or project.
Use one of the guided tools to build a workspace.
Or, create a new blank workspace for your product or project.
Make a copy of this workspace.
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On this page, using your heatmap, you will be asked to select factors to further explore, and then select new strategies you might incorporate into upcoming instruction. Once done, click “Show Summary" to view your Design Summary Report.
On this page, using your heatmap, you will be asked to select factors to further explore, and then select new strategies you might incorporate into upcoming instruction. Once done, click “Show Report” to view your Design Summary Report.
By selecting "Show Report" you will be taken to the Assessment Summary Page. Once created, you will not be able to edit your report. If you select cancel below, you can continue to edit your factor and strategy selections.
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Learner variability is the recognition that each learner is a unique constellation of strengths and challenges that are interconnected across the whole child. Understanding these connections and how they vary according to context is essential for meeting the needs of each learner. It embraces both students’ struggles and strengths. It considers the whole child.
Throughout the site, we talk about "factors" and "strategies." Factors are concepts research suggests have an impact on how people learn. Strategies are the approaches to teaching and learning that can be used to support people in how they learn best.
The Learner Variability Navigator is a free, online tool that translates the science of learner variability into factor maps and strategies that highlight connections across the whole learner. This puts the science of learning at teachers' fingertips, empowering them to understand their own practice and support each learner.
