How SEL Needs to Work in Everyday Teaching and Learning

Lupita Knittel believes that before we get back normal, whatever that is, education needs to build a new foundation. Forget curricula and assessments, and metrics, the importance of emotional health, for both students and teachers, needs to be the new priority. On this episode of EdTech Today, host Kevin Hogan sits down with Knittel to gain insight into how Social Emotional Learning is set to become a big part of education’s future.

Her company, 7 Mindsets, the pioneer in delivering social emotional learning (SEL) solutions that include mindsets, equity and multicultural pedagogy, is taking on an expanded role in the SEL delivered by Stride, Inc., one of the nation’s leading virtual/online education providers. 7 Mindsets will now provide SEL courses and curriculums, leadership training and teacher professional development throughout the entire Stride, Inc., system for the next three years.

7 Mindsets and Stride, Inc., alliance began in 2014. At that time, 7 Mindsets provided services for four schools designed to help struggling students that were on the verge of dropping out. Three years later, Stride, Inc., added 11 more schools to the 7 Mindsets roster. With the expanded partnership, 7 Mindsets is now serving all of Stride Inc.’s schools and over 120,000 students, up from just 27,000 students in 2019.

“Stride, Inc., is the largest virtual school organization in the United States, and we are very pleased to be an integral part of their expanding SEL program,” said 7 Mindsets President, Lupita Knittel. “We know that our age-appropriate, culturally-relevant curriculum is not only engaging but as an adaptable, digital curriculum it’s the perfect resource for a virtual school environment.”

The 7 Mindsets program is a proven, research-based SEL solution that helps districts and schools sustain positive school cultures rooted in relationships. What sets 7 Mindsets apart from other K-12 SEL programs is that it nurtures the mindsets of educators first, and then students, empowering each member of the school community to live a life of purpose, passion, and meaning. The 7 Mindsets program includes a comprehensive web-based curriculum, professional development and ongoing coaching designed to nurture the social emotional health of teachers and provide training needed for everyone to succeed. The curriculum can be configured to work with any school schedule for both on-site and virtual learning.

In addition to the web-based curriculum, 7 Mindsets is providing professional development for Stride, Inc.’s 4,000 teachers throughout the country. They are also coaching their leadership team, showing them what to monitor and how to coach the schools’ administrators in turn.

“One of the things about 7 Mindsets that really impressed us was that they devote time to developing the social emotional competencies of the teachers and to giving administrators tools for continuously providing adult social emotional learning opportunities,” said Faith Shanholtzer, Vice President of Curriculum, Instruction and Strategic Programming in Stride’s Office of Teaching and Learning. “Those skills and tools not only help create a great learning culture for our students, but they also empower our educators to stay connected to their work in a deep, meaningful way. Our students learn virtually, but this partnership will ensure that they feel psychologically connected and grounded even during these unprecedented times.”

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