The Michael Green Social and Emotional Learning Program
Supporting and understanding the growth of young people is knowing more than how they performed on a math quiz or end of year test. It’s also how they are progressing toward being a contributing citizen beyond graduation and how they feel about themselves. We’re in a whole new world where we should be supporting and understanding children in their full and complete development. Dual Immersion Academy (DIA) is committed to this holistic approach to education through its focus on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).
DIA is developing a strategic, systemic approach to SEL. Thanks to the support of The Aguilar Family, DIA is utilizing Panorama to build and address the social-emotional skills and competencies of its students. Panorama is the top-rated tool for research-backed SEL. Panorama allows DIA to better understand a baseline of its students and teachers social and emotional learning skills so that it knows where to focus on implementing interventions to create social and emotional skills and well-being.
Michael Green
“Oh, the places you’ll go.”
Mike loved traveling and learning about different cultures. Particularly fond of crazy adventures, he enjoyed outdoor activities, hiking, bike rides (350 miles from NY to Boston), and a challenging Spartan Race. He was always there to help out and didn’t back down from challenges, no matter how difficult.
The epitome of a hard worker, Mike was a business owner, founding his own consulting business after years of working for other companies, which allowed him to focus more time on family in the later years.
Mike had grit, a big heart, and always went out of his way to care for others. He was passionate about education and wanted to make sure that everyone had equal opportunity. He wanted people to be able to experience the world and different cultures. Many years ago Mike started donating to a community center in Burlington, Vermont, to help youth explore various educational and social opportunities. His philanthropic efforts have had a positive impact on hundreds of children and families.
Mike was a kid at heart. One of his favorite things was to hang out with his grandchildren and encourage them to explore everything that interested them.
Mike's philanthropic interest in full and complete development for all children connects directly with DIA’s plans to use the Panorama Social Emotional Learning tool. This support will have a direct impact on the holistic education for DIA students for years to come.
More about SEL
SEL is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, establish and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships and make responsible decisions.
SEL is critical to developing competencies alongside academic content knowledge that are necessary to succeed in college and in careers. Neuroscience research demonstrates that emotion and cognition are inextricably linked; emotions are critical for all people to understand, organize and make connections between even “pure” academic concepts.
Effective SEL is a lifelong pursuit. SEL programming is based on the understanding that the best learning emerges in the context of supportive relationships that make learning challenging, engaging, and meaningful.
Social and emotional skills are critical to being a good student, citizen, and worker. Workforce
demands aside, many call for the 21st century classroom to be student-centered and to support individual learning needs. Moreover, students’ ability to learn well depends not just on instruction, but also on factors such as the school climate, a sense of belonging with peers, positive relationships with educators, and the feedback they receive.
More about Panorama
Panorama for Social-Emotional Learning is a new tool to help teachers, principals, and superintendents measure and understand social-emotional learning for their students.
Panorama's SEL measures have been used with more than 600,000 students in the United States, with strong findings of validity and reliability. Educators have found Panorama for SEL to be an important tool for improving education.
Panorama provides a variety of measures where educators can choose which measures to use to understand and improve SEL in their context. These assessments are focused in three key areas:
Student competencies - includes measures of Grit, Growth Mindset, and Self-Efficacy (plus others)
Student supports and environment - includes Teacher-Student Relationships, Sense of Belonging, School Safety (plus others)
Teacher skills and perspectives - includes Professional Learning about SEL, School Climate, Resources for School Support (plus others).
The measures were developed by Panorama's research team with support from our research partners at UC Santa Barbara, the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and Transforming Education. Each measure consists of several questions or prompts for students or teachers. Districts and schools can administer Panorama’s SEL measures to students in English and Spanish.
DIA thanks The Aguilar Family, who made this donation in honor and memory of Michael Green, for their generosity and the opportunity to provide this program and utilize the Panorama tool with our students.