Getting Started with Empowering Education
Empowering Education Orientation Training
Get started with SEL, mindfulness, and our Empowering Education program with our self-paced, on-demand Orientation Training. Over the course of about 35 minutes, we'll help you understand what are SEL skills, what mindfulness actually entails, and the benefits of both, and then we'll send you on a guided scavenger hunt through our lessons to help you get comfortable with the program.
We have grown up since this recording. As we continue to update our material, please know you can email us with any questions.
Trauma-Informed Teaching Training
With almost half the nation’s children experiencing one or more serious traumas before the age of 18, it is more important than ever that schools use trauma-informed practices. The Trauma-Informed Teaching Training introduces teachers to the prevalence of trauma, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), the needs of students who have experienced trauma, and specific trauma-informed teaching interventions.
If you’re interested in more in-depth trainings, check out our full list of offerings here: EE Branding Professinal Development Offerings. We’re happy to design a custom training for your school!
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training
This training explores the foundational ideas of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) to help educators approach their work with a grounding in how our history, society, and personal biases impact how we relate to the students in our room. It also outlines practical ideas that educators can take to make their classrooms more equitable and inclusive.
How to Teach SEL Online
Workshop Recording
Empowering Education Live Training Opportunities
School licenses include on-demand training for all staff. Available 24/7, our training modules get educators ready to implement our program. School licenses also include yearlong support through email and video conferencing for administrators and teachers.
Each Empowering Education lesson comes with explicit guidance on implementation and the program comes with over 20 videos guiding teachers and showing examples in the classroom.
Schools can add affordable live online training to any school license to either help onboard teachers or focus on topics such as trauma-informed teaching or making mindfulness accessible. Contact us below or through info@empoweringeducation.org to learn more.
Program Welcome Guide
Welcome to the Empowering Education program! The Empowering Education program was designed for teachers by teachers to be effective, easy-to-implement, and fun. We know that if teachers and students don’t want to do a program, it’s not going to work. That’s why our program requires minimal prep but is full of fun and engaging lesson plans with evidence-based interventions and a direct connection to CASEL’s five SEL competencies.
Read more on SEL and mindfulness, check out our tips for program implementation, and review some trauma-informed reminders in our getting started guide. Questions? Email us!
Setup your Classroom for Success
It can be really helpful to set up your classroom so students have a safe and calm area to go to in the classroom. In order to teach students how to self-regulate, a designed space with tools to help students can be very helpful. A calming corner can reduce negative behaviors by giving students a place to go and self-regulate.
Set up your own calming corner with these tips.
Prep the Materials for Engagement
Every Empowering Education lesson has a corresponding journal entry. These help students review the lesson content and reflect. Each lesson plan ends with a printout for the journal page but many teachers find it easier to print them all at once and create binders for each student for the whole year. You can also find a poster to print out for your classroom.
Note: High School Journals coming soon!
Providing Support to Students
Social and emotional learning helps students work through their thoughts and emotions; so it is no wonder that it can bring up some difficult feelings for students. While coping skills, I-statements, and other SEL skills can help students work through difficult moments, sometimes it takes a bit more teacher support for students to manage their feelings. In short, students can get pretty upset at times. That can happen both during and outside of SEL time and teachers should know how to handle those moments.
Download our guide to support students created by school social workers and therapists.
Please note: The suggested script in the Activation Plan may seem geared towards a younger crowd, but the steps in the plan are effective with any age.
Multiple Year Scope & Sequence
Our Empowering Education lessons come with variations and extensions, but some members want more direction about what to do in year 2 and 3 of using a grand band. To that end, members can use the new multi-year scope and sequence for every single lesson. It outlines additional activities and lesson extensions you can bring into your classroom.
Pre and Post Surveys
Are you interested in seeing how mindfulness and SEL impact your students? We recommend using the Child Trends assessment tool to assess your student growth. Make sure to do the pre-assessment right when you start the school year and then the post-assessment at the end of the year.
