Open Circle is a leading provider of evidence-based curricula and professional development for social and emotional learning (SEL).

Problema

Emotions impact learning: positive emotions help students generate and sustain interest in learning, while negative emotions interfere with perception, attention and memory. Children learn best when they feel connected to safe, caring, and highly-engaging school communities, while learning suffers when children feel excluded, threatened, bullied, or discouraged. Educators in the more than 67,000 elementary schools across the United States need evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) curricula and professional development to enable them to cultivate positive learning environments and to help students develop critical social and emotional skills.

Solução

Open Circle provides evidence-based curricula and professional development for social and emotional learning (SEL) in Grades K-5 that addresses both skill-building for social and emotional development and community-building to create safe, caring, and highly-engaging learning environments. The grade-differentiated Open Circle Curriculum integrates research findings in social and emotional development with best practices in teaching, dialogue facilitation, and classroom management. Open Circle’s comprehensive professional development programs are tailored to the unique needs of adult learners. In addition, Open Circle initiated the best practices of training all school staff members – teachers, administrators, and support staff – to support SEL and training leadership teams to help schools and districts sustain SEL over time.

Exemplo

Students participate in year-round, twice-weekly, 15-20 minute, teacher-led classroom meetings in a circle of chairs, leaving one chair empty as a symbol that there is always room for another voice or perspective, and covering lessons from the Open Circle Curriculum or timely issues related to the classroom, school, or broader community. Students also benefit from teachers’ infusion of social and emotional learning (SEL) concepts throughout the school day, such as identifying SEL skills on display as students work in teams on math problems, recognizing the emotions of characters in literature during reading lessons, or encouraging students to add feelings in writing exercises. The Open Circle Curriculum teaches explicit skills across all SEL domains – recognizing and managing emotions, showing empathy for others, building positive relationships, and making responsible decisions – and incorporates explicit community-building activities to establish a positive classroom and school climate. Specific SEL skills are presented annually, increasing in depth and sophistication at each grade level. This consistency and reinforcement empowers schools to share a common SEL language and common standards for student behavior school-wide. The curriculum also integrates high-quality children’s literature, active learning tools such as role-plays and games, frequent community-building activities, and send-home newsletters to engage parents.

Ofertas e demandas

Open Circle’s research-validated track record, commitment to quality, adherence to best practices, and continual innovation differentiate it from other social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. In addition, Open Circle is unique because it covers both SEL skill-building and community-building, it provides a whole-school approach, it helps schools plan for implementation sustainability, it provides high-quality professional development that respects the unique needs of adult learners, and it is nationally-recognized and evidence-based.