The Center for Learning and Well-Being is a global research institute focused on advancing evidence-based best practices in support of social emotional learning in PK-12 schools.
We support students, educators, and families in recognizing the power and impact of social emotional learning in the pursuit of academic achievement and productive citizenship.
Our work is designed to elevate teacher voice and student voice into the international discourse around social emotional learning and well-being, laying the foundation for schools and systems to advance inclusive polices and practices that enable:
- Teachers to advance their own well-being and form meaningful relationships with their peers and students
- Students to make connections between their learning or learning environment and their emotional well-being in order to reduce isolation, increase engagement, and accelerate achievement
- Leaders to evaluate the impact they are having on school culture, equity, student and teacher well-being, learning and growth.
MICHELLE TRUJILLO
Michelle L. Trujillo, Co-Founder of the Center for Learning and Well-Being, is an author and experienced teacher with over 25 years in education. Armed with a passion for empowering educators and students alike with the principles they need to thrive, Michelle is a firm believer in the powerful role that educators have in guiding and inspiring their students. Michelle's message of "starting with the heart" is founded on brain-based research, "in the trenches" experience and practical strategies. Her sincerity, enthusiasm and expertise are contagious and substantial. Named Nevada's 2016 Innovative Educator of the Year, Michelle has appeared on television (including Oprah) and radio stations across the nation as a guest expert. A life-long educator, Michelle is the author of Thriving Through Adversity: Powerful Strategies for Educators to Ignite Hope, Inspire Students, and Transform Schools; Social Emotional Well-Being for Educators; Start With the Heart: Igniting Hope in Schools through Social and Emotional Learning; Why Can’t We Talk: What Teens Would Share if Parents Would Listen, and Chicken Soup for the Soul presents Teens Talkin’ Faith.
TARYN WATERS
Taryn Waters, Co-Founder for the Center for Learning and Well-Being, is passionate about helping educators do their jobs better and has a proven track record of creating sustained impact and value for mission-driven organizations. Over the course of her career, Taryn has developed comprehensive education strategies and solutions for hundreds of PK-12 school systems and dozens of universities, including the development and launch of the largest evidence-based database in the world on what works best to improve teaching and learning. Taryn has a deep understanding of the education sector – from classroom practice and professional learning to education policy and learning design – and is motivated by an innate desire to have a positive impact on the lives of learners across the globe.
Publications
Thriving Through Adversity: Powerful Strategies for Educators to Ignite Hope, Inspire Students, and Transform Schools
Thriving Through Adversity is a practical and heartfelt book that seeks to empower educators from all walks of life with the strategies they need to inspire their students and foster a positive school environment built on creativity, ingenuity, equity, empathy, and hope. Intended for teachers and leaders alike, Thriving Through Adversity introduces five ways that educators at all levels of a system can foster connected and inclusive schools, strengthen classroom culture, and support the well-being of their staff and their students. Throughout the book you will be introduced to a series of profound insights, reflection prompts, and practical strategies, each aimed to help you develop the roadmap required to not only persevere through difficulties - both known and unknown - but learn to thrive! With an authentic approach that incorporates the voices of teachers, parents, students and education experts, Thriving Through Adversity will help educators rediscover how to transform every level of their school community and leave a lasting impact on the lives of their students.
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Join our international online SEL community in the Center for Learning and Well-Being App and gain immediate access to:
- Free resources, activities, and book studies
- Professional learning webinars
- Discussion forums
- Book and online course discounts
- Weekly tips
- Professional learning communities.
Professional Learning
Thriving through Adversity: Powerful Strategies for Educators to Ignite Hope, Inspire Students, and Transform Schools
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We are Ignitors of HOPE! Social Emotional Learning is the Fuel!
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Social Emotional Well-Being for Educators
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Start with the Heart: Meeting Students (and Adults!) Right Where They Are!
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The Invisible Backpack: “Seeing” the Human Being Behind the Behavior
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Thought Activation/Leadership Coaching
Learn MoreUpcoming Events:
Online Learning
Online Course: Social and Emotional Learning Starts with You
Course Objectives:
- Use provided prompts specific to social and emotional learning to describe assumptions and insights of practitioners, researchers and self, including how the information relates to professional educational practice.
- Design an innovative lesson, activity, or tool for students on decision making.
- Prepare a digital poster or presentation collaboratively on the topic of relationship skills and/or social awareness.
- Implement a self-management activity or lesson.
- Develop a presentation or complete a self-assessment to challenge the status quo related to self-awareness, relationships, and/or connection.
- Document, in writing, the impacts of self-awareness on professional practice and a plan for increasing adult SEL skills.
TrueNorth Student Voice App
The TrueNorth Student Voice App is the simplest way for educators to collect student voice around what their students are learning and how their students are feeling.
Co-designed with students, the TrueNorth Student Voice App helps teachers understand what their students are learning, how their students are feeling, and what teaching strategies they need to implement to accelerate and personalize learning for every student.
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The TrueNorth Student Voice App is the simplest way for educators to collect student voice around what their students are learning and how their students are feeling.
o-designed in partnership with students, TrueNorth enables teachers to collect feedback from every student in their classroom in five minutes or less.
With each TrueNorth check-in, students can share with their teacher:
- Key insights into what they are learning;
- Feedback on their progress and next steps;
- The teaching strategies that help them most; and
- Their state of well-being.
The TrueNorth Student Voice App is being adopted by teachers and leaders across the globe to increase teacher impact and maximize student learning.
Features
Amplify the Voice of Every Student
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Student Learning Journal Goal Setting
Our check-ins are evidence-based and designed by students for students to: empower student voice, build student confidence, improve student engagement, and maximize student learning. The interactive TrueNorth Student Voice App equips students with the tools they need to:
- Reflect on their learning
- Reflect on how they are feeling about their learning
- Evaluate their work
- Identify next steps or areas of improvement
- Identify how they learn best
- Take greater ownership over their learning
- Make connections between their learning or learning environment and their emotional well-being
- Send a confidential note directly to their teacher if they require additional emotional support
Personalize Learning to Accelerate Student Growth
Differentiate instruction and accelerate student growth by identifying individual student learning needs and the support each student requires to move their learning forward. Through collecting and analyzing the student data provided through the TrueNorth Student Voice App, teachers can:
- Understand and leverage the instructional strategies that have the greatest impact on student learning
- Design interventions and scaffold lessons based on student feedback
- Identify how students are feeling as well as their level of engagement with each learning experience
- Create student peer groups, lesson plans, and activities that are equitable and meet each student where they are
- Enable meaningful connections and interactions between students that reduce isolation and increase their level of engagement
- Monitor and adjust the level of challenge in each lesson to set consistently high expectations
- Foster the development of critical self-reflection skills and agency in their students
- Form more authentic relationships and stronger credibility with their students
Classroom Dashboard Tracking Student Learning, Engagement and Well-being
Support Teacher Growth and Development
Give teachers the formative assessment, collective efficacy, evidence-based instruction, and personalized learning tool they need to supercharge their professional growth and exponentially accelerate learning for ALL students. Through regular use of TrueNorth, teachers can:
- Review and reflect on student feedback to understand their impact and inform their next steps
- Collaborate with peers, mentors, and coaches to share student feedback and identify the high impact teaching strategies that will collectively improve student learning
- Select professional development focus areas and evaluate their own evidence of growth within each of those focus areas
- Customize their own professional development pathway based on their learning goals, student feedback, peer observations, and self-reflection exercises.
- Define what effective instructional practice looks like in each of their classrooms based on student data and peer feedback.
- Use the evidence collected to inform PLC, coaching, and teacher evaluation conversations.
- Engage parents in data-centered conversations about their student’s learning and well-being
Classroom, School, and System-Level Accountability
Set new standards of accountability by equipping students, teachers, school and system leaders, and parents with consistent, real-time, and actionable data to demonstrate student learning, student well-being, and teacher growth over time. TrueNorth gathers and analyzes evidence to produce easy-to-understand reports around:
- The degree to which students understood and mastered the learning within any given lesson
- Student well-being and social emotional learning needs
- Classroom strategies and teaching practices that students identify as most impactful in helping them learn more effectively
- Level of challenge and rigor present within a lesson
- Level of student agency and teacher collaboration within a classroom, school, and/or system
- Changes in tier two and tier three vocabulary usage by students over time
- Progression in student learning and changes in student emotional well-being by grade level, subject, and/or school
- Growth in teacher professional practice over time
School Impact Dashboards
Impact
Proven to Rapidly Accelerate Student Learning
TrueNorth improves student learning outcomes in three ways proven to have significant impact
- Students build their capacity to assess their own learning and direct their next steps.
Accelerates student learning by 3.3x the average rate of student learning per year - Enables teachers to work together and collaborate as a team to lead the improvement of student outcomes.
Accelerates student learning by 3.5x the average rate of student learning per year - Classroom strategies and teaching practices that students identify as most impactful in helping them learn more effectively
Accelerates student learning by 3.6x the average rate of student learning per year
In teaching and learning evidenced gathered from 150,000+ lessons, 94% of school leaders and 81% of school teachers said TrueNorth supports collective efficacy to lead the improvement of student outcomes.
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Accelerating Student Learning
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