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  • Establish multiple ways to ask students about their well-being. Consider using Closegap.
  • Check out these strategies in CASEL’s SEL Three Signature Practices Playbook
    • 1. Welcoming/inclusion activities
    • 2. Engaging strategies, brain breaks, and transitions; and 
    • 3. Optimistic closures
  • NEW! Using intentional student engagement strategies can go a long way towards helping students view learning as fun, see it as important, see the value of working with and functioning as part of a team, and be part of a social institution. Here are 17 of the best student engagement strategies. Here are some other specific strategies for helping students engage in the classroom.
  • Cultivate the core competencies of SEL by teaching breathing and relaxation, understanding emotions, gratitude, focus, empathy, self-regulation, and more by using Inner Explorer.
  • Build SEL skills in self-awareness and emotion management using these practices;
  • Use Mood Meter to help students identify how they feel and build emotional intelligence. Mood Meter allows people of all ages to build self- and social-awareness. (Helpful hint: If your school is already using Zones of Regulation, it is recommended to stick with that as there are differences in the color-coding of the moods and feelings);
  • Consider using Zones of Regulation, a cognitive-behavioral approach used to teach students how to regulate feelings, energy, and sensory needs to meet the demands of the situation and be successful socially. (If your school is already using Mood Meter, it would be best to stick with that as there are differences in the color-coding of the moods and feelings);
  • Use Second Step to develop a comprehensive and holistic approach to teaching social-emotional learning at all levels of intervention;
  • For teens, consider Teen Mental Health First Aid training;
  • Learn about and develop the capacity to support students around stress, distress, and trauma. Here are several brief videos presented by Bruce Perry for you to view and share.