I bet you have a student in mind right now that you think will never have buy-in for ANYTHING you put in front of them. You might also be imagining the teenage eye rolls. You are in the right place! Try these tips to generate student buy-in for your SEL program.
Student Buy-in with a Student Advisory Council
What better way to get buy-in than having students advise you on what to do!? Don’t worry, the students aren’t going to run the school. Wow, could you imagine? No homework, no boring tests, and lots of fun.
While we have things we need to do to create order and ensure our students graduate, they frequently have valuable insights. Students want to feel heard. When they feel heard and participate in decisions, they have ownership in the outcome and are more invested. This will lead to more students doing what you want.
Create an advisory council by picking students throughout the school that represent all demographics and grades. You will want representatives from every grade. Get a variety of students. You want students that are involved in sports, students that are involved in extracurricular activities, students that are your students of the month but also students that struggle in school. The more variety you have on your council, the better your results.
One tip is to ensure that the students you select are willing to talk and share their opinion and will not be disruptive to the process. Part of this process is setting the ground rules/norms at the beginning of your meetings. It is even more beneficial to work with the students to create your group rules and not just tell them the rules.
Student Meetings
Consider having school-wide student meetings. If your school is practicing teaming, then have team meetings. I have found it beneficial to meet with students in groups of 50-100.
You can meet with your students and give them a lecture which you will quickly find them turning their attention elsewhere, or you can engage with them. Ask them questions! Get their feedback. What do they see as the issues their grade is having now? What do they wish would be different in the school? How can they make it different?
These meetings are a great time to share information, but even more importantly, they are an opportunity to hear from your students! Students feel heard, and so they take more ownership in what is happening.
You can even have student meetings in your classroom. Consider a reset meeting where you discuss what is going well in class and what needs improvement. Go over your rules and the rules they have picked for your classroom. Do you, as a group, need to make changes?
Classroom and team meetings are an excellent time to review your student data. Share the raw numbers. Show students how many students in each grade received referrals for the last grading period. Share the data of how many As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs the student body had during the last quarter. Show them the number of overall student absences.
Once they see the data ask their opinions. What do they think we can do to improve these numbers? What are we doing well as a school? How can we help those around us do better?
Create an Environment for Student Engagement
Your environment means a lot. Do you have an environment that is safe and engaging, or do you have an environment that is sterile and unwelcoming? Do you allow negative comments in your classroom or around the school? Is being a good student something to aspire to or something to hide?
Some of these questions have to do with the student attitudes in your building. These can be challenging to change. Some of these questions have to do with you and the environment that you create. Ask yourself, do I believe in what I am teaching?
When you have bought into the lessons that you are presenting, your students will buy in as well. Interest in a topic is contagious! Show them that you are interested and that you think it is important. Students are clever! They know when you are trying to trick them. If you don’t think it is important, why should they?
Create an environment that encourages engagement. Give space in your room for your students to interact with you and not just listen. One way to do this is by building relationships with students. Talk to them! Ask questions and greet them as they walk into the room.
Implement a specific time in class for students to contribute. Consider implementing a take 5. Where you take the first few minutes of class and present a question. The possibilities are endless. You can do a Motivational Monday, Teaser Tuesday, Would you Rather Wednesday, Think about it Thursday, and Funny Friday. These are just a few examples.
Make it Fun!
Student buy-in increases exponentially when things are fun. Do you remember more when you are sitting in a chair listening or when you are having fun? Learning and fun can go hand and hand.
Turn your lessons into games. Games can be used to teach many skills, such as working together, negotiating, thinking out of the box, and communicating.
Make it age-appropriate! Check out this post on Making SEL Relevant to High School Students.
Change up your lessons. Students learn in a variety of ways. Allow them to do self-reflection, work with a partner, and work in a group. Provide lessons that have worksheets, some that include videos, some that are games, and some that are classroom activities. They say variety is the spice of life. The Mind Trek SEL Program offers many different types of lessons to help keep students engaged.
SEL Unfiltered
Do you want to hear more? Check out Episode #3 on Obtaining Student Buy-in on our SEL Unfiltered podcast, wherever you stream your podcasts.
You might also be interested in the rest of our series on buy-in. Check out our other episodes: Principal Buy-in, Teacher Buy-in, and Community Buy-in.
Game of the Week
Every week on SEL Unfiltered, we like to bring you a game or activity. You can use the game with your students, in the classroom, or a small group. This week Kaitlin and I played an adrenaline-pumping game of “20 Seconds”. We each had 20 seconds to name everything in a topic. Kaitlin had to name as many Disney villains as she could. I had to name as many Disney sidekicks as I could.
On the outside, it seems so easy, but when it is your turn, your mind just goes blank. This is a fun game to get students interacting and laughing with one another. You can come up with whatever topics you like. They can be fun and silly, or you can bring them back to a topic you cover in class.
Some examples might include emotions, things you can do with a friend, books, authors, state capitals, countries, presidents, vice presidents, vocabulary words, and words that begin with M. The options are endless!
If you don’t know how to play, pick one student to go and set a timer for 20 seconds. They will need to name as many things within your chosen topic in 20 seconds. If you want to make it challenging, you can have someone go after them using the same topic. The second student cannot repeat any of the first lists.
You can also put students in groups and have them write down their answers. The groups can race against one another. Increase the time to 1 minute if students are writing.
