Dear Academic Approach Families and Colleagues:
This week, we’ve discussed the role of social-emotional learning (SEL) in our academic programming: that it is critical for a student’s mental health and that we have seen evidence that it is leading to better academic outcomes.
Academic Mindsets
How, exactly, do students take their social-emotional skills and use them to promote their academic progress? The development of academic mindsets in students is key. These mindsets refer to students’ beliefs about their own abilities in the academic world. Research showed that strong academic mindsets were linked closely with other SEL factors, including social skills, academic perseverance, and learning strategies. These factors then had a significant impact on students’ GPAs. The research showed that stronger academic mindsets–that is, stronger beliefs in a student’s own ability to learn and grow–led, concretely, to better academic growth.
How do we help?
We work with our students to ensure that we’re not only teaching skills but also teaching students how to learn and how to believe in their own ability to learn. We’d recommend this resource for parents and this resource for educators from the Project for Education Research that Scales (PERTS) on developing mindsets in students, which we’ve seen have powerful impact in the classroom.
Be well,
Matthew Pietrafetta, Ph.D., Founder & CEO
