Tennessee: Integrating Instructional Practices that Support Student Social and Personal Development

In 2015, the Tennessee Department of Education ‘s (TDOE) Safe and Supportive Schools division reached out to the GTL Center to support Tennessee’s Social and Personal Competencies efforts as part of their sustainability plan of their Safe, Supportive Schools (S3) grant. Through their S3 grant, TDOE measured school climate in districts throughout the state, demonstrating the need for resources to support student social and personal development.

As a first step in the process, staff from the Safe and Supportive Schools division, with GTL Center staff, convened multiple cross-office meetings to do a listening tour of the needs of the other offices within TDOE. Specifically, meetings took place with representatives from special education, educator effectiveness, and early childhood.

Based on these cross-office meetings, TDOE adopted the GTL Center’s 10 teaching practices that promote social and personal development. They adopted these practices because they (a) help teachers integrate social, personal, and academic development; (b) align with the practices in the Tennessee Educator Acceleration Model (TEAM), the state’s educator evaluation model; and (c) can be leveraged to develop professional learning experiences for educators.

Connecting Competencies to the Classroom

To help Tennessee educators more clearly see the connection between the TEAM evaluation model and the social and personal competencies in their day-to-day work in the classroom, GTL Center staff, in partnership with Appalachia Regional Comprehensive Center (ARCC), provided collaborative support to co-author a Toolkit with TDOE for Tennessee teachers and administrators that:

  • Describes the 10 instructional practices in detail for educators;
  • Demonstrates the direct alignment between the 10 instructional practices and specific indicators within the TEAM evaluation rubric; and
  • Offers example videos, look-fors in classroom observation, and administrator–teacher discussion prompts.

TDOE staff members, in partnership with GTL Center staff, disseminated the toolkit to educators across the state through conferences, newsletters, and e-blasts, allowing TDOE to obtain feedback. While educators found the toolkit to be useful and provided great examples of the 10 teaching practices, they asked for deeper learning opportunities on how to best integrate the 10 teaching practices into their daily instruction.

Going Deeper with Educators on Instructional Practice

To create deeper learning opportunities for their educators in the 10 teaching practices and their TEAM evaluation model, TDOE asked the GTL Center and ARCC staff members to provide support for the development of online modules for each of the 10 instructional practices. The modules provide concrete examples and next steps for educators to support whole child development in their classrooms.

Each module:

  • introduces one teaching practice and why it is important;
  • provides self-reflection activities and classroom videos for teachers implementing each practice;
  • explicit examples of how to implement each practice in the classroom that supports student social and personal development; and
  • an action planning template.

In addition to the online modules, TDOE continues to integrate the work into other state initiatives. According to Pat Conner, director of the State Supportive School Office at TDOE, "The other piece that we are certainly tying to our social and personal competencies work is a training that we developed over the summer on adverse childhood experiences and trauma-informed care. These instructional practices really fall in line with what a trauma-informed classroom and the instruction in that classroom should look like."

Beyond Instructional Practice: Going Deeper on Social and Personal Competencies

After working with the GTL Center to support educators around the 10 practices, TDOE decided to develop social and personal competencies with developmental indicators across five domains of social and personal competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. These competencies define what each competency looks like (similar to academic standards) from kindergarten to adulthood.

To support TDOE in the development of their social and personal competencies, and in writing a related resource guide, GTL Center provided exemplars from other states going through similar processes and provided thought partnership during the development of the competencies. Pat Conner, director of State Supportive Schools, has seen firsthand the positive response from educators:

"We've seen a groundswell of support from educators around the social and personal competencies and the instructional practices. We reinforce the importance of including those [practices] to strengthen instruction. There has to be a blend in the classroom and there are some effective ways to deliver instruction that also build the competencies in students.  This is something teachers have asked for. They know it's important."

Future Work

In 2018, GTL Center and ARRC staff will continue to develop the remainder of the online modules and will be supporting TDOE to identify potential districts to pilot the online modules and assess their impact on both teacher practice and the development of students’ social and personal competencies. TDOE is also considering using these modules to create a microcredential for teachers in social and personal competencies.

Tennessee Partners

Pat Conner
Director, Safe and Supportive Schools
Tennessee Department of Education

Key Resources

Tennessee SEL Resources

GTL Center’s SEL Resources