Engaged Teaching: "Do Now" Activities for Your Lessons
Blogger Maurice Elias shares some simple tips for implementing SEL in elementary, middle and high school classes -- including a short quiet time at the beginning and end of the day, using transition...
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Teaching At-Risk Youth: Looking Back 50 Years
Blogger Maurice Elias revisits past research still relevant and valuable on how best to serve at-risk students in urban schools. http://www.flickr.com/photos/53901376@N04/6855457682When it comes to...
View ArticleCreating a Positive Climate and Culture: How Inclusive Schools Promote SEL
Dr. Maurice Elias highlights schools where social, emotional learning and inclusive curriculum go hand-in-hand. In a recent blog, I interviewed Dr. Brad Lerman about the Inclusive Schools Climate...
View ArticleSix Paths to Better Leadership
Maurice Elias outlines six important standards for school leaders to make a difference in the lives of their students and school communities. We know a lot about effective leadership in education --...
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Back to School: Goal Setting With Your Students
Blogger Maurice Elias explores 12 virtues for teachers to use when goal setting with students. http://www.flickr.com/photos/comedynose/7865159650Dara Feldman, in her inspiring new book, The Heart of...
View ArticleBack to School: 3 Question Activities to Connect Students
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias describes three classroom activities for team and trust building with students. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I...
View ArticleTeaching Emotional Literacy
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias shares why teaching emotional literacy should be a priority and how it relates to academic success. I recently had the opportunity to appear on Science Friday with Marc...
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Why Students Should Discover The Liberty Bell's True History
Blogger Maurice Elias offers up lessons on The Liberty Bell to inspire students to ask critical questions and look more deeply at the world.http://www.flickr.com/photos/townhero/5651145540/As the new...
View ArticleHelping Students Develop the Skills to Focus
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias shares a classroom activity that helps K-8 students develop their ability to focus and pay better attention. In Dan Goleman's new book, Focus: The Hidden Driver of...
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Refocusing Students: How to Get Their Attention Back
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias offers activities to help secondary students practice focusing their attention and then getting themselves refocused when needed....
View ArticleA Call to All Social-Emotional Learning Leaders
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias asks SEL and character education leaders to work together to create a set of guidelines and to also decide on a common language and terminology. It's time for the...
View ArticleHabits of Heart: Helping Students Reflect and Act on Gratitude
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias offers teachers several classroom activities to help students understand gratitude and put it to practice. The jury is in and the verdict is that gratitude should be set...
View ArticleA Mid-Year Reflection for Teachers and Students
Blogger Maurice Elias offers up useful activities to help teachers and students reflect halfway through the school year. As we edge towards the end of the calendar year and the first half of the...
View ArticleYou've Got to Reach Before You Teach
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias shares strategies and activities to help educators effectively reach students. "Whether at the start of the school year, the re-start of school after the New Year, or at...
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How Are Social-Emotional Learning and the Common Core Connected?
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias proposes that social-emotional and character development are inseparable from students becoming college, career, and civic ready, the mission of the Common Core....
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The Hardest Job in America
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias reflects on the powerful words of Sargent Shriver, a champion for public school teachers. http://www.flickr.com/photos/53901376@N04/10094973395/The hardest job in...
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A Truly Socially Inclusive School Benefits Everyone
Dr. Maurice Elias highlights Project UNIFY, a program that brings differently-abled students together in various forms of shared activities and purposes....
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How to Become a Socially Inclusive School
Dr. Maurice Elias offers up eight suggestions for creating a school that is more socially inclusive of special education students. http://www.flickr.com/photos/vilanovailageltru/8080475322In its...
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Maya Angelou's Poetry: A Lesson in Service, History, SEL, and Civics
Blogger Maurice Elias outlines a high school lesson with Maya Angelou's poem, "A Brave and Startling Truth." http://www.flickr.com/photos/thepanamerican/6281513570With National Poetry Month just a few...
View ArticleA Feelings Walking Tour: Surveying Your School Culture and Climate
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias describes how to take a symbolic walk through your school to gain insight and ideas for any necessary action or changes. Take a walk through your building or workplace...
View ArticleUsing Humor in the Classroom
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias explains how laughter can reduce stress and offers a handful of teaching activities to lighten up the learning. “But why do I have to go? School is not fun!” That quote...
View ArticleBullying Prevention: Students Share Dos and Don'ts
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias shares a recently published study of nearly fourteen thousand students who shared their opinions on bullying prevention at their schools. Stan Davis has devoted a long...
View ArticleEnd of Year Burnout: How to Finish the Marathon in Stride
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias shares five ways teachers can beat end-of-the-year burnout. The end of the school year can feel like the final few miles of a marathon. Not only does your body not want...
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Good Schools for All: Finishing the Work of Brown vs. Board of Education
In the spirit of Brown vs. the Board of Education, Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias advocates that every student be intentionally and continuously exposed to programming that supports the growth of the...
View ArticleIn the Classroom: Helping Children Speak about Death and Loss
Edutopia blogger Maurice Elias suggests social, emotional learning includes a space for students to discuss loss of loved ones, which can also deepen their empathy for each other. Four times during...
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