Dedicated to Advancing Social Learning for a Lifetime of Well-Being

Educators and therapists often face significant challenges when seeking professional development time away from the classroom or clients. Despite a strong desire for continuous learning and growth, limitations in time off and budget allocations get in the way. According to a 2019 survey by Frontline Education, 91% of educators and school therapists expressed a desire for more professional development time, yet schools typically allocate an average of only 2.8 days per year, often because of a limited pool of substitutes, budgets for offsite PD, and events occurring midweek that conflict with core teaching or testing time. Also, a study by the National Education Association indicates that 87% of educators believe that measuring outcomes is essential for understanding student progress and tailoring instructional strategies accordingly.

In response to these very real needs, we’ve put together some of our most helpful and practical tools for learning about the student or individual with whom you work to better understand their social learning characteristics to guide your teaching or lessons across tiers of teaching and support. We also created this new course to help you find and use authentic measurement tools.

This new seminar is designed to hone your expertise in the Social Thinking Methodology and its relationship to building social and academic competencies. Building on the strengths of smaller professional learning communities, we’ve curated the content of this day to offer a deeper understanding of the latest thinking and literature related to social learning. The seminar will offer ample time for networking, sharing practical lessons and strategies, as well as engaging in robust Q&A sessions with the instructor(s) and fellow attendees. These smaller events are designed to align with the school day, running from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm on Fridays only, and hosted in specific regions. The result is a unique opportunity to connect, learn, and grow within a supportive and collaborative environment with others in your region. Facilitator(s) will share real-life examples and case studies, offering opportunities to problem solve the many different ways one can effectively teach foundational social concepts inside and outside the classroom and home.

Focus:

• Gain a deeper understanding of Neurodiversity-affirming informal assessment tasks, observational tools, and student perspectives to determine which tools are a good match for teaching social concepts.
• Discuss ways to embed social learning concepts in Tier 1 classrooms and smaller Tier 2 groups, with a focus on social metacognition and its core role in academic competencies.
• Explore methods to measure gains through self-report tools, visual scales, and self-reflection, ensuring a holistic view of student outcomes.
• Understand how to consider varying social learning characteristics and social learning systems to write goals (and/or objectives) to reflect those goals.

Please contact us at sttsc@socialthinking.com if you are interested in bringing a Regional Seminar to your area.