About
Everything you need to know about Circle Up, plus a little bit more.
Overview
Funded by a grant from the US Department of Education, Circle Up is a program that aims to integrate academic, social, and emotional learning using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, pioneered by CAST, to ensure access and agency for all learners. We will co-design with teachers, coaches, administrators, and other partners a comprehensive model of academic, social, and emotional learning using the UDL framework, the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS) model, and the Check and Connect intervention.
Purpose
- Integrate academic, social, and emotional learning using the Universal Design for Learning framework to ensure access and agency for all learners.
- Co-design with teachers, coaches, administrators, and other partners a comprehensive model of academic, social, and emotional learning, using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS) model, and the Check and Connect intervention.
- Universal Design for Learning (UDL) - a research based framework to minimize barriers to learning and providing increased access and agency for all learners. The UDL Guidelines, the core design tool of UDL, provides a framework based on the neuroscience of learning for designing learning experiences and environments that incorporates the latest research in the learning sciences.
- Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS) - an evidence-based psychosocial treatment model that has been shown to reduce challenging behaviors and to solve the problems that are causing those behaviors, enhance the lagging skills that are contributing to those problems, improve communication and relationships between students with behavioral challenges and their teachers. Studies of CPS have consistently shown reductions of discipline referrals and the use of suspension, restraint, and seclusion.
- Check and Connect - a comprehensive school level intervention designed to enhance student engagement at school and with learning for marginalized, disengaged students in grades K-12, through relationship building, problem solving and capacity building, and persistence. Check and Connect is a thoroughly researched Tier 2 intervention that has consistently shown a positive impact on enrollment, attendance, and chances for graduation.
- Implement the co-designed model.
- Provide new perspectives on how to make social emotional learning accessible, including affective accessibility.
- Research the impact of the integrated UDL / SEL model on academic, social, emotional, behavioral, and engagement outcomes for 4th and 5th grade students, as well as teacher self-efficacy especially related to social / emotional learning and collective teacher efficacy.
- Decrease disproportionate outcomes for marginalized students.