Recognized in over 100 countries, World Mental Health Day is more than just a date. It’s a call to action that resonates with communities, schools, and individuals worldwide. In recent years, the spotlight on mental health—especially for young people—has grown brighter. As educators, parents, and community members, we’ve seen firsthand how important it is to address student mental health needs.

The good news? Our efforts are starting to make a difference. Kathleen Ethier, Director of Adolescent and School Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, positively notes, “There is still a great deal of work to be done to address the crisis in youth mental health, but the data can really give us some hope that when we come together, we put young people first, we do what is needed, we can see positive change.”

Let’s keep the momentum going. Together, we can make a lasting impact on students’ well-being.

Get started with SEL training

Help students develop a growth mindset, navigate their emotions, and build a foundation for their future success by starting with some of our SEL training paths and modules. Learn more about instructional strategies to support SEL and wellness tips for educators, so you can start making an impact right away.

Explore our SEL training for educators:

• SEL skills learning path: Learn how to create student-centered classrooms that foster emotional intelligence, equipping your students with skills they need to thrive in the future.
• Teach SEL with Reflect: Learn how to seamlessly integrate SEL into your teaching practice with Reflect, a Learning Accelerator that supports student engagement and well-being.
• Developing wellness skills: Take your knowledge to the next level. Enroll in a variety of Microsoft Learn modules and explore supporting resources, designed to help you cultivate wellness skills in your students.

Support student well-being with Reflect

Guide your students as they build important social, emotional, and academic skills with Reflect. Reflect is a Learning Accelerator that offers quick check-ins, age-appropriate reflections, intentional brain breaks, and actionable data in the Reflect web app or Microsoft 365 learning apps.

One-on-one attention has an enormous impact on students’ engagement, learning, and well-being. Make Reflect part of your routine to give each of your students a place to share their feelings and give yourself data to track their status, progress, and needs.

Explore engaging activities in Reflect

Reflect offers a variety of fun activities for you and your students to practice well-being skills.  Incorporate SEL into your classroom with ready-to-use activities and materials:

• Stories: A library of engaging stories that help students explore social-emotional skills and offer AI-powered reading fluency practice.
• Inside Out 2 collection: Reflect brain breaks celebrating Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2, including stories, coloring pages, and games.
• Memory game: Players can identify emotions while matching the Feeling Monster cards.
• Kindness balloons: Students can explore a range of emotions and feelings as they share kind words about each other.

Check out the entire collection of short, inclusive activities in Reflect designed to promote SEL and help you gain well-being insights. Note that some activities may require authentication with your Microsoft school or institution account.

Navigate student emotions with Reflect Compass

Reflect Compass is a tool that helps you navigate student check-in results with evidence-based strategies to enhance well-being, engagement, and a sense of belonging. It’s built on the expertise of Challenge Success and grounded in over 20 years of research at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education.

 Explore these Reflect Compass features and resources:

• Ask follow-up questions to better understand students’ emotions during Reflect check-ins.
• Explore a variety of evidence-based strategies to help process emotions, all neatly categorized by type.
• Play the Compass podcast for episodes dedicated to specific feelings and strategies to help students navigate their emotions.

Use Reflect to foster a happier, healthier, and more balanced school community with age-appropriate reflections, intentional brain breaks, and actionable data. If you’d like more help getting started, check out Reflect Teacher’s Guide PDF.

Introduce mental health concepts with Minecraft Education

Minecraft Education is an excellent platform for introducing mental health concepts to students and building social-emotional skills like self-awareness and communication. Through immersive, inclusive, and engaging learning experiences, Minecraft provides a safe space where students can express themselves, collaborate with their peers, and navigate their emotions in a low-stress environment.

Ready to help your students practice essential mental health skills? Explore these exciting Minecraft Education challenges:

• Build Your Joy in Minecraft: Join Joy and Anxiety from Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2 in this creative challenge. Students will solve a puzzle using Microsoft MakeCode then use Minecraft as a canvas to build a representation of something that brings joy to their lives.
• The Mindful Knight: Introduce students to the basics of mindfulness with this engaging quest. The interactive environment encourages students to make responsible choices during social interactions, guiding them towards becoming mindful social participants.
• Reflect World: Students will build SEL skills through a creative experience involving collaboration, problem-solving, and communication. After playing, discuss each emotion, the adventure it leads to, and ways to regulate emotions in real life.
• Minecraft Social and Emotional Kit: These specially designed worlds and activities support SEL. Your students will explore emotional well-being, empathy, and responsible decision-making through interactive gameplay.

Join us as we celebrate World Mental Health Day 2024 with resources designed to support student well-being and foster a positive learning environment. With tools like Reflect and Minecraft Education, you can prioritize mental health and help students practice empathy, strengthen emotional resilience, and create a more supportive classroom experience.

The post Support and celebrate student well-being on World Mental Health Day appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

We’ll highlight some of the recent product updates and capabilities to help you boost student engagement, improve your instruction, and simplify your tasks. We’ll also share professional development opportunities to help you develop and enhance your skills. Let’s dive in and see what’s new in Microsoft Education.

Simplify your workflow with new tools, features, and capabilities

1. Get free access to Khanmigo for Teachers for US educators

We recently announced a new partnership with Khan Academy to help turn the promise of AI in education into reality and increase access to innovation. As part of the partnership, Microsoft is enabling Khan Academy to provide free access to Khanmigo for Teachers to all US educators, we’re collaborating to explore opportunities to improve AI-powered math tutoring with a new open-source small language model, and bringing high-quality education experiences to more learners.

Read about our collaboration with Khan Academy and learn how US educators can get started with Khanmigo for Teachers for free. You can also save or print this quick guide to Khanmigo for Teachers to refer back to as needed.

2. Discover new Minecraft Education, Reflect, and MakeCode experiences inspired by Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2

Engage your class with new experiences from Microsoft Education inspired by Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2. Create an open and accepting classroom with these new activities from Minecraft Education, Reflect, and MakeCode.

• Dive into a world where emotions come to life and find what brings you joy in a new Minecraft Education build challenge inspired by the movie, complete with a lesson plan and a custom world.
• Explore new brain breaks in Reflect that include stories, games, and coloring pages featuring characters from the movie.
• Celebrate the release with a new Bubble Popping arcade tutorial from MakeCode that features art and characters from the movie.

3. Teach computing skills with Visual Studio Code for Education

Consistent with Microsoft’s commitment to preparing students for the future, we announced the release of our latest product to empower the next generation of developers—Visual Studio Code for Education, a free online computer science education platform. Visual Studio Code for Education is designed for students and educators and provides integrated curriculum and a sandbox coding environment for everyone, with zero setup.

Get started with Visual Studio Code for Education and see how it can be a valuable resource in your classroom!

4. Practice summer reading with Reading Coach

School may be out for summer in many places across the northern hemisphere, but learning doesn’t have to stop! Have your students practice their reading and personalize their own stories using Reading Coach online during the summer break. Reading Coach provides personalized, engaging, and independent reading fluency practice by allowing learners to create unique AI-generated stories by choosing characters and settings from a curated collection of options.

One of the newest features, “Unlock characters and settings,” empowers learners to get a new character or story setting for every 20 minutes of reading. Learners can even trade characters and story settings from a whole new collection. Get started with Reading Coach online for school or home use and scroll further to learn about the new Reading Coach training course for educators on Microsoft Learn.

5. Leap into summer learning with a free game from Microsoft

Help your student stay sharp over the summer break with our free game for students, Leaps and Logs. In this summer learning game, players take on challenges across various subjects including English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Coding, and Arts/Music. The free summer learning activities in Leaps and Logs can be completed by students of most ages (age 8 or older recommended) and players can engage with Leaps and Logs in two different ways: digitally or on paper (with access to a device for embedded task links).

Visit Leap into summer learning with a game from Microsoft for full game directions and the Leaps and Logs game board.

6. Check out the new AI enhancements in Microsoft Teams for Education

New features in Microsoft Teams for Education, a powerful communication app for schools, leverage AI to help you draft content like rubrics and assignment instructions, all while keeping the educator in control.   

• Using generative AI to create rubrics in Assignments: With generative AI integrated into Assignments, enter what you want the rubric to assess, and Assignments will suggest criteria and complete the rubric for you.
• Using generative AI to create instructions in Assignments: Get multiple suggestions for how to enrich the content, such as adding more details, adding learning objectives, emphasizing key concepts, and even making your assignments more interesting. After the content is created, you can make further edits and updates as you go.

Visit What’s New in Microsoft EDU | May 2024 to learn about all the new updates in Microsoft Teams for Education.

7. Explore the new wild wisdom activities collection in Microsoft Reflect

We’re excited to introduce the wild wisdom activities collection in Reflect, featuring stories and coloring pages centered around nature. Reflect is a Learning Accelerator that helps students build important social, emotional, and academic skills by offering quick check-ins, intentional brain breaks, mindfulness activities, and actionable data. Each story in the wild wisdom collection is paired with a corresponding coloring page and highlights the fascinating behaviors of various animals—from dolphin friendships to elephant empathy, and penguin teamwork.

Explore the engaging stories and coloring pages in the new wild wisdom activities collection in Reflect.

8. Enrich teaching and learning experiences with Microsoft Forms updates

Microsoft Forms helps educators assess student progress and create engaging, interactive learning experiences for their students. Check out these updates in Microsoft Forms to easily access your responses and insert a form into a Stream video.

• Form or quiz data sync to Excel: You can now access all your responses in Excel for the web. New responses will sync automatically in real-time, while also leveraging Excel’s robust functions to analyze and evaluate your class’s performance.
• Embed Forms and callouts into Stream videos: You can now insert a form or quiz directly into a Stream video. As the video plays to a specific moment, the form or quiz will appear to the students. Once they’ve completed the form or quiz, they can continue watching the video, providing you with a new way to enhance engagement and assess comprehension in real-time.

Read What’s New in Microsoft EDU | May 2024 to learn about all the latest updates in Microsoft Forms.

9. Adding Universal Print value for educational organizations

Many schools have told us that they need simpler printing solutions and more predictable costs to manage their budgets effectively. To help educational organizations meet their printing needs, we recently announced licensing changes that will address both these issues. Organizations with Microsoft 365 A3 and Microsoft 365 A5 licenses¹ now receive 100 print jobs per license per month. This means that most organizations can use Universal Print with no extra cost if they have eligible licenses.

Read the article Adding Universal Print value for educational organizations to learn more about Universal Print and the new increased print volume.

Stay ahead with professional development opportunities and events

10. Take the new Reading Coach course on Microsoft Learn

Learn how to use Reading Coach, a free tool that uses AI and built-in fluency detection to personalize reading content and practice for learners, with a new training module on Microsoft Learn. The new course will help you understand how to access Reading Coach and use the tool in your classroom. It’ll also help you learn how to describe the core reading functionality of the tool, and how to best use the different reading modes to support your students’ reading fluency.

Take the new Build reading fluency with Reading Coach training module on Microsoft Learn and learn how to get started with Reading Coach.

11. Recharge and explore with summer learning for educators

Many educators in the northern hemisphere are getting ready to take a well-deserved break for the summer. We know that many of you embrace this opportunity to explore new things, so we’ve curated a list of exciting learning experiences to inspire you this summer. These free, flexible professional development resources for teachers allow you to move at your own pace and can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

Visit Recharge and explore with summer learning for educators to tap into our collection of free professional development resources for teachers.

Tap into new possibilities for innovation in education

12. Become an MIE Expert, Showcase School, or Incubator School for 2024-2025

The future is here, and it’s time to step into the spotlight as a beacon of educational innovation. The Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Expert nominations for the 2024-2025 academic year are open until June 17, 2024, and Showcase School nominations are opening soon. This is your opportunity to shine! Being part of these programs means actively participating in a global movement that redefines education through technology.

Check out the article Become an MIE Expert, Showcase School, or Incubator School for 2024-2025 to learn how to nominate yourself and your school.

Whether you want to discover new ways to engage your students, expand your learning, or tap into possibilities for innovation at your school, Microsoft Education has new features and experiences for you to explore. Happy teaching!

¹ Users with Student Use Benefit licenses can print with Universal Print, but these licenses do not contribute print jobs to the pool. See Product Terms for details about Student Use Benefits and Academic Programs.

The post Discover 12 new ways to enhance your teaching with Microsoft Education appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

This month, Microsoft celebrates and honors your dedication to creating safe, supportive classrooms and communities. We offer our gratitude with a collection of tools, activities, and ideas designed to support both students and educators on this journey. Get started with social emotional learning activities and curriculum from Microsoft Education for Mental Health Awareness Month 2024.

Social emotional learning and mental health

Experts often stress the importance of social emotional learning (SEL) in nurturing student mental well-being. SEL plays a pivotal role in cultivating positive self-perception and relationships with others, while also mitigating emotional distress and risky behaviors. Thoughtful application of SEL activities builds self-awareness, conflict resolution strategies, and empathy to foster not only personal growth but also a strong classroom community. To get started with some practical lessons and activities to teach students about mental health, explore our social emotional learning activities and curriculum. 

By promoting responsive relationships, emotionally safe environments, and skills development, SEL cultivates important ‘protective factors’ to buffer against mental health risks.

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

Mindfulness in Minecraft

If you’re wondering how to teach mental health to students, look no further than Minecraft Education. In the realm of educational innovation, Minecraft Education stands out as a versatile platform that not only entertains but also educates. Within its blocky landscapes, students can engage in a multitude of activities that bolster their understanding of various subjects. For instance, in the context of mental health and SEL, Minecraft offers unique opportunities for students to express themselves and collaborate in stress-free environments.

A student playing Minecraft in a school classroom. With its blocky landscapes, Minecraft gives students unique opportunities to express themselves and collaborate.

One such activity is the Mindful Knight, where students navigate through challenges that encourage them to practice mindfulness and coping strategies for stress management. Additionally, educators can use Reflect World, designed to develop students’ social-emotional skills through a creative and immersive experience. This colorful world includes various activities to teach about mental health. It focuses on developing empathy, self-awareness, emotion regulation strategies, and teamwork skills by providing students with a visual representation of a full range of emotions and empowering them with the tools to navigate these emotions effectively. Reflect World encourages students to connect their experiences in the game to real-world feelings, actions, and challenges.

Minecraft has also curated a series of wellness-related resources in the Minecraft Social and Emotional Kit. Resources within this kit span SEL concepts such as emotional well-being, empathy, and making responsible decisions. The activities and worlds can be used as-is or adapted to meet students’ needs.

Reflect’s Emotion Clusters and Emotion Board

Microsoft Reflect, a well-being app and Learning Accelerator, can help facilitate meaningful peer-to-peer and student-to-educator conversations about emotions and mental health. This Mental Health Awareness Month and beyond, get started with Reflect check-ins, age-appropriate reflections, intentional break breaks, and actionable data.

To help you mobilize the data in Reflect, use Emotion Clusters—a new feature that offers additional ways to tailor instruction and support learners’ needs and interests. These clusters categorize emotions into 11 categories inspired by natural elements, aiding educators in tailoring instruction to address various emotional states. By observing these clusters over time, educators can simplify the understanding, classification, and response to emotional trends, supporting individual learner needs and group dynamics. This feature aligns with Reflect’s mission to support social-emotional learning, gain insights into student well-being, and foster a positive learning community.

Educator view of Emotion Clusters in Reflect. This new feature groups emotions according to their qualities and associated regulation strategies, helping educators tailor instruction to address various emotional states.

For educators and school leaders looking for an easy, device-free SEL activity this Mental Health Awareness Month, Reflect offers the Emotion Board activity. This tangible SEL activity is designed to engage younger students, particularly those in classrooms with limited device access. Using the Emotion Board, students can express their feelings during lessons, mornings, or at the end of the day by placing their card in the corresponding emotional category. Educators can then use the Reflect app on their mobile device to capture student responses, gaining valuable insights into the overall well-being of the class. Get started with Reflect and learn more ways to integrate Reflect activities for student engagement.

Nurturing student and educator well-being

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that focusing on educator social and emotional competence can also improve teacher well-being. In fact, educators with strong SEL skills have higher job satisfaction and less burnout and report feeling more effective at their jobs and lower levels of job-related anxiety.

To show some kindness to yourself this Mental Health Awareness Month, try taking a moment to recharge. Reflect has partnered with Calm—the leading mental health brand with the #1 app for meditation, sleep, and relaxation—to integrate science-backed content designed to help users meet their new goals of sleeping more, stressing less, and living better. Explore all the Calm activities in the Reflect app. For educators and students who want more activities—stories, music, lullabies, exercises, and meditations designed specifically for kids—they can enjoy a 40% discount on a subscription to Calm.

Let’s work together to create supportive environments where students thrive and educators flourish! Cultivate healthy habits with social emotional learning activities and curriculum from Microsoft Education this Mental Health Awareness Month and year-round. For more reading on SEL, take a look at Eight great ways to celebrate SEL Day 2024.

The post Teach about mental health to students this Mental Health Awareness Month with Microsoft appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

To celebrate and highlight the transformative power of SEL, March 8 marks the fifth annual SEL Day, with this year’s theme focusing on Today’s Students, Tomorrow’s Leaders.  

How do you build a healthy emotional and mental wellness culture in your school—one that fosters well-being and positive coping mechanisms? Join Microsoft Education to celebrate SEL Day 2024 with these eight strategies to support well-being in your school community. 

1. Get started with Microsoft Reflect

Microsoft believes that technology can play a valuable role in supporting social and emotional learning for students. One powerful well-being tool is Reflect, a Learning Accelerator designed to help educators prioritize their students’ emotional wellness. Reflect is a safe space for students to reflect on their emotions and build self-awareness. With Reflect, students share how they feel, and educators can view and interact with students’ responses. Over time, educators can access and analyze Reflect’s data at both individual and class levels. 

Educators can analyze Reflect’s data at both individual and class levels.

Reflect includes additional resources like breathing exercises—shown to have a significant impact on student learning. Educators can create custom check-in questions in Reflect that encourage students to open up and share their feelings while building emotional vocabulary. Check out the ready-to-use activities, lessons, and materials like Minecraft Education and Kahoot games, along with Flip discussion topics to help extend the social-emotional impact of Reflect. Discover how you can seamlessly integrate Reflect into your classroom routine to foster student well-being in your class. 

Reflect has many new features and activities, including: 

• A web application to create check-ins, track trends, and activities. 
• Export to Excel—you can export check-in data to Excel for analysis and tracking. 
• Reflect exit tickets in Teams Assignments. 
• Favorites list to quickly access your preferred brain break activities. 
• Integration with your LMS.  

Learn more about what’s new in Microsoft Reflect.  

2. Use activities and lessons from Reflect

Incorporate SEL into your classroom with ready-to-use activities, lessons, and materials from Reflect. Check out Reflect’s Activity Hub to find a curated collection of activities designed to promote well-being, connection, and expression. Additionally, Reflect has partnered with Calm—the leading mental health brand with the #1 app for meditation, sleep, and relaxation—to integrate science-backed content designed to help users meet their goals. Explore all the  Calm activities in the Reflect app.  

Reflect has also partnered with several of your favorite classroom tools like Minecraft Education, Flip, and Kahoot! to expand SEL. Through these partnerships, you and your students can have safe spaces for reflecting, setting goals, and discussing emotions. Explore Reflect activities for student engagement for ideas on how to implement Reflect activities in your classroom. 

Educators can use SEL activities in the classroom to help build students’ social-emotional skills.

3. Expand learning with Reflect World in Minecraft 

Engaging activities in Minecraft Education can support well-being in your classroom. Step into Reflect World in Minecraft and explore a vibrant and colorful world! Students will develop social-emotional skills through a creative and immersive experience by using collaboration, problem solving, and communication. 

Students can connect the experience in Reflect World to real world feelings, actions, and challenges that they face.  After playing, discuss each emotion and the adventure it leads to, and the ways students can regulate their emotions in real life. Start the adventure and explore Reflect World with your students. 

4. Become familiar with the CASEL Framework 

Many school districts have used the CASEL Framework to establish preschool to high school learning standards and competencies. According to the framework, there are five core social and emotional competencies that can be taught and applied from childhood to adulthood and across diverse cultural contexts. They are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Read more about the CASEL Framework.  

5. Share the compelling research on SEL in schools  

The power of social-emotional learning in schools is well documented. So, if you are trying to make a case for SEL-focused strategies with your fellow educators, administrators, or parents, point them to the latest data and research. According to an EdWeek Research Center survey conducted in October 2022, 84% of teachers said that SEL strategies and approaches had a positive impact on skills such as collaboration, communication, and critical thinking. Another study—conducted by RAND—had 90% of teachers agreeing that promoting social-emotional learning in the classroom improved their students’ academic achievement. 

And students are on board too, reporting an increased sense of safety and support, reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as reductions in bullying and aggression. SEL has also shown to be consistently effective across demographic groups, whether socioeconomic, cultural, or regional.

Reflect is designed to help educators prioritize their students’ emotional wellness with custom check-ins, ready-to-use activities, lessons, and more. 

6. Share successes 

What does well-being look like in your classroom or in your school? If you have had some successes—whether minor or huge—let your fellow educators know so they can integrate what is working into their own practice! Contribute to a community of practice focused on promoting social and emotional learning. The Social-Emotional Learning in Education community has just passed 30,000 members and is a great resource for educators with an interest in SEL, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence.   

And why stop there? Champion the power of SEL with families and your community to let everyone know your dedication to evidence-based social-emotional learning techniques, and how powerful the real-world impact can be. 

7. Show some kindness to yourself and your colleagues

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that focusing on educator social and emotional competence can also improve teacher well-being. In fact, educators with strong SEL skills have higher job satisfaction and less burnout and report feeling more effective at their jobs and lower levels of job-related anxiety. So, what can you do this SEL Day? To express gratitude to others, write a note of appreciation to your colleagues, students, or parents.  

To show some kindness to yourself, try taking a moment to recharge. Check out Calm’s mindfulness content in Reflect, including guided mindfulness sessions, movement activities, and focus music to foster a happier and more balanced classroom. As a bonus, teachers and students can enjoy an exclusive 40% discount on a subscription to Calm, providing a wealth of activities designed specifically for personal rejuvenation.  

8. Join the SEL Day celebration!

Sign up at SELDay.org to show your support of social-emotional learning. You could organize a SEL Day activity in your school, district, or community, attend a virtual event or even create a video, podcast episode, or blog post! You can also participate in the SEL Day Summit 2024—a free, all-day online event showcasing SEL best practices, with keynote sessions featuring student perspectives on SEL in the classroom, as well as outcomes and implications from new SEL research studies.  

Helping students to thrive 

When students develop and practice SEL skills, they exhibit higher school functioning, with positive effects on academics lasting for years, with academic performance—according to one analysis—scoring an average of 13 percentile points higher than students who did not learn those skills.   

With Reflect, students share how they feel, and educators can view and interact with students’ responses. 

It is clear: SEL has a positive and lasting impact on students, educators, communities… and the world! An effective integration of SEL skills requires ongoing planning, implementation, and evaluation, yet this integration often enhances existing systems of student support. Together, we can help students develop a growth mindset, navigate their emotions, and build a foundation for success. 

SEL Day is an opportunity to bring awareness to mental health and the resources available to support it. Create a check-in with Reflect this SEL Day and provide an opportunity for everyone to share any concerns or stressors they might be carrying.  

Learn more and get additional information with these great resources! 

• Microsoft Reflect | Encourage connection, expression and learning 
• Build a culture of wellbeing: A guide to Reflect for educators 
• Get started with Microsoft Reflect – Microsoft Support
• Become a Reflective educator with Reflect and eTwinz 
• Learning Accelerators: Tools for Students 

The post Eight great ways of celebrating SEL Day 2024 appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

John Hattie’s Visible Learning study measured the impact that different factors have on students’ academic growth. According to the meta-analyses, setting learning goals has a positive impact on learning outcomes. Simply put, when students set goals, they are building lifelong skills that they can use to make positive changes in their lives.  

Harness the power of positive change in your classroom—embark on the journey of transformative goal-setting with Microsoft Reflect today!  

Setting goals with students informs teacher practice, engages and motivates students during the learning process, and creates a partnership between the teacher, student, and parents.”

Sanée Bell, Ed.D., Educational Leader and Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning in Katy ISD, Texas, United States

Setting up for success with new year’s goals 

Reflect is available as a web app and within Microsoft 365 Education tools like Teams for Education, PowerPoint, and OneNote. You can use any of these platforms to create check-ins for your students. Additionally, Reflect has created a collection of experiences and resources that you can share with your students to transition into a successful 2024. Explore the Reflect Activity Hub for ready-to-use activities, lessons, and materials!  

Goals vary from person to person and are unique to the individual. Reflect has created several worksheets to help you and your students set goals and practice other positive habits in the new year. Check out the Reflect worksheets—print the PDFs or digitally embed them in a OneNote page distributed to students: 

• SMART Goal Planner—guide students through setting meaningful goals, breaking them into actionable steps, and monitoring progress to improve planning and perseverance.  
• Gratitude Clouds—provide students with a structured and meaningful method to practice gratitude, fostering a sense of appreciation, and promoting positive thinking. 
• Reflect and Grow—goal setting is important in short intervals as well as long ones. By helping students process a day’s events and emotions, they can foster emotional awareness, and enhance communication skills.  

Take a brain break 

According to a 2021 study on the brain’s consolidation of skill, resting at set intervals increases a learner’s ability to develop new skills. The study also suggests that the majority of skill learning takes place during “offline,” or non-practice time, and that micro-breaks are 4 times as effective for skill learning than overnight rest. This all means that intentional breaks every 10-15 minutes for elementary students or 20-30 minutes for secondary students can have a significant academic and social impact for learners. 

Reflect has curated a collection of short, inclusive brain break activities designed to promote mental fitness, refresh the mind, and refocus.  

• Take a breath: Pause for a moment to breathe mindfully and reset focus. 
• Stretch break: Stretch and boost focus with a quick two-minute stretching routine. 
• Coloring book: Combine emotional intelligence and art to explore a range of emotions and creativity. 
• Memory game: Develop emotional vocabulary by matching emotions and with Feelings Monster cards.  

Reflect also partnered with Calm—the leading mental health brand with the #1 app for meditation, sleep, and relaxation—to integrate science-backed content designed to help users meet their new goals of sleeping more, stressing less, and living better. Explore all of the Calm activities in the Reflect app.  

For educators and students who want more activities—stories, music, lullabies, exercises, and meditations designed specifically for kids—they can enjoy a 40% discount on a subscription to Calm.  

Explore Reflect’s partner collections 

Reflect has partnered with several of your favorite classroom tools to expand social and emotional learning. Through these partnerships, you and your students can have safe spaces for reflecting, setting goals, and discussing emotions.  

Minecraft Education is a popular immersive learning platform for all young people. Introduce your students to Reflect World, a space designed to help students develop social-emotional skills through a creative and immersive experience. This world is an ideal start for beginner users in upper-elementary or middle school grades. Exploring the colorful Reflect World requires collaboration, problem solving, and communication. 

Reflect teamed up with Kahoot!, a game-based app for learning and trivia games, to help students develop vital SEL skills. With nearly 50 Kahoot! games available in four different languages, you can find the right activities at the right time.  

• Setting goals: Goal setting is a vital skill. It helps us to stay on track and create the life we dream of! Your students can use Reflect to stay on track with your goals by thinking through the reasons that we set goals and strategies for reaching goals. 
• Start the school year strong: Don’t let the title fool you. This game is perfect for the return to school in January with questions focusing on classroom community and goal setting. 
• Gratitude: Gratitude means being filled with appreciation. Your students can show gratitude for the good things in their lives—big or small! Being grateful can help them feel better and build stronger relationships. 

Microsoft Flip, a free web and mobile app for recording, editing, and sharing video assignments, and Reflect pair together perfectly. Using Flip and Reflect together can help students share and discuss feelings and challenges in a safe, accessible, and inclusive environment. With built-in tools like Immersive Reader, designed to make all written text accessible, all students can engage in the conversation. Start off with these discussion topics: 

• Taking on challenges: Help students understand that challenges are a part of the path to excellence. Framing challenges as part of the process can keep them motivated and set them up to encourage each other through complicated tasks.  
• Kindness for myself: Use this topic to jumpstart conversations about growth mindset or accepting feedback. It could be a helpful warm-up for a writing workshop where students edit one another’s work. Setting students up to accept and mobilize feedback without feeling down about themselves is vital to establishing perseverance. 
• Working towards a goal: Use this topic before having students write their own goals. It can jumpstart their understanding of why goals are important and what types of goals they could consider, as well as get them thinking about how working towards a goal is an ongoing effort. Often, we write down or set goals mentally, but don’t follow through. Having students recognize that problem through role play can help them recognize it in themselves!  

Join Microsoft Education in fostering a positive beginning to the new year for you and your students. Reflect brings together an array of resources and experiences, supporting the cultivation of healthy habits and a dedication to personal growth. Explore the Reflect Activity Hub for ready-to-use activities, lessons, and materials and build a culture of well-being with your students this year.

The post Reflect activities for student engagement appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Mental health is essential and is much more than the absence of illness. It is the key to our overall wellbeing. Close to one billion of the world population are living with mental illness and the majority have no access to care. 10-20% of children and adolescents experience mental health conditions worldwide and 1 in 5 U.S. children ages 3–17 has a mental, emotional, behavioral, or developmental disorder.

An increasing number of adolescents and young people are grappling with mental health conditions, which not only affect their physical health but also pose challenges to their academic success, interpersonal relationships, and overall wellbeing. 

“Students are coming into the counselor’s office more because they are more comfortable talking about it,” says Alison Gimbi, a school counselor for Middle Smitheld Elementary in Pennsylvania. “We don’t just get the kids after something is already a problem. It’s helped us do prevention, not just reaction work.”

How educators are helping

Educators help students to develop better emotional regulation, self-awareness, and empathy in the classroom. When emotions become uncomfortable and perspectives skewed, it may seem counterintuitive to focus on such feelings. But identifying and labeling these feelings is an essential step in managing overwhelming emotions. Sometimes it’s as simple as asking your students how they feel and providing the space to share.

Next, educators support students by modeling and reminding students about positive coping skills and strategies. These strategies could be anything from deep breathing, practicing mindfulness, creating art, or physical movement. Even activism—doing something good for your community—can be empowering and improve mental health.

Technology tools for perspective and balance

If there was any silver lining to be had with the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a renewed focus on mental wellness and self-care. Technology also became the lifeline that many utilized to seek help. In fact, a RAND study found that the rise in telehealth use during the height of COVID-19 was driven more by people looking for mental health services than care for physical conditions.

Microsoft believes that technology can play a valuable role in supporting the mental health of students and educators. To acknowledge and celebrate World Mental Health Day, Microsoft Education is highlighting some key features and updates in Microsoft Reflect designed specifically to support connection, expression, and wellbeing in the classroom.

Help students build important social, emotional, and academic skills with Microsoft Reflect.

Microsoft Reflect is a Learning Accelerator designed to help educators prioritize their students’ emotional wellness by creating a safe space to reflect on their emotions and build self-awareness. With Reflect, students share how they feel, and educators can access the data at both individual and class levels. And there are additional resources like breathing exercises—shown to have a significant impact on student learning. Check out the ready-to-use activities, lessons, and materials like Minecraft Education and Kahoot games, along with Flip discussion topics to help extend the social-emotional impact of Reflect.

Create custom check-in questions in Reflect that encourage students to share their feelings while building emotional vocabulary.

Educators can create custom check-in questions in Reflect that encourage students to open up and share their feelings while building emotional vocabulary. This exercise provides deliberate practice of social skills and improved communication, which helps students build positive relationships with peers and the important adults in their life.

New ways to connect with you

On World Mental Health Day, we are launching the all-new Brain Breaks feature in Reflect. Students and educators will be able to take a Brain Break with our curated collection of concise, inclusive activities designed to promote mental fitness, refresh the mind, and enhance focus. This helps give everyone a much needed “pause” to help navigate their emotions and formulate strategies to manage uncomfortable feelings.

Take a Brain Break with a curated collection of activities in Reflect designed to promote mental fitness, refresh the mind, and enhance focus.

Another new feature coming soon is Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) for Reflect, which enables the embedding of Reflect as part of LMS (Learning Management System) courses in Schoology, Canvas, Moodle, and more. This feature helps educators use Reflect in the environments and tools that they are already familiar with.

Microsoft has also collaborated with wellbeing and social and emotional learning (SEL) experts to create an exclusive, unique gallery of activities for Reflect! Specially designed for students and classroom settings, these activities include:

• Breathing activities
• Movement activities, including stretching and dancing with the Feelings Monster
• Guided mindfulness videos featuring the Feelings Monster
• Audio meditations
• Focus music tracks and soundscapes to overcome distractions and stay on task
• Short podcasts to help students learn about navigating their emotions
• Games such as a memory game, connection cards, and coloring pages!

Check out the new activities rolling out now, with many more activities coming later this year.

Keep Calm and carry on

We’re excited to announce that Calm—the leading mental health brand with the #1 app for meditation, sleep, and relaxation—is the official launch partner for mindfulness content in Reflect. At the heart of this partnership, we are integrating 12 Calm mindfulness and movement activities into Reflect to help you and your students foster a happier, healthier, and more balanced school community.

Explore a variety of engaging activities from Calm, specifically curated to enhance the social and emotional learning experience. Here are a few examples to help you get started—check out the entire collection of Calm mindfulness and movement activities within Reflect today!

• Mindfulness for Ages 11-13: Plant seeds of mindfulness for balance, confidence, and calm.
• Follow Along Body Scan: Relax your body from the tips of your toes to the top of your head.
• Movement to Build Confidence: Believing is achieving with this confidence building video session.

Explore a variety of mindfulness activities from Calm within Microsoft Reflect, specifically curated to enhance the social and emotional learning experience.

And, for educators and students who want more activities—stories, music, lullabies, exercises, and meditations designed specifically for kids—they can enjoy a 40% discount on a subscription to Calm.

Help build a culture of wellbeing

Self-awareness and self-management are critical skills for life-long learning. Discover how you can seamlessly integrate Reflect into your classroom routine with the new Microsoft Learn course designed for K-12 educators.

• Understand the significance of integrating SEL in the classroom, as supported by research, and how Reflect stands as a valuable tool to facilitate this.
• Design and implement a practical action plan that leverages Reflect to support students’ social and emotional growth, wellbeing, and overall academic development.
• Complete the module Become a Reflective educator with Reflect and eTwinz and see how you can use Reflect to foster social and emotional learning in your class.

Explore the unique gallery of wellbeing activities in Reflect, specially designed for students and classroom settings.

World Mental Health Day is an opportunity to bring awareness to mental health issues and the resources available to support it. Create a check in with Reflect and provide an opportunity for everyone to share any concerns or stressors they might be carrying and to receive support from each other this Mental Health Awareness Day and beyond! By prioritizing your students’ emotional wellbeing with tools like Reflect and Calm, you can create more positive and supportive learning experiences that prioritize empathy and wellbeing.

Learn more and get additional information with these great resources!

• Microsoft Reflect | Encourage connection, expression and learning
• Get started with Microsoft Reflect – Microsoft Support
• Build a culture of wellbeing: A guide to Reflect for educators
• Experience Calm

The post New ways to reflect and thrive on World Mental Health Day! appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Use Reflect to foster a happier, healthier, and more balanced school community with age-appropriate reflections, intentional brain breaks, and actionable data.

Educator benefits

• Gain a fuller understanding of each students’ thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
• Identify and act upon group or individual trends.
• Take time to reflect and practice professional self-care.
• Access Reflect through the web app, or within Teams for Education or OneNote.
• Expand the impact and learning from Reflect by using it with activities in Flip and Minecraft Education.

Student outcomes

• Build self-awareness and empathy.
• Grow emotional vocabulary.
• Identify and navigate emotions.
• Develop a growth mindset and confidence.

Create a Reflect check-in

Setting up your first Reflect check-in only takes a few steps. Start by navigating to the Reflect web app or by selecting Reflect in the sidebar of a Microsoft Teams Class or Staff team. Next, choose the “New check-in” button in the top-right corner. Select your preferred settings and then create the check-in.

You can customize Reflect check-in settings.

Prompts: Use a pre-existing prompt, write a custom one, or explore the Check-in ideas that address these categories:

• Social interactions
• Educational
• School environment and culture

Time limit: Select the length of time that your check-in is available.

Emotional vocabulary: Select from a broad or simplified collection of emotional vocabulary terms.

• Broad vocabulary features over 50 emotional vocabulary terms.
• Simplified vocabulary features a word bank with fewer, more basic emotions.

Privacy: Determine how or if students can see each other’s check-in responses. Note that students will never see their classmates’ names paired with a response.

Record name: Choose whether or not to record the names of students.

Tip: Reflect check-ins can be seamlessly integrated into your class routine. Since it only takes a moment to create a check-in, you have the option to post one spontaneously or even duplicate an existing one in a single click.

Expand learning with Reflect

Reflect’s versatility means that you can support your students through many of your favorite Microsoft tools. Here’s a sample of where you can use Reflect.

• Minecraft Education: Develop social-emotional skills through a creative and immersive experience. Explore the Reflect World with your students.
• PowerPoint: Facilitate class reflection and discussion using structured projects featuring the Feelings Monster.
• OneNote Class Notebook: Incorporate Reflect check-ins within your Class Notebooks.
• Flip: Introduce creative Flip discussions with social and emotional video prompts.

Tip: Introduce and teach social emotional skills using the Reflect activity collection in Kahoot! These pre-built activities cover topics like starting the school year, setting goals, and expressing feelings. The activities combine class discussions with assessment questions for a well-rounded learning experience. Simply preview the activity and click “Start” to begin.

Reflect from anywhere

Students can easily respond to a Reflect check-in within Microsoft Teams for Education on mobile, web, or through the desktop app. If using the Reflect web app, students can respond to the link or QR code that you share with them from the app. They start by choosing the current check-in and then selecting an emotion from the list. Through a mix of age-appropriate, accessible emotional vocabulary definitions, emojis, and the animated Feelings Monster, students can quickly and accurately select how they’re feeling.

Students select how they’re feeling from the age-appropriate and accessible definitions, emojis, and the animated Feelings Monster.

Tip: Start with the simplified set of emotional vocabulary and then scaffold to the broad set of terms. This helps learners of all ages develop foundational social and emotional skills before moving to a more expansive word bank.

Check in with the Emotion Board

Connect with your students in a flash using the Emotion Board, a physical board kit based on the Reflect app. The Emotion Board is perfect for classrooms with limited access to devices or those serving younger students or students with disabilities.

In four quick steps, you can create a board, make a check-in, and gain insights into students’ responses.

• Build a board: Get started by downloading the kit from the Reflect app in Microsoft Teams for Education.
• Assign a card: Prepare and assign the animal cards to each student.
• Share emotions: Have students place their assigned cards on the board.
• Scan the board: Use the Reflect app on a mobile device to scan the board and then explore the responses and trends.

Tip: Reflect Emotion Board check-ins are an ideal fit for transitional moments throughout the day or even as a key component of your arrival or dismissal routines. Explore Get started with Reflect Emotion Board for additional support.

Inform class culture

With Reflect, you have quick and immediate access to valuable student reflection responses. Start by selecting a check-in from the Recent check-ins list to see your students’ responses displayed as expressive Feelings Monsters in Together mode. You can also switch to a graphical summary.

Educators can explore Reflect check-in responses through the Feelings Monsters or in a summary view of their class.

In Teams, you can dive deeper into ongoing student check-in trends through either the Reflect or Insights tabs of your class team. To get started in the Reflect tab, simply choose the Explore trends icon at the bottom of the right sidebar. You can also find the trends by switching to the Insights tab and choosing the Reflect report.

Explore student check-in trends with Insights, enabling you to get a holistic picture of how your class is feeling and track the wellbeing of each student.

Both options lead to the same report information.

• Summary: Access a quick-glance display of the number of check-ins for the class, the average participation, and most common responses.
• Class response distribution: Review graphics highlighting how many students selected each feelings category for a check-in.
• Most common words: Explore charts featuring which emotional vocabulary terms students selected the most, the number of times that word was selected, and an emoji.
• Student list: Review graphs with each student’s last five responses and how many times the student participated.

Build a culture of wellbeing with Reflect. Foster important social and emotional skills for your students through quick check-ins and seamless integration within your favorite apps. As a research-backed platform, Reflect connects age-appropriate emotional vocabulary with the expressive Feelings Monsters for emotional check-ins that are accessible and engaging.

Learn more about Microsoft Reflect and get additional information with these resources:

• Download the Reflect Quick Start guide and the Reflect one-page guide.
• Explore the Reflect homepage and the Get Started with Microsoft Reflect support article.
• Take the Microsoft Learn module Build social and emotional skills in your classroom community with Reflect.

Embark on a transformative journey by embracing Reflect check-ins with your students today!

The post Build a culture of wellbeing: A guide to Reflect for educators appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Your learning, your choice

From exploring tools that help prepare students for the future to developing a better understanding of accessibility in the classroom or data-informed decision making, Microsoft Learn Educator Center has the interactive lessons you need to dive deep into learning. Check out any of the easy-to-navigate learning paths or modules from our curated list based on what you want to learn.

Teacher using a tablet device.

Prepare students for the future

To prepare students for their futures, we first need to equip ourselves with the necessary tools and knowledge to guide them on their path to success. Learn about solutions that can save you time, individualize student learning, and set students up for future success. Check out these trainings to learn more.

1. Develop search strategies that students can use on any search platform and build information literacy skills with Search Coach and Search Progress.

2. Build social and emotional skills in your classroom community with Reflect to build a safe place and appropriate scaffolding that help students learn to talk about their emotions.

3. Support reading fluency while freeing up time for active instruction through independent reading practice, educator review, and educator insights with Reading Progress.

4. Use math tools in OneNote to build student perseverance, personalize learning, and develop independent mathematicians.

Accessibility and inclusion

Creating an inclusive and accessible learning environment for all students is critical for learning and engagement. Learn how to build a solid foundation for inclusive learning by understanding the principles of accessibility.

5. Build the foundation for inclusive learning by exploring accessibility principles and Microsoft tools that support each principle.

6. Empower every student with an inclusive classroom by creating accessible and personalized experiences that allow students to unlock their full potential and address diverse needs.

7. Transform the way you support learners with dyslexia by deepening your understanding of strategies and solutions and exploring technology tools that help learners.

Data-informed decision making

Data plays a crucial role in informing classroom, school, and district decision-making processes and driving positive outcomes for students. Harness the power of data and turn it into actionable insights to take your teaching to the next level.

8. Leverage data to inform decision-making, identify trends, proactively monitor student activity, and take action with Microsoft Education Insights.

9. Use Education Insights Premium to identify trends, turn class data into visualizations, and create targeted support for all students.

Explore Minecraft Education’s Teacher Academy

10. Looking for ways to engage learners using Minecraft Education? Join us for a free instructor-led, online professional learning that takes place over 4 one-hour sessions in July or August. These sessions focus on using Minecraft Education as a teaching and learning tool to support strong pedagogical practices in the learning environment. Sign up today! Busy summer? Can’t commit to live events? Check out the on-demand Minecraft Education: Teacher Academy learning path to learn on your own.

Infographic from the Minecraft Education: Teacher Academy course

Take your learning further

We also offer multiple Microsoft Educator programs. Unlock badges and consider becoming a Microsoft Educator Trainer or Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert. These programs focus on best practices for teaching and learning in an inclusive and accessible learning environment while exploring how Microsoft tools can be integrated into your classroom to build students’ skills and well-being.

User interface of Microsoft Educator programs

Dive into learning with Microsoft Learn Educator Center and embark on a journey of continuous learning to set your students, and yourself, up for success next school year!

The post Dive into learning with Microsoft Learn Educator Center appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

By promoting mental health awareness in your classroom, you can help your students develop crucial skills like emotional regulation, self-awareness, and empathy. These skills can improve their confidence, engagement, and overall academic success. Similarly, when you prioritize your own mental health and well-being, you can better support your students and create a positive and supportive school culture.

At Microsoft, we believe that technology can play a valuable role in supporting a student’s mental health. That’s why we’ve developed tools for mental health like Minecraft Education subject matter kits and the Reflect app in Microsoft Teams for Education to help you promote self-awareness and social-emotional learning. These tools can also help you identify trends or changes in your students that are supported by data.

Building emotional intelligence through play

Minecraft Education is a game-based platform that inspires creative and inclusive learning through play. It has captured the hearts of millions of students around the world, and we’ve harnessed its power to create subject matter kits that can help students explore topics like history, math, and even mental health.

Our Minecraft Social Emotional subject kit is designed to help students practice mindfulness and learn about their emotions in a fun and engaging way. The kit contains a range of activities designed to help students develop emotional intelligence, learn to regulate their emotions, and build empathy and social awareness. Self-regulation is an important life skill that helps students to manage their emotions, behavior, and thoughts. Students who can regulate their emotions are better equipped to handle stress and cope with difficult situations.

In these activities, students can learn to identify and understand their emotions, reflect on them using Flip, and connect with each other through mindfulness. The kit activities also promote other critical skills like inclusive design thinking and problem solving through empathy.

I particularly like ‘The Mindful Knight’ world where you can go on a mindful adventure, including a breathing exercise levitation spell.

Ellie Finch MA MBACP, counselor and social worker who specializes in supporting children and parents

Learn more about Minecraft Education at Get Started with Minecraft Education or Minecraft Education Teacher Academy. You can also listen to the Educator Insider podcast episode on The Mindful Knight.

Monitoring and supporting student emotions with Reflect

As an educator, you know that supporting your students’ mental health is crucial to their academic success and overall well-being. Microsoft Reflect an app in Teams for Education, is designed to help you prioritize your students’ emotional wellness by creating a safe space for them to reflect on their emotions and build self-awareness.

With our new approach to learning and new tools like Reflect helping students to understand their emotions more, we saw an immediate improvement in student growth and contentment while learning.

Antoinette Hamilton, computing lead for Richmond Academy 

Using the Reflect app to manage emotions and improve focus

In addition to creating custom check-in questions, the Reflect app also incorporates breathing exercises to help students manage their emotions and improve their focus. Research has shown that just one minute of focused breathing can have a significant impact on student learning, and the Reflect app makes it easy for educators to incorporate this practice into their class routine.

Reflect’s friendly character, the Feelings Monster, not only helps students learn how to manage their emotions, but also provides guidance on how to focus on their breath and engage in slow, deep breathing. This essential skill can help calm the body and reduce feelings of stress and anxiety, making it easier for students to prepare their body and mind for learning. After checking in with the app, students can take a few seconds to practice deep breathing with the help of the Feelings Monster, thanks to Reflect’s user-friendly design.

With the Reflect app, you can create custom check-in questions that encourage your students to open up and share their feelings while building emotional vocabulary. This helps you to get to know your students better and provide personalized support that meets their unique needs. By using Reflect, you can empower your students to develop important skills like emotional regulation, communication, and problem-solving.

The need for this information is quite high. The emotions are fantastic, and the children understand the range of emotions and have gotten used to using them. But the support we can provide the children now, the emotional support, is everything. Not every student can talk about the things that are bothering them as much, but in its cute little way, the Reflect monsters not only encourage them to use different kinds of language and explore their emotions, but they also actually open them up in a way that they wouldn’t naturally talk to an adult.

Antoinette Hamilton, computing lead for Richmond Academy

Regular check-ins with Reflect can help you monitor your students’ emotions over time and identify any changes or patterns. And, with the new check-in ideas gallery and “Ask it again” button, it’s easier than ever to come up with creative and inspiring questions that keep your students engaged and motivated. You can also use Together view in Reflect to get a quick read on how the class is feeling.

Together view makes it easy for educators to take a quick read on how students are feeling and if they are ready to learn.

Reflect offers several new features to help you prioritize your students’ mental health. You can now select simplified emotion vocabulary when creating a check-in, which reduces cognitive load for students and provides them with fewer, more basic emotions to select. These options make it even more inclusive and accessible for all your learners. 

When students select an emotion word they get a visual cue with the Feelings Monster and a definition to help them identify their emotion. 

In addition, the app allows students to hear the definition of each emotion word read aloud in a way that emotes the emotion, helping to develop their emotional awareness in a multi-sensory way. This feature is available in English, Spanish, and Japanese, and we plan to add support for more languages in the future.  

Reflect is a tool that can help your students build a vocabulary to talk about emotions and express themselves more effectively. This, in turn, can improve their communication and social skills, and help them build positive relationships with others. By prioritizing your students’ emotional well-being with tools like Reflect, you can create a positive and supportive school culture that promotes self-awareness and prioritizes social-emotional learning.

Learn more about Reflect with these resources.

• Get started with Reflect in Teams
• Reflect Teacher’s Guide
• Build social and emotional skills in your classroom community with Reflect

As educators, you can prioritize mental health awareness and create a safe and supportive learning environment for all students. Using tools like the Reflect app and Minecraft Education subject matter kits helps reinforce the skills your students need to succeed in and out of the classroom.

By helping your students understand self-regulation and self-awareness and providing them with the vocabulary to talk about emotions, you can positively impact their academic performance, social relationships, and overall well-being.

Let’s celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month by taking action to support the mental health and well-being of our K-12 students.

Learn more about supporting students mental and emotional health with these resources.

• Prioritizing and Supporting Student Well Being
• Learn Resources: Build social-emotional skills
• Learning Path: Create classroom communities using social and emotional practices

Check out previous blog posts on well-being and Reflect.

• Achieve more in the classroom with new Teams features
• Uplift hearts and minds on International SEL Day
• Improving educator well-being and engagement using Teams

The post Empowering educators from mindfulness to mental health during Mental Health Awareness Month appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Microsoft proudly supports the academic, social, and emotional well-being of students by providing powerful technology and resources to help students develop future-ready skills like self and social awareness, self-management, and responsible decision making.

Social and emotional skills are an essential ingredient for success. Also, they contribute to well-being. We know that intelligence is not enough to ensure that children succeed at school or go on to become happy, healthy, and productive adults.”

Mark Sparvell, Director Marketing Education at Microsoft Education and an Emotional Intelligence Society of Australia ambassador

Importance of SEL

Understanding our emotions, connections, and relationships are a foundational piece of being human. Just as students may need help learning to balance equations in their chemistry class, many people need help learning how to balance their relationships, emotions, and feelings. These social and emotional skills are valuable for children and can be supported at home and at school.

School stakeholders acknowledge the benefits of developing these skills on students. Over 90 percent of parents want their students to gain life skills like setting goals and believing in themselves. For educators, 93 percent want a greater focus on SEL in schools and 80 percent believe that positive emotions — a common result of developing SEL skills — are critical for academic success.

The impact of SEL also extends to academics. According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), students who took part in a well-rounded SEL program grew 11 percentile points academically. And researchers have seen a positive impact on students decades later.

Celebrate, uplift, and connect

Many educators may wonder how to introduce SEL in their classrooms, schools, or communities. The International SEL Day team has developed helpful toolkits and resources to introduce SEL in communities. Also, new this year is an online SEL Summit with keynote speakers, resources for families and classrooms, and data that demonstrates SEL’s benefits for learners.

Sign up to participate in SEL Day 2023!

Join Marcus Stroman for a Flip Event on self care

Educators can also introduce learners to Microsoft Flip, a video-based discussion platform, to help facilitate classroom connections and conversations. Flip regularly hosts Flip Events that connect students with authors, experts, and other learners.

On March 30, 2023 at 10am PT, Marcus Stroman, a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, is hosting a real talk on the importance of taking care of your mind and body. Marcus will share his story and experience in overcoming doubt as well as tips and advice on how learners can believe more in themselves and find their inner balance.

Register for this free event.

Tools to help build SEL skills

Microsoft Reflect is a Learning Accelerator in Microsoft Teams for Education that uses daily check-ins, academic reflections, and emotional vocabulary to help students develop social and emotional skills. Through regular check-ins that take just a few moments, students and teachers can communicate feelings, notice emotional patterns, and offer support to help meet each student’s individual needs.

Reflect offers multiple features to support social and emotional growth.

• Emotional Vocabulary. Students can refine their emotional vocabulary with the help of animated Feeling Monsters that represent emotions.

Screenshot of a Reflect check-in

• Academic reflection. Students can engage in reflection about their learning experiences alongside course content.

Screenshot of a teacher creating a Reflect check-in

• Actionable data. Educators can access Reflect data in Education Insights to help spotlight individual, class, or school-wide trends or areas of concern.

Screenshot of Reflect data in Education Insights

• Connected apps. Reflect shows up in commonly used Microsoft Education tools like Teams for Education and OneNote Class Notebooks as well as PowerPoint presentations, Flip topics, and Kahoot! Quizzes.
• Build vocabulary and navigate emotions. Explore PowerPoint templates that help learners better understand their emotions.
• Facilitate SEL discussions. Incorporate one of the 26 Reflect discussion topics in Flip.
• Develop emotional skills. Conduct Kahoot! quizzes to start classroom conversations about emotions and well-being skills.

Pivoting focus in the classroom

All Hallows’ School in Brisbane, Australia has a unique approach to identifying and responding to their students’ needs. The school uses Microsoft Reflect to capture and analyze student well-being data for both short- and long-term trends. This could mean pivoting from planned instruction to meet an immediate need or could lead to developing school-wide solutions for larger trends.

I can look at a class snapshot and see how my class is feeling that day. I can read their responses and it shows me, on an individual basis, if I need to touch base with specific students. Perhaps I can see that they’re feeling a bit overwhelmed now, and I can have a chat with them to help them feel heard and to develop strategies to lessen that stress. Or I know that I need to slow down, to stop moving through material at my normal pace.”

Steve Crapnell, Head of Digital Pedagogy at All Hallows’ School

Learn more about All Hollows’ School’s story.

Uplift students and connect with others from around the world by celebrating International SEL Day on March 10 and using Microsoft’s powerful technology to help students develop important social and emotional skills throughout the school year.

The post Uplift hearts and connect minds on International SEL Day appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Check-ins invite students to explore and normalize their emotions and feelings. They also help students recognize emotions in their peers and provide an opportunity to build empathy so that they can better navigate relationships and engage more deeply with the world around them. Benefits extend to educators and staff, helping them to check the temperature of their school’s ecosystem while ensuring that their own needs are being met.

To make check-ins more impactful for students and simpler for educators, the Microsoft Education team offers Microsoft Reflect, a dynamic check-in app in Teams for Education, which supports deeper connection, expression, and learning.

Supporting students

Reflect is a meaningful way to help students broaden their emotional vocabulary, recognize and process their emotions more effectively, and connect more fully with their peers. Using it for regular check-ins can:

• Amplify student voice
• Promote a growth mindset through evaluation of effort
• Build self-management skills so that students feel more ownership in their learning
• Support CASEL competencies such as self-awareness and responsible decision-making 

Reflect features “Feelings Monsters” depicting more than 50 emotions. Students can use these to visualize their feelings and better understand and communicate their own emotions. These visualizations can also instigate conversations about what causes pleasant and unpleasant feelings, how these feelings affect learning, and how to navigate them.

Reflect also provides a safe space for students to practice asking for help in areas where they feel challenged. Since educators are the only individuals who can see reflections, students never have to worry about their peers having access to their check-ins.  

Empowering Educators

Reflect is built directly into Teams, a digital learning hub that unites assessments, communication, and collaboration. Educators love how easy it is to check-in with students and receive valuable feedback on student well-being so they can build a healthy classroom community. Reflect can either enhance an existing social and emotional check-in routine, or help educators begin a new one.

Reflect is also a valuable tool for staff check-ins. Create check-ins for staff teams to help build a school-wide culture of trust and transparency. Team owners can simply check Reflect in the general channel of their staff team, select a question from the gallery based on CASEL core competencies, and create a space for personal and community growth.

Profile in proactive reflection

All Hallows’ School is one of the oldest schools in Queensland, Australia, with approximately 140 teaching staff serving 1600 female students. As part of his role as Head of Digital Pedagogy, Steve Crapnell researches digital practices supported by efficient and effective digital platforms, which led to a pilot of the Reflect app.  

“What matters is that I know my students. That’s the key,” Steve says. “If I have a good, strong relationship with my students, then the learning is much, much easier.”

The school is using the Reflect app to look at class and individual student snapshots to gauge student well-being. Prior to engaging with the Reflect app, the school had no real way of understanding where each student was individually. The traditional question at the beginning of a school day would be, “Good morning girls, how are we?” While polite, this question is not especially beneficial in terms connecting social and academic well-being.

“I know my students better, [and] I know their attitudinal approach to what’s going on. So I can adjust my learning environment accordingly. Prior to using the Reflect app, that was hit or miss.”

With the Reflect app in Teams, an educator can create a contextual question on what they want to know about students in the moment. For students, it’s as simple as picking an emoji and qualifying it with a word or a statement.

“When I first looked at the responses I was getting from Reflect, I was surprised,” Steve says. “I’d made certain assumptions about certain students. I had one student in particular that gave the impression of learning effortlessly. But when reviewing the Reflect data, she was actually feeling overwhelmed and uncertain about certain aspects of her learning. We’ve got to be careful making assumptions as [educators]. With Reflect, I can know the whole class and I can know individual students and that allows me the power and the privilege to pivot my lesson in response to what I’m seeing. It is quantitative qualitative data. Just because our students are present doesn’t mean they’re present to learn.”

The power of the pulse check

To learn more about Social Emotional Learning strategies and Reflect, explore these resources:

• Get started with Reflect in Teams
• Build social and emotional skills in your classroom community with Reflect
• Prioritizing and Supporting Student Well Being

The post More meaningful check-ins with Microsoft Reflect now in Microsoft Teams appeared first on Microsoft Education Blog.

Impact of computer science

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, computer science careers are expected to grow by over 600,000, a 15 percent increase, by 2031. Unfortunately, computer science courses are not available for all learners in US schools. Presently, only 53 percent offer computer science courses.

The curriculum and training offered by Minecraft: Education Edition provide an entry point for schools and educators to adopt and teach CS curriculum. Designed for learners from pre-literacy through high school, Minecraft’s CS progression offers opportunities for students to develop computational thinking and practice both block-based coding and Python. It is built on three tenants that guide the code building experience.

• Drive meaningful learning through integrating real-world issues in immersive, imaginative worlds
• Prepare for digital future by developing computational thinking skills with in-game coding and curriculum
• Build social-emotional skills like empathy and learn digital citizenship

Code Builder is an in-game coding feature that integrates with Microsoft MakeCode and Azure Notebooks, providing an easy, drag and drop canvas for students to create programs to run in Minecraft. The MakeCode interface within Code Builder offers step-by-step directions as students get started so they can become accustomed to various blocks and ways they can customize them; it’s a fun and easy way to learn the basics.

Check out Code Builder in action for this delightful introductory lesson in block coding with MakeCode.

Get set up to code in Minecraft: Education Edition

To introduce coding into the classroom with Minecraft, use this three-part process:

1. Get set up

Before introducing coding to students, build your own foundation. Remember, you don’t have to be a coding or Minecraft expert. It’s as easy as downloading and installing Minecraft: Education Edition onto your device, trying a simple demo lesson with Hour of Code, and exploring training opportunities.

If you’re new to coding, open the app and try the Hour of Code demo lesson. You’ll learn how to code using blocks with Microsoft MakeCode, the starting point for students too. Go beyond that first hour with easy starter lessons, professional development, or classroom challenges.

Minecraft: Education Edition offers more than 25 hours of free online trainings designed for educators to teach Computer Science. If you’re totally new to Minecraft, start with the Minecraft Teacher Academy, 3 1-hour modules on how to use Minecraft with educational strategies for classroom integration. Check out the 1-hour free online training Intro to Coding with Minecraft to bring coding into your classroom with confidence.

2. Teach with Minecraft

Once you’ve explored the basics on your own, you’ll be ready to teach coding lessons. Minecraft: Education Edition offers a CS progression for primary to secondary learners, helping progress students from block-based coding to Python with standards-based content. With 200 hours of CS content for all levels and abilities, you’re sure to find what you need. Each lesson includes educator resources, rubrics, and Minecraft files to help students have fun while developing computer science skills.

If you’ve done Hour of Code already and are ready for the next step, start with Computing with Minecraft, a 30-hour, 10-unit set of materials based on CSTA standards that teaches learners about conditionals, functions, coordinates, and more in block-based coding.

Here are some other example lessons that utilize Code Builder to teach computational thinking:

• Hour of Code: Escape Estate is the latest one-hour intro to coding lesson in the annual Hour of Code series. Students complete puzzles with code to escape a mysterious mansion.
• Compute a Zoo challenges students to use block-based code to create a zoo entrance and animal enclosures.
• Sea Turtle Assistance bridges biology, ecology, and computer science as students use algorithms to help protect sea turtles.
• In Python 101: Lesson 9, students decompose problems and write code to design a game.

In addition to lesson plans, Minecraft: Education Edition features regular build challenges that engage students’ creativity and strengthen 21st-century skills. Here are two fun Code Builder challenges:

• Harvest Time has students take on multiple tasks to improve harvesting efficiency and then use creative coding skills to carve a pumpkin.
• In Number Line Railroad, students explore the relationship between numbers by completing a number line and connecting the railroad segments.

3. Find your community

Visit the Community page to join Minecraft: Education Edition’s global community of educators and peer mentors. Meet and learn from passionate educators, gain access to new lessons and teaching resources, find upcoming events, and bring immersive learning to your students.

Connect with the experts within your classroom to help you explore teaching with Minecraft. Schools around the country, including Atlanta Public Schools, have established Student Ambassador programs where students serve as Minecraft experts for educators and peers. Sign up for an upcoming Student Ambassador training cohort or take the free online course on Microsoft Learn.

Celebrate computer science with Hour of Code

Another exciting way to bring Code Builder into the classroom is through Minecraft Hour of Code, a series of fun, engaging coding tutorials for any learner—including educators and parents! Hour of Code is a global initiative designed to demystify coding and broaden participation in the field of computer science.

In the newest Minecraft tutorial, Hour of Code: Escape Estate, students learn basic coding concepts to escape a mysterious mansion by dawn. Along the way they will solve puzzles using computational thinking to unlock secrets, open trap doors, and reveal hidden clues. Minecraft Hour of Code is available as a free demo lesson, so anyone can download and play.

Check out the trailer to the new Minecraft Hour of Code!

Minecraft: Education Edition helps students prepare for the future by prioritizing digital fluency skills, promoting community, encouraging a coding mindset, and teaching computational thinking. Begin your computer science journey today!

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