Welcome to our new Measuring SEL website!

Roger P. Weissberg, PhD, CASEL Chief Knowledge Officer

Welcome to the home site of Measuring SEL: Using Data to Inspire Practice, a collaborative effort to address and advance the effective and practical assessment of social and emotional competencies in children and youth from preschool through high school. CASEL has joined with leading researchers, educators, and policymakers from universities, school districts, and national organizations to establish an Assessment Work Group to tackle some of the most critical issues faced by practitioners seeking to use data to improve the social and emotional learning (SEL) of young people, especially in schools.

The critical areas we’re addressing include:

• Enhancing Collaboration: Encouraging effective collaboration, communication, and networking in a rapidly growing field to optimize sharing of progress and reduce duplication of efforts.
• Clarifying Frameworks: Documenting similarities, differences, and potential alignments among the growing number of SEL-related frameworks that can guide both assessment and improvement efforts.
• Advancing Practical Assessment: Gathering and using data on students’ social and emotional competencies in practical ways and for appropriate purposes.
• Designing Direct Assessments: Identifying new ways to directly measure students’ social and emotional competencies through performance tasks in addition to self-reports or teacher ratings.

Over the next few years, and with the support of seven funders, we are committed to advancing work in these four areas. Measuring SEL will be the central hub for this work.

Measuring SEL will host a series of weekly blogs that inform people about what is happening in the field, inspire new approaches through examples from the field, engage a wider range of collaborators through a growing network of people who share their views via surveys and comments, and connect people working in these areas with each other to enhance their individual and collective work.

Measuring SEL will produce a number of briefs designed to help practitioners at many levels – from the classroom to the school to the district to the wider community – think through and act on ideas that can improve social and emotional learning.

Measuring SEL will publish an interactive Practical Guide for the assessment of social and emotional competencies that talks about measures with a special focus on illustrating how the measures are being used in practice.

Measuring SEL is already engaged in its first Design Challenge, with over 20 innovative and emerging direct measures of SEL competing for awards and helping to frame critical design principles for assessment.

Measuring SEL will issue State-of-the-Field reports designed to summarize (a) what we know and how to use that knowledge to act effectively in improving SEL, and (b) what challenges and future priorities the field should address.

On behalf of CASEL and the many collaborative partners involved, we hope you will visit us often to learn about our progress, contribute ideas, and work together to advance the effective and practical use of SEL data in efforts to support the development of social and emotional knowledge and skills in young people.

You can start by becoming part of the network now. We invite you to join the Collaborator Network and check back periodically to support this journey.

Please use the comments section below to tell us what you see as the critical issues in the practical use of data for SEL-improvement efforts and how you’re tackling them.