STIR up your Advisory

Format

Individual Presentation

Presenters

Ashley Hinch, Horry County SchoolsFollow

First Presenter's Institution

Conway High School

First Presenter’s Email Address

ahinch@horrycountyschools.net

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Ashley Hinch is an instructional coach at Conway High School in Horry County Schools. She has over 10 years of experience working as a classroom teacher and instructional coach. Ashley is the advisor of the Student Council, a participant in the School Improvement Council, and is actively involved in designing curriculum at the district level. She is passionate about the benefits of relationship building, structured collaboration, and the development of soft skills while teaching content.

Second Presenter's Institution

Conway High School

Second Presenter’s Email Address

lwilliams@horrycountyschools.net

Second Presenter's Brief Biography

Lindy Williams is an assistant principal at Conway High School in Horry County Schools. She has over 15 years of experience as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, and assistant principal. Lindy’s focus is on equity and meeting the needs of students in practical ways that will best prepare them for post-secondary success.

Location

Session 1 Breakout (Scarbrough 1)

Strand #1

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #2

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Relevance

Our Advisory/SEL Project builds capacity across our school to understand, practice, and teach all of the elements involved in the Heart strand including:

• Fostering social and emotional skills and the social climate for all children and youth

• School climate

• Academic resilience

• Caring curriculum and achievement motivation

• Student empowerment and leadership skills

• Emotional intelligence and communication skills

• Decision-making and goal setting

• Mindfulness

Brief Program Description

Learn how to STIR up your Advisory or SEL program at your school. Our self-created advisory program is Student-Centered, Timely, Intentional, and Rewards based. This session will equip participants with the tools to implement a similar program that can be customizable to meet the needs of their students and the school as a whole.

Summary

This session will provide practical tools to STIR up your Advisory (Social-Emotional Learning) program in your school. Our advisory program is Student-Centered, Timely, Intentional, and Rewards based, and creates an engaging and meaningful learning environment. This session will provide examples of how we use affirmations, relationship-building activities and student voice to create a student-centered curriculum. We will discuss how fluid plans, student survey results, journaling, goal setting, a growth mindset, and current events and issues create a timely and intentional curriculum. Finally, through the use of rewards, both individual and whole class, along with school-wide activities and social media highlighting, we have created an Advisory program students are excited about and are willing to fully participate in.

Each day our students participate in Advisory for 20 minutes. These 20 minutes are not academically driven, but instead, focus on various topics ranging from promoting school spirit to the dangers of vaping. Our 00000Advisory time also includes time for teachers to work on their social and emotional growth by including time for teachers to journal. We have also created a space in our building, the Zen Den, to allow teachers to have a place to decompress during their planning periods or lunch.

For teachers, this program requires little preparation and planning. An Advisory team at the school collaborates to create the weekly lesson to share with the teachers. Teachers are only required to facilitate the lesson during those 20 minutes.

This session will cover the evolution of our Advisory program, ideas for implementation, topics to cover, and rewards to motivate their students. The participants leaving this session will be able to create a beneficial program in their school that is not just a box that you are checking off on a list of mandates.

Evidence

The Advisory lesson framework is supported by CASEL’s Guide to Schoolwide SEL. The lessons in our Advisory contain the 10 components outlined by CASEL for effective implementation of a schoolwide SEL program, including focusing on adult SEL.

SEL is an element of our Advisory program; however, the focus is on allowing students to build relationships with their teachers and peers because research shows that students are more likely to thrive when they have a strong relationship with at least one adult in the building (greatschools.org).

Greatschools.org - The most important class in High School isn’t what you think

CASEL- https://schoolguide.casel.org/what-is-sel/indicators-of-schoolwide-sel/

Learning Objective 1

design and implement an effective Advisory program that focuses on building relationships, social and emotional learning, and a timely and intentional curriculum.

Learning Objective 2

identify issues in their schools that should be a focus of Advisory lessons.

Learning Objective 3

create a reward system to motivate students to complete the Advisory lessons.

Keyword Descriptors

Advisory, SEL, Relationships, Rewards, Student-Centered, Intentional, Goal Setting, Timely, Engaging, Mental Health

Presentation Year

2023

Start Date

3-6-2023 10:15 AM

End Date

3-6-2023 11:30 AM

Recommended Citation

Hinch, Ashley, "STIR up your Advisory" (2023). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 4.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2023/2023/4