ACT Newsroom & Blog

ICYMI: Here are some of our social media highlights from February to easily share with your networks. Together, we can help people achieve education and workplace success.

Global Education Nonprofit Backs Adaptive Learning Pioneer

Click to tweet:

.@ACT is investing in #adaptive and #personalizedlearning leader, @smart_sparrow, to improve the learning experience for more #students. Check it out: http://bit.ly/2nnqyh4

Click to tweet:

.@ACT has made a significant strategic investment in @smart_sparrow, a global leader in #adaptive and #personalizedlearning. Learn why this is great news for #educators and #students: http://bit.ly/2nnqyh4

Share on LinkedIn:

ACT has made a strategic investment in Smart Sparrow to enhance their established strengths in educational assessment with Smart Sparrow’s expertise in adaptive learning capabilities. Learn about their shared vision of creating tech that accelerates and enriches learning: http://bit.ly/2nkdZmY

Using the ACT Policy Platforms as a Blueprint to Support More Students

Click to tweet:

.@ACT gathered leaders from the #education and #workforce sectors at an #edpolicy event to discuss the launch of the #ACTPolicyPlatforms and how to support the whole learner. @SuzanaDelanghe recaps the event and outlines the many roads to readiness: http://bit.ly/2nslAzS

Share on LinkedIn:

More than 130 experts in the K-12, Higher Education, CTE, and Workforce Development sectors gathered to discuss the launch of the 2018 ACT Policy Platforms last week. Read about ACT’s goals and plans to support all students in a blog by Suzana DeLanghe: http://bit.ly/2s2FcPO

Is POTUS serious about CTE? A Workforce Policy Wonk Reacts to the State of the Union

Click to tweet:

.@MontyIC of @ACT breaks down what the #SOTU address means for future #college and #career readiness initiatives, specifically #CTE, in a new blog: http://bit.ly/2nrz9iM

Share on LinkedIn:

ACT’s Senior Vice President of Public Affairs, Scott Montgomery, discusses the “and career” aspect of college and career readiness, with regards to President Trump's State of the Union address in a new blog. Note: the ACT Policy Platforms contain clear recommendations for policymakers looking to implement career and technical education: http://bit.ly/2rTBKGV

ACT's SEL Experts Blog on Skill Building for CASEL

Click to tweet:

.@ACT resident #SEL experts blogged about 1) developing performance level descriptors to determine the effectiveness of behaviors in #SEL, and 2) using #SEL assessment reports to empower #student growth. Check it out: http://bit.ly/2sm1g84 

Share on LinkedIn:

---

Follow ACT

          

My wife is an 8th grade math teacher in a downtown Tucson, Arizona charter school, located in the basement of our city’s historic YMCA. Her primary job is introducing 13-year-olds to solving linear equations and applying quadratic functions (and I dare readers here to take on such a project on a daily basis!).

She doesn’t need any research-based evidence to know that her job is made considerably easier—and her students learn more effectively and efficiently—when her students are supporting each other during classroom activities, when they are staying calm and not getting angry or upset, when they set goals and don’t give up, and when they make good choices about handling the difficult decisions that come your way when you are 13 in the year 2018.

She and her colleagues discuss and reflect upon this part of their work every single day—but they hardly ever use formal or technical terms for what they are describing as their hopes for student behaviors, and they don’t really give much attention to what researcher might determine is the “right” way to organize or label these behaviors. They use commonplace descriptors: kind and helpful; calm and cool; and persistent and organized.

School systems—at whatever level, be it global, national, state, district, school, or classroom—ought to be clear with themselves and their community about their commitments to student learning, especially in the social and emotional areas, so clarifying and communicating widely their particular common terminology is very valuable. (I discuss this in step 2 of my recent ACT e-book, Eight Steps to Strengthening SEL in Your School or District).

After much research and consideration, ACT has chosen a framework known as the Big Five Factors (BFF) for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) assessments, and the ACT® Holistic Framework™. The Big Five Factors, identified after many years of research and analysis, are these: Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, Openness, and Extraversion.

For our SEL assessment, ACT Tessera™, we’ve re-named the Big Five Factors with labels more widely used by educators, parents and policymakers.


In the US today, where the conversation about SEL is more elevated than it has ever been before, the CASEL framework is often referenced. It also features a quintet of skills: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

Although the CASEL framework has a strong appeal in the US, the BFF is widely referenced internationally. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), for instance, uses the BFF frequently in its educational and economic studies, such as the new “Study of Social Emotional Skills.“

Does it matter whether you choose the CASEL quintet or the Big Five Factor framework to guide and inform your SEL programming? Well, we at ACT can certainly make a compelling case for the value of the Big Five framework, and why it has a great evidence-basis in psychological research, and has been established as having wide impact on success in schooling, careers, and life.

But if your school uses the CASEL framework, it doesn’t mean you can’t also use Tessera. Remember my wife: what she and her colleagues work toward every single day with their students are kindness and helpfulness, staying calm and cool under pressure, and persistence and organization.

These things teachers care most about can immediately be found in either of the two popular frameworks. Cross-walking the two most widely used frameworks becomes relatively straightforward, especially when you use the OECD version (John, De Fruyt 2015) that clusters the Big Five factors into three categories.


Is there value in establishing a coherent and consistent framework in your school or system? Of course, there’s great value. ACT Tessera can help in providing a consistent approach and common language to help you do so. But whatever framework you choose, bear in mind that different approaches can easily be equated to each other, and with that established, we can get back to the most important work: using all the resources available to us in the challenging but vital work of helping our young people achieve success.

References

Source: John, O. P., & De Fruyt, F. D. (2015). Framework for the Longitudinal Study of Social and Emotional Skills in Cities. (Page 33) Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=EDU/CERI/CD(2015)13&docLanguage=En

---

Follow ACT

          

Recently, ACT researchers and SEL experts published two blogs on the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning's (CASEL) website to discuss advances in SEL skill-building. View excerpts and links to the full blog posts below.

Click to tweet: .@ACT resident #SEL experts blogged about 1) developing performance level descriptors to determine the effectiveness of behaviors in #SEL, and 2) using #SEL assessment reports to empower #student growth. Check it out: http://bit.ly/2sm1g84

January 10, 2018

One Standard Does Not Fit All: Creating Levels of SEL Effectiveness across School and Work

By Steven Manning, Ph.D. candidate, Jason Way, Ph.D., Alex Casillas, Ph.D.; ACT, Inc.

Educational leaders continue to recognize the value of enhancing social and emotional learning (SEL) and the importance of developing and measuring these skills in youth. Along with core academic skills, such as math, science, and English language arts, developing SEL skills has a positive impact on students’ success through their education and into their professional careers. Because measurement of SEL is relatively new when compared to core academic skills, it is often unclear which skills are appropriate to expect of students from elementary through postsecondary school settings.

Clearly, we expect a difference between the typical high school and elementary student, but how do we determine which skills and specific behaviors are effective for different developmental and grade levels? Additionally, how can we leverage these different levels to more effectively develop students’ skills? In this post, we address these questions by using ACT researchers’ development of performance level descriptors (PLDs) as a guiding example for addressing the effectiveness of various behaviors in social and emotional learning skills....Read More

Click to tweet: "Creating descriptions, assessments, and inventions for SEL skills from #education through #careers will allow for a similar development of these skills for students..." More #ACTInsights from @ACT #SEL experts: http://bit.ly/2sm1g84

January 31, 2018

Using SEL Assessment Reports with Students: Insights for Empowering Growth

By Jonathan E. Martin, Director of K12 Consulting Services and a member of the SEL team at ACT.

Who are the figures most important to the work of developing Social Emotional skills in the students in our schools: Teachers, Parents, Administrators, or Counselors?

How easy it is to forget that the best answer is always the student him or herself!

As students at City High School, a charter school in Tucson, ready themselves for college and careers, they’re eager to receive an affirmation of the skills they already have, and also to better understand what they should focus on improving before making their giant leap beyond secondary schooling—but not only in their academic subjects. They also want to know how they are doing in their critical personal attributes, such as teamwork, tenacity, and resilience. They know how important these skills are, and yet, to their frustration, they get only comparatively very little feedback in this crucial domain....Read More

Click to tweet: #Students are eager to understand themselves and seek reliable results to develop their #SEL skills, says @JonathanEMartin in a blog for @caselorg: http://bit.ly/2sm1g84

---

Follow ACT

          

I had the opportunity last Friday to participate in the 2018 School Counselor of the Year program in Washington, D.C. The event helped reaffirm that the work we do in the education field, at whatever level we might participate—school, district, state or national—is ultimately supported by people on the ground who have a passion to change lives.

The event’s host, former First Lady Michelle Obama, observed at the ceremony, “The people on this stage today (school counselors) have a bigger impact on children than any President or First Lady.”

She prefaced that remark by saying, “Real change doesn’t happen from the top down here in Washington; it happens from the bottom up in our communities.” And as another former First Lady once famously said, “It takes a village.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

As the American School Counselor’s Association celebrated the nation’s top school counselors, the Council of Chief State School Officers brought the State Teachers of the Year together for their annual induction meeting in California.

It’s truly exciting to see, across the nation, that educators on the front lines are being recognized and honored for the work they do each and every day to support America’s students.

We at ACT want to offer our congratulations to these professionals for their dedication and service to our nation’s students. We admire and support the work done by these amazing educators and the millions of others around the country just like them. They are the true American heroes of education.

On behalf of ACT and our staff across the country and around the globe, let me say a heartfelt thank you to the teachers, paraprofessionals, counselors, principals, superintendents and everyone else involved in educating America’s future.

We are a better and a stronger nation because of your efforts, and we stand ready to support you in your service to our nation’s students.

---

Follow Marten Roorda
 

Follow ACT  

ACT strategic investment in Smart Sparrow reflects move toward adaptive and personalized learning technology

“ACT recognizes the outstanding learning capabilities Smart Sparrow has brought to the global market, representing the leading edge of education technology and an abiding commitment to the role of great teachers,” said Marten Roorda, ACT chief executive officer. “This move is consistent with ACT’s ambition to become a learning company, the value that we place on personalization, and our commitment to develop adaptive learning. By investing in Smart Sparrow, we’ll be helping people around the world learn more efficiently and effectively than ever before.”

“We have long admired ACT’s leadership in education research and efficacy, which reflects our own heritage as a university-incubated technology,” said Dror Ben-Naim, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Smart Sparrow. “This new association will help us deliver on our mission of putting amazing technology in the hands of global educators, so they can create dynamic learning experiences that authentically blend learning and assessment. Educators will be better equipped to address the needs of their individual learners, and prepare them to be deep thinkers and creative problem solvers.”

“Across society, people are interested in redesigning assessment systems so they are seamlessly integrated with the learning experience,” said Alina von Davier, vice president of ACTNext, the business innovation division at ACT. “Recent advances in technology, algorithms, and data modeling provide actionable evidence that can help students reach their potential.”

---

Follow ACT

          

Last Tuesday, I was pleased to be among the more than 130 people from the K–12, higher education, career and technical education, and workforce development sectors who gathered in Washington, DC, for the launch of the 2018 ACT Policy Platforms—a “Davos for policy geeks,” as event moderator Andy Rotherham of Bellwether Education Partners put it in his opening remarks.

The purpose of the event was to shine a new light on the demands being placed on our education and training systems by the changing US economy. Case in point: Five years ago, the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University predicted that by 2020, 65% of a projected 55 million available jobs—a great many of them new openings in healthcare, community services, and STEM occupations—will require training beyond high school.

Yet we also know that many groups of students—especially first-generation college students, students of color, and low-income students—face challenges and barriers to postsecondary readiness and success that have yet to be fully addressed. The ACT Policy Platforms, informed by ACT data and research and by industry best practices, are intended to guide federal and state policymakers toward focusing on the unique challenges of preparing all students for college, training programs, and ultimately the workforce.

These challenges include scaling up services and leveling the playing field for all students. For example, ACT’s K–12 platform recommends that states take full advantage of the flexibility offered by the Every Student Succeeds Act to better support student learning through a variety of nonacademic interventions such as social and emotional learning skills instruction, supplemental school nutrition, and school-based mental health programs.

The policy platforms are also intended as a guide for ACT, and we are scaling up our own efforts to support students accordingly. ACT knows that many students—and especially students from underserved backgrounds—need additional resources. We also know that students who are exposed to targeted assistance programs outperform and enroll and persist in college at higher rates than their peers who do not participate in such programs.

In the past month, therefore, we’ve announced plans to allow low-income students to better explore their college options by providing them with additional free ACT score reports to submit to prospective colleges and universities. I’m also excited that we will be launching ACT Academy, a free online learning tool designed to help students master the skills they need to improve their readiness for college and career. These kinds of supports help level the playing field for all students, and ACT is committed to offering them and to looking for additional ways to support all individuals in their academic and career endeavors.

I’m proud of ACT for advancing these efforts. I also know, however, that they are just part of the solution to meeting the demands of the changing economy. I look forward to engaging with other educators, advocacy organizations, and businesses in new efforts and opportunities to close achievement gaps and support all individuals in their pursuit of college and career readiness. I encourage you to read our new policy platforms—and then let’s talk.

---

Join the conversation on Twitter by using #ACTPolicyPlatforms

Follow Suzana Delanghe

   

Follow ACT