The Whole Child Initiative: Engaged

These indicators may serve as a needs assessment, a set of strategic goals and outcomes, a framework for decision making, or the definition of what a whole child approach to education truly requires. In fact, these indicators are among those we consider in the selection process for Vision in Action: The ASCD Whole Child Award. However you choose to use them, please share them widely among your stakeholders and involve many voices in soliciting evidence related to their implementation. Although these are largely school-based, a whole child approach to education requires the engagement of the entire community to ensure that each child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

Each student is actively engaged in learning and is connected to the school and broader community.

1. Our teachers use active learning strategies, such as cooperative learning and project-based learning.

2. Our school offers a range of opportunities for students to contribute to and learn within the community at large, including service learning, internships, apprenticeships, and volunteer projects.

3. Our school policies and climate reinforce citizenship and civic behaviors by students, family members, and staff and include meaningful participation in decision making.

4. Our school uses curriculum-related experiences such as field trips and outreach projects to complement and extend our curriculum and instruction.

5. Each student in our school has access to a range of options and choices for a wide array of extracurricular and cocurricular activities that reflect student interests, goals, and learning profiles.

6. Our curriculum and instruction promote students' understanding of the real-world, global relevance and application of learned content.

7. Our teachers use a range of inquiry-based, experiential learning tasks and activities to help all students deepen their understanding of what they are learning and why they are learning it.

8. Our staff works closely with students to help them monitor and direct their own progress.

9. Our school expects and prepares students to assume age-appropriate responsibility for learning through effective decision making, goal setting, and time management.

10. Our school supports, promotes, and reinforces responsible environmental habits through recycling, trash management, sustainable energy, and other efforts.

Change the conversation about education in your school and community. Download the set of engaged indicators (PDF). Join and explore for free, the ASCD Whole Child Network to help you move from a vision for educating the whole child to action that results in successful, well-rounded young people.