Helping Students Relate to the Lessons

Some students will naturally relate to the lesson topics, and others will need more support and guidance.

When you are facilitating the lessons, there are some helpful ways that you can encourage students to connect and relate to what they are learning:

Guide students to connect the learning in the lessons to current events or pop culture.

Bringing in current events or pop culture examples that students can relate to and are familiar with can help them make the connection between the lesson contents and these examples; this is a really helpful way to organically engage students.

For example, if you are facilitating a lesson about effective communication and a situation has recently occurred in the media that exemplifies communicating clearly (or communicating poorly!), you could refer to this to help students understand and relate to the learning. You could also ask students to provide their own examples, which engages them and also helps you gauge their level of understanding of the topic.

Encourage students to make personal connections to the lessons.

Helping students reflect on their own experiences and how these experiences relate to what they are learning, just as you would do with core curriculum subjects, is a fantastic way to help students connect personally to the content.

For example, if you are facilitating a lesson that teaches students about changing negative thoughts during challenges, you can remind them of a challenging assignment or test that they just completed and ask them to reflect on the negative thoughts that might have come up for them.

Reduce the stigma for students related to the lesson topics.

Helping students understand that well-being and mental health challenges/struggles are common and that it’s okay to struggle will help them feel safe exploring these topics in depth. If you feel comfortable providing personal examples, this type of vulnerability can be really impactful for students.

For example, if you are facilitating a lesson about stress/anxiety, you can let students

know that anxiety is a common experience that a lot of us face throughout our lives, and

it’s okay if they have experienced this. You can follow this by letting them know that being brave enough to notice our struggles and work on finding tools that can help us is how we can thrive no matter what our challenges are.

The Student Voice Lessons are also a great way to help students engage in the content by providing them with a real peer role model sharing their own story. If you would like more information on how to help students engage with these lessons, see our Help Article: Introducing Student Voice Videos

For more information on how you can help your students get the most out of the lessons, see our Help Article: Supporting Student Emotions

If you would like more information on how to reinforce and facilitate meaningful student learning throughout the school day, refer to our Help Article: Scaffolding Opportunities.