Committee for Children Blog

4 Smart Strategies for Implementing the Second Step Middle School Program Effectively

Middle School Program

Teachers and administrators throughout the country piloted the Second Step Middle School Program and were interviewed after teaching the lessons. During these interviews, the teachers and administrators shared examples of strategies they found effective for implementing the program.

Make Second Step Part of “the Way We Do Business”

  • Set aside time for Second Step lessons at the beginning of each day, every morning.
  • Embed Second Step into the school schedule.
  • Implement the program schoolwide so everyone is learning and using the skills at the same time.
  • Have all classrooms teach Second Step lessons the same day and time of the week to ensure everyone uses the same vocabulary and teaches the same skills to all students.
  • Ensure that students learn about and have opportunities to practice the skills every day, every week.

Pair SEL with Academics

There’s limited time in a school day, so it’s important to implement SEL and academics efficiently. SEL and academics are integrally related. Here’s one idea we heard for how to connect the two:

We have sheets of paper outside of each room with dates on them. They list the skill of the week. We have a skill of the week for literacy and another for math. We embed these academic skills in every new Second Step Middle School lesson. For example, in literacy, if our skill of the week is inferencing, we have students talk and turn in Second Step and do some inferencing. If it’s main idea, then we have a turn-and-talk related to the main idea of the Second Step lesson we’re working on. We embed everything into the skill of the week.

Use Strategies for Student Engagement

The teachers and administrators who were interviewed spoke of how the Second Step Middle design captivates students with its digital format, varied activities, videos, and real-life stories from actual middle school students. Given that the curriculum is only one part of maintaining student interest, be prepared with additional, varied ways to engage students both before and during lessons. Try some of these teaching approaches:

  • Have a conversation with students before introducing Second Step lessons to discuss how the program teaches skills important for both school and life.
  • Discuss how Second Step is going to benefit the school as a whole.
  • Include students in teaching the lessons.
    • Have students help facilitate the lessons.
    • Ask students to interact with the screen to open up the next question or start a video.
  • Pause the videos so students can talk and discuss. Incorporate more questions like “Does this sound familiar? Does anyone have another story that can connect us to this?”
  • Ask administrators to teach lessons with the teachers.

Prepare a Few Things in Advance

One of the keys to student readiness is teacher readiness. Although there’s little preparation time required with Second Step Middle School, there are ways to ensure you’re setting yourself up for success. These are strategies teachers have used to ensure their lessons go smoothly.

  • “I make a copy of the lesson printout ahead of each lesson, in case I want to make notes about certain things I want to say or highlight certain things I want to be sure not to forget.”
  • “I review the lesson before I actually teach it.”
  • “I put the objectives on the board before the lesson starts, so students can always see them.”
  • “I print out a copy of the advisory activities so they’re readily available when I have extra time.”

We hope these strategies will help you and your students enjoy using  Second Step Middle School as much as this pilot teacher did: “I love it. I love it.”