Coordinating efforts to improve outcomes, grow social and emotional learning, and improve students’ lives: Roger Weissberg’s collaborations with the American Institutes for Research

Abstract

We commemorate Roger Weissberg’s life and contributions to the field by sharing the history of his collaborations with staff at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). In the early 2000s, CASEL joined AIR and the Learning First Alliance in a partnership that aimed to (a) build understanding of the relationships among students’ social and emotional learning (SEL), safe and supportive learning communities, and academic development; (b) develop measures of SEL and safe and supportive learning communities, (c) develop policies to support use of SEL measures in schools; and (d) enhance school capacity for SEL nationwide. We show how sustained, collaborative efforts over two decades advanced progress toward each of these goals. Weissberg advised AIR’s work developing a measure of conditions for learning in schools that included a scale assessing peers’ social and emotional competence. AIR served as the independent evaluator for CASEL’s ambitious Collaborating Districts Initiative (CDI), which demonstrated that districts could make social and emotional learning a systemic part of all children’s education. Beginning with the CDI, AIR worked on SEL measurement with CASEL. Finally, Roger played an active role in multiple training and technical assistance centers that worked to build educators’ capacity to address SEL in their work.

Impact Statement

Roger Weissberg had an enormous influence on the field of social and emotional learning. One way his ideas and energy touched the lives of schoolchildren across the nation was through collaborating on research, measurement, and technical assistance work with the American Institutes for Research. This article shares the context and history of this work.