Lessons Learned

Instructional Technology - International Education - Wellness

Category: Design (page 1 of 11)

Connectivism and Wellness Apps – Conversations from the Educators Going Global Podcast

December 21, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Audrey and I interviewed three leaders in their respective fields which led me to make some connections!

Our conversation with Patrick Green about digital wellness took me on a trip down memory lane. Years ago, I worked with a student to prototype a wellness app rooted in Positive Psychology. It was an exciting “what if” project at the time, but seeing how the landscape has shifted since then is fascinating.

Scott Jamieson of Inspire Citizens shared details about their micro-credentialing program, which features 15 badges. Interestingly, these badges mirrored many of the core functions we built into that original wellness app design.

Badging and micro-credentials aren’t new but it’s heartening to see such a versatile tool is still being used effectively to validate student growth and well-being.

In our second interview with Andy Vaughan this time about student well-being and advisory, he noted that wellness apps are now becoming staples in schools. Students use them to check in on their well-being status, providing school leaders with real-time data to better target their support efforts.

These interviews inspired me to update my thinking on what student wellness app development looks like today. While I really don’t know what is happening in that software market, I wanted to engage in a fresh ideation effort to see where the technology and design could go or has already gone. 🙂

To push my ideas further in writing a few blog posts, I ran my writing through a couple LLMs for iterative feedback. I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the results. 

It’s safe to assume that current wellness and SEL app providers are either already deploying AI or have it on their immediate roadmaps. We are seeing the rise of AI Coaches—tools specifically designed to help users improve skills, shift habits, or reach personal milestones through consistent, personalized guidance.

This exploration has left me with more questions than answers:

  • How are schools integrating these apps into the daily life of their students?
  • Where is the line between data collection, privacy and personal growth?
  • How can AI coaches supplement the vital work of human mentors, teachers and counselors?
  • What safety protocols are in place for such coaches?
  • Might schools work with interested staff and students to create their own wellness/SEL apps? 

The following five-part series, titled ‘The Well-Being Navigator,’ explores how students can steer their own wellness journeys through the support of a dedicated app.

Here are a few of my previous posts on the topic of a wellness app and badging: What if we…Design and Create School Wellness and Student Support Apps | Wellness Dashboard – Elementary Modular Classes – Exploratory Specials | Virtual Teach Courses

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The Well-Being Navigator: An Overview

December 6, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Overview

This wellness app for students, rooted in Positive Psychology, can be developed into a rich, engaging platform that not only supports personal growth but also fosters a community of learner-practitioners focusing on their character strengths and PERMAH well-being pillars (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment, and Health).

Here’s an a vision of the app:

Personalized Student Profiles and Dynamic Check-Ins

Each student’s profile serves as a personalized dashboard reflecting their journey with character strengths within the PERMAH pillars. Daily check-ins prompt students to reflect on which of the 24 Character Strengths they activated across the PERMAH pillars, encouraging mindfulness and self-awareness. These check-ins can use adaptive prompts tailored to recent student activity or mood or emotions, helping deepen connection to their growth.

Goal-Driven Planning and Tracking

The app includes a powerful planning feature where students set specific intentions on how to practice Character Strengths in various life areas—school projects, co-curricular activities (sports, theater, clubs), social interactions, and personal pursuits. The planning tool supports SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) and integrates calendar reminders or notifications to motivate follow-through.

Interactive Badging System with Graduated Mastery Levels

The badging system visually tracks progress through levels of mastery for each Character Strength:

  • Explorer: A light color or simple design indicating initial exploration and understanding
  • Practitioner: A richer color showing active engagement
  • Integrator: A vibrant and full color and symbol demonstrating wide strength use
  • Fluent: A distinctive, polished design symbolizing advanced competence and confident application in real-life actions across the PERMAH pillars

Form a student team to design the badges along with the a naming protocol. This example is just one possible approach. 🙂

Badges could include detailed micro-credentials accompanied by brief prompts or reflections for students to document examples of how they demonstrated each strength in specific activities or situations. This strengthens metacognition and provides evidence of learning.

Integration with Real-World Activities and Learning Modules

The app could integrate project-based learning prompts or challenges aligned with each character strength and PERMAH pillar. For example, a theater project might focus on “Teamwork” (Relationships) and “Creativity” (Engagement), encouraging students to apply and reflect on these strengths. Similarly, sports could link to “Perseverance” (Accomplishment) and “Self-Regulation” (Health). These modules help contextualize strengths in meaningful experiences.

Community and Social Features

To enhance motivation and peer support, the app could enable students to share achievements, badges, and reflections in a moderated community space or in small groups. Peer encouragement and mentorship shine a spotlight on strengths development, creating a culture of positive psychology practice. Leaderboards or “strengths challenges” can foster friendly competition without pressure.

Staff and Guardian Insights

Teachers and guardians can access aggregated, anonymized dashboards to understand overall class or group well-being trends, strengths engagement patterns, and areas for support. This enables timely interventions and personalized encouragement while respecting privacy.

Ongoing Feedback and Adaptive Learning

The app leverages data analytics to offer personalized feedback and adaptive suggestions—for instance, if a student rarely practices “Gratitude” (Positive Emotion), the app might prompt small gratitude exercises or suggest related activities. This ensures that development is balanced across strengths and PERMAH pillars.

Wellness Resources and Reflection Tools

Embedded resources such as short educational videos, guided meditations, journaling prompts, and mindfulness exercises support deeper understanding and practical use of character strengths. Reflection tools encourage students to summarize growth, setbacks, and learnings linked to their badges and goals.

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The Well-Being Navigator: Design and Development

December 6, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Developing the Student Wellness App

This concept moves beyond simple tracking to become a personalized, active tool for well-being mastery.

1. Core Structure & Positive Psychology Integration

Feature Area Development & Enhancement Rationale
Personalized Profile Include an initial VIA Survey (or a simplified version) to pre-populate the student’s top 5-7 Signature Strengths. The profile should prominently display their current active badges. Possibly have students choose a few additional Strengths that they want to focus upon.  Gives students an immediate starting point and sense of self-awareness.
PERMAH Check-in (Daily) Streamline the check-in: Students select their current activity (e.g., studying, sports practice, volunteering) and then choose which Character Strength they intentionally used. The app automatically links the Strength to the relevant PERMAH pillar(s) for education (e.g., Curiosity> Engagement, Meaning). Makes the PERMAH connection clear and educational without requiring the student to guess the pillar.
Guided Planning Implement a “Strengths Challenge” feature. Students choose a goal (e.g., “Improve my History grade” or “Make a new friend”) and the app prompts them to select 1-2 Character Strengths they will intentionally use this week to achieve it. Moves the concept from passive tracking to active, intentional application.

 

2. The Progressive Badging System (Gamification)

The tiered badging system is the heart of the app’s engagement. A four-tier system allows for better distinction between “knowing” and “mastering.”

 

Tier Name Achievement Criteria Badge Look/Color Rationale
1. Explorer Student completes the basic definition/concept module for the strength and checks it in once as “learned.” Light/Transparent Color, simple outline (e.g., a sketch). Focus on Knowledge. Rewards initial curiosity and understanding.
2. Practitioner Student checks in using the strength 5 times in different activities/contexts and completes an app-guided journal entry reflecting on its use. Solid, Primary Color, simple graphic (e.g., a solid shield). Focus on Action & Consistency. Rewards early intentional application.
3. Integrator Student uses the strength 15 times across a variety of PERMAH pillars and links its use to a specific goal in the planning section (e.g., used Perseverance to finish a project). Metallic Finish, more complex design with texture (e.g., silver/bronze with etched lines). Focus on Flexibility & Reflection. Shows the strength is becoming a regular tool.
4. Fluent Student accumulates 30 uses or uses the strength consistently for 6 months or receives a validated “Peer Nomination” (see below). Final Characteristic: Bold Color/Glow, sophisticated, intricate design (e.g., gold with a specific, unique icon). Focus on Mastery & Fluency. This is a strength they instinctively use and are known for.

 

3. Community & Reflection Features

To enhance the Positive Psychology model, the app features tools that directly connect to PERMAH. 

A. Peer Nomination (R & A)

  • Students can anonymously or explicitly nominate a classmate (who is also an app user) for demonstrating a specific character strength.
  • Example: “I nominate Sarah for Kindness because she helped me understand the calculus problem when I was struggling.”
  • Impact: A verified nomination counts towards the nominee’s badge progress (e.g., 3 nominations automatically move a strength from Practitioner to Integrator). This is a powerful form of authentic positive recognition.

B. Strengths Journal (R & E)

  • The journal is tied directly to the check-in process. After logging a strength use, the app prompts: “How did using Creativity during your theatre practice make you feel?”
  • This encourages Reflection and deepens the link between actions and Positive Emotion (P).

C. Strengths in Action Showcase (M & A)

  • A section where students can share (with moderation) the outcome of their “Strengths Challenges.”
  • Example: A student posts, “I used Leadership to organize a park clean-up. We filled 20 bags of trash!” and links the Leadership strength.
  • This creates a sense of Meaning (M) and Accomplishment (A) by showing the real-world impact of their efforts.

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The Well-Being Navigator: The Check-In Flow

December 6, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Daily Strengths Check-In Flow

The goal of this flow is to log an activity, identify the strength used, and show the student how it connects to their overall well-being (PERMAH).

Step 1: The Daily Prompt (Home Screen)

  • Design Element: A large, prominent button or card on the main dashboard labeled: “Log Your Strengths Today” or “Daily Check-In.”
  • Time Saver: If the student has an active Strengths Challenge (from their planning section), the prompt could be: “Did you use [Targeted Strength, e.g., Perseverance] on your [Targeted Goal, e.g., Math Homework] today?”

Step 2: What Did You Do? (Context)

  • Instruction: “Choose the activity or area of life where you intentionally used a strength.”
  • Input Method (Quick Select):
    • School: (e.g., In Class, Studying, Co-Curricular, Project/Group Work)
    • Personal: (e.g., Family Time, Friendships, Personal Hobby/Interest, Chores/Responsibilities)
    • Open Text/Custom: Allows the student to type in a specific activity.
  • Example Selection: The student taps Co-Curricular.

Step 3: Which Strength Did You Engage? (Core Action)

  • Instruction: “Think about the action you took. Which Character Strength did you use successfully?”
  • Input Method (Visual/Searchable Grid):
    1. Display all 24 Character Strengths as visually distinct icons/cards.
    2. Highlight: Signature Strengths (Tier 4 or high VIA score) are displayed first and emphasized (e.g., slightly larger or brighter border) to encourage their use.
    3. An optional search/filter bar (e.g., Filter by Wisdom or Courage virtues).
  • Interaction:
    1. The student taps the icon for Teamwork.
    2. (Optional Detail Prompt:) A small text box appears: “Briefly describe the action (e.g., I helped organize the defense strategy).”

Step 4: The PERMAH Feedback Loop (Education)

  • Instruction: (App-Generated, Non-Editable)
  • Display: A dynamically generated confirmation and educational statement.
    • Confirmation: “Great work! By intentionally using Teamwork, you are boosting your overall well-being!”
    • PERMAH Breakdown: Show the icon/initials of the PERMAH pillars connected to that strength.
      • Teamwork is primarily linked to:
        • R (Relationships) Working well with others.
        • E (Engagement) Being fully absorbed in a group activity.
        • A (Accomplishment) Achieving a goal together.
    • (Optional Callout:) A brief definition of one related PERMAH pillar. E.g., “Relationships means having supportive and meaningful connections with others.”

Step 5: Badging & Confirmation

  • Display: “Check-In Complete!”
  • Progress Visualization:
    • Show the Teamwork badge icon.
    • If the check-in triggered a badge advancement (e.g., from Explorer to Practitioner), a small animation/celebration appears: “🎉 Congratulations! Your Teamwork badge is now a Practitioner!”
    • Show the student their current tally for that strength: (e.g., Teamwork Uses: activations needed for the next tier.)
  • Next Step Options:
    • “Go to Strengths Journal” (To reflect more deeply)
    • “Plan a New Challenge”
    • “Done” (Returns to Home Screen)

Key Design Principles

  1. Low Friction: Steps are primarily tap-based with minimal required typing.
  2. Immediate Feedback: The PERMAH education and badge progress are shown instantly to reinforce the value of the action.
  3. Positive Reinforcement: Use visuals, color, and congratulatory language throughout the process.

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The Well-Being Navigator: Digital Wellness Module with Values

December 6, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Digital Wellness Module with a Values Approach

This version of the digital wellness module moves beyond individual Character Strengths to connect the student’s daily actions with their deepest personal and family values.

1. Initial Setup: Discovering and Defining Values

The first time the student enters this module, they are guided through a process to articulate their core values.

A. Student Values Clarification

  • Prompt: The app provides a curated list of values with explanations and examples (e.g., Honesty, Respect, Community, Innovation, Faith, Growth).
  • Action: The student selects their Top 5 Personal Values.
  • Integration: For each selected value, the app prompts: “Which 1-2 Character Strengths do you think you need to use most often to live out this value?”
    • Example: If the value is Honesty, the student might link it to Authenticity and Integrity.
    • This explicitly connects the why (Value) to the how (Strength).

B. Family Values Input

  • Prompt: “What are the core values your family strives to live by?”
  • Action: The student either selects from a list or custom-inputs up to 3 Family Values (e.g., Hard Work, Loyalty, Service).
  • Verification: The app suggests a simple “Family Check-In” action: “Talk to a parent/guardian about these 3 values and confirm their importance.” (This integrates the family immediately.)

2. Daily Check-In Enhancement (Values Layer)

The standard daily check-in (What did you do? Which strength?) is now enhanced with a values layer.

  • New Layer: After selecting the activity and the Character Strength (CS), a new prompt appears: “Did this action align with one of your Personal or Family Values?”
  • Action: The student selects the relevant value (or selects “No”).
  • Feedback/Reflection: If a value is selected, the app prompts a brief journal entry: “How did using [Character Strength, e.g., Love of Learning] help you honor your value of [Value, e.g., Growth] today?”

This process maximizes Meaning (M) within the PERMAH framework, showing the student that their actions have depth beyond simple achievement.

3. Values-Driven Strengths Challenges

The “Strengths Challenges” are modified to be rooted in a specific value, creating more compelling and resonant goals.

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Values-Driven Challenge Type Example CS & PERMAH Focus
Living My Value Challenge: Choose your top Personal Value (Respect). For 5 days this week, intentionally show respect to someone you usually struggle with (e.g., a difficult sibling or a teacher). Relationships, Kindness, Social Intelligence
Honoring My Family Challenge: Choose a Family Value (Hard Work). Use the strength Perseverance to tackle the most difficult piece of homework or a household chore without complaining. Accomplishment, Positive Emotion (Pride)
Strengths Conflict Resolution Challenge: If your value of Community conflicts with your value of Independence, how do you use Prudence or Judgment this week to balance a group project deadline with your need for alone time? Engagement, Judgment, Prudence

 

4. Values-Based Feedback and Badging

The badging system is complemented by a “Value Score” and a dedicated Values Badge.

A. Values Badge (The North Star)

  • Value-In-Action Badge: This is a single, central badge that represents the student’s dedication to living all their declared values.
  • Tiers:
    1. Values Explorer: Logged a minimum of 10 actions aligned with any declared value.
    2. Values Practitioner: Successfully completed 3 Values-Driven Strengths Challenges.
    3. Values Integrator: Student uses the value 15 times and links its use to a specific goal in the planning section. 
    4. Fluent: Student accumulates 30 uses or uses the value consistently for 6 months

B. Family Values Report

  • The app generates a simple monthly report: “Your Top 3 Strengths Used to Uphold Family Values.”
  • Example: This month you used Honesty 7 times and Teamwork 5 times to uphold the Family Value of Loyalty.
  • Sharing Feature: This report includes a toggle button: “Share this Family Values in Action Report with a Guardian,” encouraging positive family dialogue.

This values focus ensures the student’s efforts are deeply rooted in what truly matters to them and their family, fostering greater internal motivation and lifelong well-being.

Professional Learning: Improving Your Wellness Program

July 6, 2023 / / 0 Comments

How well is your elementary wellness program succeeding in helping your students construct their wellness toolkits to exercise their character strengths within the PERMAH pillars? In addition, where are your students regarding personal growth and thriving? Designing a wellness program is a vast task, with implementation being a vital component. Another critical aspect of program building and implementation that schools sometimes fail with is the follow-through to measure the effects upon the stakeholders.

Accountability, thus, is central to the success of the program. One way to pull in the lessons learned from the program rollout is to periodically have staff reflect, share and create together to improve your wellness curriculum.

The following is one approach for an elementary staff workshop to start the improvement process for your wellness program that you can possibly adapt for your staff as they strive to integrate the character strengths and PERMAH pillars into the culture of their classrooms. Measuring how effective your wellness program is for your students is another aspect of accountability. A future blog post will cover this most important topic.

Wellness Integration Reflection and Improvement Workshop

If your number of staff members is not too large, set up six tables where you usually do your professional learning workshops. If your staff is large, you need to set up two or more sets of six tables.

Let’s go with a smaller staff for this workshop description – one with a set of six tables and your staff divided into six groups. It is up to you to decide the parameters of the group makeup. Do you go with current grade level teams accompanied by specialists teachers, or do you mix things up by assigning group members from each grade level? An additional criterion could be to try and get a diverse mix of skills and character strengths within each group.

The first stage is to review the current PRIME integration strategies (the ones that work for most character strengths). The goal is to improve your instruction bringing the strengths into the culture of your classrooms. The teams also review the character strengths integration strategies specific to particular strengths (e.g., creativity). Each table has posters listing each PRIME and specific character strengths integration strategies. The teams at each table first rate each strategy for effectiveness, giving them a green for working well, a yellow for working so-so, and a red for not working.

The next step is to improve each strategy focusing on those receiving the yellow and red designations. The group works to improve each strategy writing their improved approaches to the strategy listings on the poster papers. Teams delist red strategies that cannot be improved.

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The second stage is the round-robin aspect of the workshop. Each table will be home to one PERMAH pillar listed on poster paper. You will need to assess how long stage one will take to decide whether to try and tackle this second stage after your work on the first stage or save this activity until another day. The goal is to review how individual character strengths can be applied within each PERMAH pillar. With your staff already having implemented your wellness program by first teaching the character strengths followed by teaching the PERMAH pillars and how character strengths can be exercised with each pillar, your staff should have enough experience to now reflect and improve upon their efforts.

Each team spends a designated amount of time at each PERMAH table, focusing on each specific pillar. The facilitator can predetermine how much time is spent at each table or assess how much time each team needs per table once the process begins. An example is one group working at the Relationships table. The first step is to share and record on the poster paper which strengths and how each group member is teaching them to their students to engage within the pillar. The next step is to collectively comment upon and refine the instructional techniques that are being shared. The final step is to discuss character strengths not listed by anyone that their students could exercise to enhance their engagement within their assigned PERMAH pillar. Strategies to teach these new strengths into the pillar also would be written on the poster paper. Once this work is completed, each group moves to another PERMAH pillar table to follow the same multi-stage procedure.

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The final stage is to regroup by grade level and assign specialists to grade-level teams in which they teach many of their students. You will need to assess how long stages one and two take to decide whether to try and tackle this third stage or save this activity until another day. The goal of this stage is to have each team spend time to devise new character strength integration strategies to use in their classrooms. The strategies can be PRIME in that they will work for most, if not all, of the character strengths, or they can be specific to individual character strengths. Team members present their new strategies to be refined by the team to be written on the provided “New Strength Integration Strategies” poster paper if the majority feel the strategy is doable and on par or better than current integration activities.

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The wellness coach and wellness team meet later to review the workshop(s) outcomes. Further refinements are made, if needed, to the information on the poster papers. The final listing of improved and new strategies is then added to your web portal. I am guessing you have some website or online resource that lists the PRIME integration and those specific to the individual strengths, like my Wellness@ES website.

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Community Wellness Program – Wellness Ambassadors

April 18, 2023 / / 0 Comments

A ways back I listed a few ideas to consider when designing and implementing a community wellness program. I stressed the importance of involving parents throughout the process. Thus, one aspect of the program would be finding ways to gather ideas and share information with parents. As my diagram above points out, a community has multiple levels, from the macro community to the micro level of individuals in which to engage.

One way schools can connect with and share information with parents is through parent workshops. I intentionally choose the term “workshop” rather than presentation. Workshops encompass teaching but also bring in insights and perspectives from the parents. Another aspect of workshops is that parents work on processing, analyzing, and sharing their learning. An example of this is my workshop entitled Parenting in the Digital Age.

As we advance the community wellness program, I see myself reaching out to interested parents to form an advisory group to help me further grow the program. As mentioned in my wellness program design blog post, I would gather insights from parents on the most critical issues and topics they see for their families. I would also get their feedback on my initiatives and plans in response to what they share.

Back to parent workshops, I would work with this advisory group to design a series of workshops on wellness and parenting topics of their choosing. Zeroing in on wellness, I would ask for volunteers to be “wellness ambassadors” to help me with wellness workshops and supporting our community’s wellness. I suggest a few roles they could fill. Here are some that come to mind.

  • An essential partner in this process is the parent-teacher organization. I would start with their leadership team to get the ball rolling.
  • A sounding board for topic generation.
  • Unpacking topics for more profound understanding through the various cultural lenses of the community members.
  • Have them be my practice audience once I design the workshops. They could give me feedback to fine-tune the material before I work with the greater parent community.
  • They could work as table facilitators when we do the workshops with the greater parent community.
  • They give me feedback after the workshops on how they ran and what they learned from their table groups.
  • I advocate for their voices to be heard as we grow our wellness program.

I probably would not have these ambassadors engage in “how to parent-style” workshops. It could be uncomfortable putting them in the role of facilitating table discussions on parenting which can be a very personal and sometimes emotional topic to discuss. It makes more sense to have administrators and other instructional coaches who have experience working with parents help facilitate table discussions on parenting. 🙂

OK, here I go again, sharing some ideas I have yet to try and have not proven effective. I have written a few times with other ideas, such as constructing a parent portal to build community while supporting one’s parents. Hopefully, the ideas presented here make sense, and they elicit lateral thinking connecting to your experiences and plans to support your parent community.

The Wellness Coach (Counselor) – Instructional Technologist Partnership

December 21, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I have written a lot about what I see as the wellness coach and instructional technologist overlap of areas of services to our school community.

We describe (digital) citizenship as the purview of instructional technologists. As an instructional coach for wellness, I use the term “digital wellness” to describe the domain where I support students, staff, and parents in their lives. I need to find out where conventional guidance counselors generally stand in supporting citizenship or digital wellness. As usual, I am speaking about my experiences and ideation.

The question can arise of the difference between digital citizenship and digital wellness. One way to understand the difference between (digital) citizenship and digital wellness is that most citizenship curricula teach students to think about how their actions affect others. Digital wellness looks inward to help us think about how our use of technology affects our well-being.

Remember that a guiding principle of digital wellness is to engage the Character Strength of proactivity to help us take charge of how we use technology to support our interests, values, and wellness. 🙂

When teachers or the instructional technologist are teaching citizenship skills, instances of digital wellness also come into play. The reverse is true for teachers and wellness coaches teaching digital wellness when citizenship is a part of the learning. With all this said, it makes sense to me that the wellness coach and instructional technologist should have a strong partnership to help each other design their programs including professional learning opportunities for staff.

My focus on elementary students means building the foundational understanding that they are in charge of the tools – not the other way around. They learn how to use technology for learning and, yes, for entertainment and fun. The wellness program naturally grows student self-awareness to help them understand technology’s positive and negative influence on their lives, especially their well-being.

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Wellness Program Implementation in the Elementary

December 21, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I went big with my post, listing many ideas for implementing a comprehensive school wellness program. Let’s now focus on the elementary.

One primary goal of a wellness program is to help our students THRIVE! To reach this goal, here are six potential steps to follow>

Step 1: Introduction Lessons – What is wellness? What is character? What are Character Strengths?

Step 2: Teachers then teach students the individual Character Strengths that scientific research shows we all have. One approach is for the wellness coach and grade-level teachers to design the scope and sequence of when you will teach each of the strengths. Perhaps in early childhood, only a handful of strengths are introduced, such as emotional and social intelligences, honesty, kindness, and self-control. Teach additional Character Strengths each year so that all the strengths are in place by, say, Grade 3.

Step 3: Teachers then apply the PRIME integration and Secondary strategies listed on this website for each Character Strength to offer many opportunities to practice using the strengths during the year. As students learn each of the strengths, they will grow their understanding by “exercising” them.

Step 4: Teachers then teach students Positive Psychology’s six “pillars.” We use the acronym PERMAH to describe them. Each pillar is a significant category of how we live our lives. Again, it is through scientific research that psychologists concluded that living well within each pillar helps us thrive. The wellness coach works with the grade-level teams to decide the scope and sequence of when individual pillars will be taught. You could start with relationships and aspects of health in the early years, adding on pillars from there.

Step 5: Each student creates a personal wellness plan that lists how they will exercise the Character Strengths within each PERMAH pillar to live more fully and flourish. The wellness plan contains action steps to help students engage with the Character Strengths and PERMAH pillars as a regular part of their lives. It can also be helpful to have students add intentional practices and habits to engage further within each pillar.

Step 6: Once you complete steps 1-5 to bring wellness practices into the lives of our students, we start using the term “wellness toolkit” as an ongoing integration practice. At this point, students develop a language of wellness, further embedding the tenets of Positive Psychology into their life practices and habits.

We use language and references such as

  • Which tools can you use from your wellness toolkit to help with….?

  • In planning for our field trip this week, which tools from your wellness toolkits can help us prepare for and make the most of our experience?

  • Let’s look at your wellness plans to see how you are all doing. Let’s do some self-reflection on our efforts. Which tools from your wellness toolkits are you using most frequently?

  • Let’s drill down into your toolkits with the pillar of H for Health. Which tools, as in strengths and practices like diet, sleep, and exercising, are you engaging in? Which habits are helping you engage with this PERMAH pillar?

Additional Step: The Character Strengths are organized into six classes of virtues: Courage | Humanity | Justice | Temperance | Transcendence | Wisdom. In your second year, you could design age-appropriate lessons on values clarification to build on your work from the previous year.

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Pulling from the comprehensive school wellness post, here are a few ideas to further onboard new students, parents, and staff into the program annually.

-New students and parents need to be onboarded annually into the wellness program. The same goes for new staff before their arrival in August for the normal orientation and onboarding program. Providing online tutorials, FAQs, webinars, and other resources through the wellness web portal can help with the process. Design wellness workshops as part of your orientation program for new students before the first day of school. Provide a series of workshops for parents for face to face meetings and for online attendees.

-Design wellness learning opportunities for your parents working with the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA). The PTA can help with the onboarding process for new parents for wellness and other aspects of the school and community culture. If you have a community center on campus, support your PTA in offering book clubs, workshops, small group discussions, etc., on wellness, parenting, and other topics of interest.

-I can say again from experience that the onboarding needs to be scheduled and promoted at the start of the year to continue on a monthly offering new staff and parents opportunities to grow their knowledge of PosPsych with built-in activities to support their living and embedding of wellness principles into their lives.

-The same, of course, needs to happen for students. Schools often offer a start-of-the-year orientation program for new students. Possibly have more than one day of orientation in which you introduce your wellness program. Find ways for your ES homerooms and MS and HS advisory to have start-of-the-year wellness foundational learning opportunities to build foundational knowledge of PosPsych so that the new students can feel comfortable as teachers integrate the Character Strengths and PERMAH in their regular curricula . And just as with the parents, look to have some follow-up orientation get-togethers with your new students to discuss wellness and other topics to help them transition to your school.

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Collaboration, Creativity, and Refinement with the Kidspire Team

October 21, 2022 / / 0 Comments

For the past several months, I have worked with a team of dedicated educators at the Kidspire non-profit in Vietnam to co-design wellness lessons. They provide educational services to children in orphanages. Their curriculum covers STEAM while growing their wellness and life skills offerings.

After meeting at their office last spring to learn about their wellness program goals, I began to work on the Wellness@Kidspire resource website. The plan was for me to design the first draft of Positive Psychology activities on the PERMAH pillars, digital wellness, and the character strengths of emotional intelligence, grit, growth mindset, proactivity, self-control (self-regulation), and social intelligence. The target audience would be high school students preparing to transition to an independent life outside the orphanages.

Ms. Ai Nguyen as the lead designer, would then draw from the resource site to develop a slide deck while getting input from the Kidspire team and the teachers in the orphanages. Ms. Ai has recently shared the slide deck with me, which is in Vietnamese, but you can get a feel for the lessons through the images. The teachers will now teach the lessons giving feedback to Ms. Ai, who will refine the lessons for the next time they are taught. She will also provide me with insights and to-do’s to take the first draft of the Wellness@Kidspire site to the next level.

My reason for sharing our efforts is to point out how an instructional coach for wellness works with teachers and administrators. The process of gathering information as to the audience and the goals starts the process. The design and draft creation come next on the part of the wellness coach. The lead designer and teachers then add their distributed expertise to craft the learning activities to best meet the needs of their students.

New iterations come about as the teachers and the design lead see what works and what doesn’t while adding their own ideas to improve the lessons. This information returns to the wellness coach to enhance the original resource materials.

One big gap in this process is that I am not in Vietnam co-teaching some of the lessons to work directly with the teachers and Ms. Ai. The reality is that I don’t speak Vietnamese, so this isn’t feasible, but it is what I would be doing as a wellness coach in an international school. I have written about the roles of the instructional technologist and wellness coach in which I attend the elementary school grade-level team curriculum meetings to co-design in person. The collaborative and creative sessions are followed up by my co-teaching to fine-tune lessons to then share with the other team members to teach independently. And note that many lessons are not standalone as they are activities integrated into the LA, social studies, math, etc. curricula and classroom practices using the PRIME integration strategies pulled from the Wellness@ES website.

I do want to highlight the role of what I call the wellness lead, which in this case is Ms. Ai. I have written a few times about the elementary teaching teams having a wellness lead who looks at the team’s actions through the lens of wellness to find ways to support its integration. As an instructional technologist, I had a tech lead on each team. Something tells me this is the norm, with team members being the literacy, math, etc., go-to person to lead out in their respective areas of expertise.

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