I continue to enjoy sharing MDI data with our parent community, our staff, and our students as we reflect on the successes and challenges in our schools.
Our partnership with the UBC HELP team continues to have a significant impact on our ability to create healthy environments for our students in schools, and to support efforts in the community to focus on the wellness of our children. We use the MDI data in our District Plan for Success, in each of our school plans, and, most importantly, to facilitate discussion with our students, as they unpack the rich information in the MDI reports to reflect, respond, and plan for their future.
The MDI brings voice to our students in ways that can be both reaffirming and surprising. The reports help to provide a reflective path of where we have been, but It is important to understand that the data are only as good as the conversations they start.
While the MDI provides for student voice, it also allows for teachers to engage and reflect on student responses. This can be a powerful motivator for creative change. As a district leader it is important to ensure that student voices are heard, and that what they are telling us causes reflection and refinement of our practice in a proactive, nonevaluative manner. In this way dimensions of strength can be celebrated while others are met with energy and plans to improve.
We have taken MDI data to student cohorts two and three years after they completed it in their grade 7 year. The conversations can be very rich as they unpack their thinking around “our group”. Optimistic? Connected? Worried? Structuring the reflection in a non-judgmental fashion allows for creative thinking around how they capitalize on their collective strengths, and how they may address some of the perceived areas of concern.
Coming out of a global pandemic it is even more critical that student voice is heard and that we are able to respond to needs we have yet to even fully understand. Unpacking the 2020/21 MDI data with students, staff and our community will be an important part of our recovery.
VIDEO
Created: May 30, 2017
Duration: 00:55:22
In this webinar, Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, Principal Investigator of the MDI, joins Mike Hooker, Superintendent of SD 19 (Revelstoke, BC), to discuss his district’s approach to engaging teachers and students in the ongoing practice of cultivating well-being in the context of MDI data.
A field guide to well-being in the middle years
A powerful tool to understand and support children’s well-being and positive development in the middle years
Faculty of Medicine
School of Population & Public Health
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