8 Ways to Maximize the Benefits of Your Comprehensive Education Approach

A high-quality comprehensive education approach can be transformative for both your staff and students. Immediate benefits include heightened engagement, improved behavior, and enhanced academic performance. These advantages extend far beyond the classroom, carrying over into adulthood. Students equipped with robust social skills tend to excel in higher education and their careers. They cultivate meaningful relationships, exhibit self-awareness, demonstrate resilience in the face of challenges, and ultimately achieve superior life outcomes. Here are eight steps to help you achieve the best possible results from your holistic education approach:

1. Use a strength-based approach. Celebrate st8udents’ strengths and leverage them to build the skills that promote positive behaviors. This provides a positive lens to view students, compared to traditional deficits-based approaches.
2. Take time to plan. Adopt a methodical approach when crafting your holistic education program, ensuring it incorporates transparent communication and a focus on progressive/sequential development of essential skills.
3. Infuse holistic education into core instruction. Incorporate holistic education concepts into fundamental subjects such as language arts, mathematics, and social studies. This integration enhances students' engagement in learning and establishes deeper connections with academic content.
4. Build strong student-teacher relationships. Building strong relationships with students increases their competence in other areas and positively impacts their success.
5. Foster a positive classroom community. Creating a supportive classroom community gives students a place to learn where they feel safe, valued, and respected.
6. Equip educators and staff with skill development opportunities. Comprehensive holistic education for adults yields higher retention rates, improved teaching methods, and healthier, more content educators. It also aids adults in managing stress and emotional exhaustion while fortifying them against the myriad challenges of teaching.
7. Prioritize implementation fidelity. Implementation fidelity is the most important part of any program intervention. District and school leaders should ensure their teachers have quality training and support, and they should examine the fidelity of implementation throughout the school year.
8. Use data to strengthen your program. Data identifies students’ needs and helps educators create tailored interventions. It also provides insight into why a student struggles—information that traditional academic measures, like attendance and grades, just can’t measure.

Your extra efforts will undoubtedly pave the way for the success of both educators and students alike!

Interested in learning more about the DESSA from Aperture Education? Contact our advisors today!