SMART STRENGTHS

Ch 2: Strengths in School
Matt Leitzen, Brock Zinke, Keith Stewart

Chapter Outline
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Strengths in School
Spotting Strengths
Managing Strengths
Advocating Strengths
Relating Strengths
Training Strengths

Strengths in School
What Teachers Need to Know About Strengths
When teachers understand their own and their students strengths they will provide the best opportunity for
student achievement
What Students Need from Teachers
When students feel that they matter to their teachers they are more positive and more motivated to learn
5 Predictors of Young People's Success in School
1. Have a personal relationship with a caring adult
2. Have a safe place to go
3. Getting a healthy start as a young child
4. Develop marketable skills
5. Community service opportunities / Give back something about yourself

Strengths in School
The Strength of Natural Caring
Students know what teachers are authentic and which ones are not
Natural caring is best described as a habit that has been developed to point you dont even think about it
Strengths for Academic Success
There is a relationship between academic success and certain character strengths
Cherry Picking Strengths
Young people who care deeply about how they do in school have accepted the challenge to confront
difficult subject matter and they move through school
Some strengths make the road through school easier to navigate, both for students and parents, but dont
focus on developing those traits to the exclusion of a students signature traits

Strengths in School
Using Strengths for Good
Strengths that Predict Academic Success
1. Diligence/Perseverance
2. Self Discipline- Self regulations
3. Prudence
4. Love of Learning
5. Creativity
6. Open-mindedness
7. Curiousity
8. Perspective

Spotting Strengths
Make a commitment to to learn all your students strengths
Encourage students to take the VIA-Youth; this will provide you with a profile for each student
Building and Exercising Strengths Muscles
Provide students with activities that will help them create mental models of strengths

Activity: Defining a strength, writing it in a sentence, and sketching a drawing of it can help form a bridge for
understanding what a strength looks like and how it comes alive in the student's life

Managing Strengths
Understanding each students strength within the classroom and pairing those
strengths appropriately with other students

Having students write about their strengths and why they feel those are strengths of theirs

Knowing the limitations of each students strength

Having the teacher buy in to the curriculum and pair their strength with
student strengths to build student centered learning
What are your students strengths?
How do you support and appeal to different strengths in different students?
When do your strengths get in the way of bringing out the best in your
students?

Advocating Strengths

Strengths 360- Student to Student

Teachers magnifying strengths in other teachers

Student Activity
Great workshop activity
Tell a story about you at your best
Your partner listens and highlights your strengths

What did you most admire in your partners story? What strengths were evident?
How did you tell your partner this, if you did?
What surprises were there in what your learned?
How did the storyteller feel about having their strengths highlighted?
How did the listener feel about the storyteller?

Relating Strengths
April and Fina (86)

MINDFUL MOMENT: First Impression?

Second glance?

Student Strength Teams

Strengths Graphics (89)

Teacher Collective Efficacy

The belief of teachers that the faculty as a group can execute the positive courses of action
required to successfully educate students. It is a confidence in the ability of a group of teachers
to reach a shared goal through having common expectations for action (90).

MINDFUL MOMENT: Strengths Mapping (92)

Training Strengths
Help erase some of the back story (93).
ACTIVITY: Creating a SMART Future Story (94)
We want our students to say These are my strengths. This is how I come
alive. This is what I do better than anybody else (96).

Conclusion