Back in November 2023, our SHIE cohort decided to write and present a research paper at the New England Educational Research Organization (NEERO) conference in April 2024. We are excited to announce that we have submitted our paper!
The project required collaboration, communication, and commitment from each team member. We connected daily through text messages, virtual meetings, and in-person work sessions to cross the finish line. In the end, we have a conceptual paper that makes us feel proud, and a bit relieved, to have finished.
The paper focuses on our collaborative efforts to inspire future research and practice. In it, we identify concerns around social-emotional and behavioral health (SEBH) for students. Seemingly, these concerns have swelled in recent years. Teacher attrition, implicit bias in our education systems, and a weak interdisciplinary approach make a difficult situation worse. So, we prioritize promoting equity, celebrating diversity and cultivating cultural humility and inclusive, multi-cultural practices in education. In our paper, we emphatically support authentic inclusion and humbly suggest that it reflects equitable status and position relative to all aspects of education including social connectedness and belonging coupled with high-quality instruction.
Within our writing we commit to research, policy, and practice recommendations that revolve around student dignity and justice. We identify key themes to center students including supporting critical inclusion, supporting educators, utilizing systemic educational practices, and leaning on humanistic, developmental, and eco-social theories. In short, we believe that research can inspire educational policy and practice to address students’ social emotional health and improve educational outcomes.
With the paper submitted, we now turn our attention to the presentation! We will continue our collaborative efforts over the next few weeks to create a PowerPoint presentation. Within the presentation we will include a fresh, unique conceptual model that aligns with the vision laid out in our paper. QR codes will also be integrated throughout the presentation to offer alternate modalities, provide quick access to information, and link to this blog.
Overall, writing our paper for NEERO has been a growing experience. Our advisors in the SHIE program were great to let us “have at it” while providing much-needed scaffolding at critical junctures. In other words, we had few limits with plentiful support. This promoted intellectual freedom and creativity. More importantly, it gave us authentic ownership in the project.
Yes, our paper has been submitted! It has been a collective effort to get here. Now, we will prepare for the presentation in a few weeks. Stay tuned!