Contributed by: NXU
Ensuring students’ well-being and rebuilding a sense of community will be of utmost importance as schools begin to navigate the return to in-person learning. A strong sense of direction can catalyze engagement, social emotional awareness, and career outcomes for all students.
nXu’s Purpose Opportunity Program (POP) helps high school educators implement career exploration, purpose, and social-emotional learning (SEL) development programming within their school. POP guides educators as they incorporate purpose development into the fabric of their schools and organizations. Over one school year, educators receive virtual training, support, and access to nXu’s career exploration, purpose, and SEL development curricula and a related measurement system, as well as assistance with data analysis.
How does the strategy create more equitable access and opportunities?
Given the systematic challenges BIPOC students and students from low-income backgrounds face, it is critical to cultivate their sense of purpose—along with the related social-emotional (SEL) mindsets, tools, and skills. A guiding sense of purpose can serve as a north star in our increasingly complex society and world of work; it has become even more important after the challenges of the last year. A recent survey analysis by Gallup reveals that BIPOC students and students from low-income backgrounds have experienced especially severe learning challenges as a result of COVID-19. They reported feeling disengaged from their learning experience, as well as from their school community; and among low-income students who have been learning remotely, 46% stated they were falling behind in their learning this year. Given this context, it is imperative to reignite a sense of direction and investment in students’ learning; research by David Yaeger, Angela Duckworth, and others indicate that a sense of purpose can increase academic engagement and is correlated with positive career identities. It can also serve as a foundation for additional career experiences—such as internships, assistantships, etc.—that caters to students’ interests.
What are the budget implications for implementing the strategy?
The primary cost of implementing this strategy is the curricula and professional development for educators. At nXu, the cost for the first educator from one school is $2,500 per educator. For each additional educator up to nine educators from the same school, it is $1,000 per educator. The cost of participation is inclusive of all programming and also includes access to nXu’s curriculum and measurement system.
