Well-Being Workshops FOR EDUCATORS
Stress management and coping, college admissions, and caring for school staff.
- NEW: Navigating Stress
- The Well-Balanced Student
- The Well-Balanced Child
- Healthier College Admissions
- Faculty & Staff Well-Being
New Workshop! Navigating Stress: Fostering Student Well-Being through Adaptive Coping Strategies
What does it really mean to “cope”? This session explores coping as a dynamic, system-wide process that shapes how individuals and communities adapt and thrive. Whether you’re a parent/caregiver, educator, or student this session will offer fresh insights and strategies to help navigate stress and foster well-being.
Learning Objectives
- Build a shared understanding of what coping is and how it work
- Understand coping as an attribute of systems, not just individuals
- Learn ways to support adaptive coping for your community
The Well-Balanced Student
In a high-stakes, high-pressure culture, parent and school expectations may have unintentional but damaging effects on students. Increasing demands may lead to unhealthy stress, resulting in burnout, disengagement, or debilitating physical and mental health symptoms. This workshop examines the tension that communities often experience over issues such as homework, grades, and the culture of competition, and offers tools for creating a healthier school climate.
Learning Objectives
- Learn how you can establish healthier school environments for school-aged children.
- Explore how to reduce academic stress and disengagement without sacrificing achievement.
- Examine how to increase students’ resilience, creativity, competence, and well-being.
The Well-Balanced Child
Join us as we discuss research-based strategies for educating healthy preschoolers and early elementary-age children. We’ll explore how to encourage autonomy, cultivate resilience, and promote well-being. We’ll share tips to establish practices in schools that buffer against negative pressures that may interfere with healthy child development.
Learning Objectives
- Discuss research-based practices for healthy development of preschool and elementary-aged children.
- Learn how to cultivate more autonomy and promote well-being in young children.
A Healthier Approach to College Admissions
This research-based workshop addresses many of the important questions we hear from students and college counselors: What do college rankings really measure? Are students who attend more selective colleges better off later in life? What is “fit” and why does it matter? Participants will learn practical strategies to help reduce unnecessary pressure around the college admissions process and ways to support student well-being and readiness for life in college and beyond.
Learning Objectives
- Learn research-based findings on the relationship between college selectivity and future outcomes, including learning, job satisfaction, and well-being.
- Explore practical strategies to embrace a healthier approach to the college admissions process.
- Gain a deeper understanding of the value and meaning of engagement in college and high school.
Faculty and Staff Well-Being
Well-being is a practice, much like teaching, that requires individuals and communities to continually prioritize and recommit. In this workshop, we draw from current research and data from our Faculty & Staff Survey to identify opportunities and strategies for individuals and the school to improve faculty and staff well-being.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the concept of stress, the body’s response to it, and what the research says about stress management and ways to promote a healthier workplace.
- Identify triggers and root causes of your own stress.
- Explore practical strategies to improve your own well-being, as well as that of faculty and staff.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
Engagement Workshops for TEACHERS
Dive in to pedagogy, equitable assessment practices, assignment design, and AI.
- NEW: Engaged Learning in an AI World
- Pedagogy That Engages
- Rethinking Assessment
- Designing with Purpose
New Workshop! Engaged Learning in an AI World
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to evolve and expand, how can we best ensure it is being used to enhance rather than hinder student learning? In this hands-on session, we will discuss relevant research and current data related to student use of AI and engagement in learning. Join us to explore specific ways you can use AI to adapt lessons and assignments to spark student interest and spur deeper thinking while minimizing the risks associated with AI use in the classroom.
Learning Objectives
- Examine current research on how and when students are using A.I. for academic purposes
- Understand how to leverage well-being, engagement, and belonging as a buffer to minimize cheating and other inappropriate uses of A.I.
- Learn specific strategies for discussing helpful and harmful uses of A.I. with students.
- Consider new ways to engage students in critical thinking when they use A.I.
Pedagogy That Engages
Although most students report “working hard” in school, few enjoy their schoolwork and find it valuable. What can educators do to increase motivation, joy, and deeper learning for students? We know that students learn better and retain more information when they are genuinely engaged in classroom lessons. This workshop will examine the recent research behind student engagement and explore ways to rethink your curricula to foster deeper learning and increase student joy and motivation to learn.
Learning Objectives
- Examine the recent research behind student engagement.
- Explore ways to rethink your curricula to foster deeper learning and increase student joy and motivation to learn.
- Identify instructional practices that will enable more engaging curricula.
Rethinking Assessment
How do you know when your students fully grasp the material you are teaching? How do you encourage more authentic learning experiences while minimizing grade-grubbing and cheating? This interactive workshop reviews the “backwards design” process and focuses on multiple assessment strategies that allow students to demonstrate what they know.
Learning Objectives
- Examine how current modes of assessment may unintentionally hinder student learning and motivation.
- Learn the process of aligning assessments with enduring understanding goals.
- Explore ways to make your current assessments more authentic, varied, and valid.
Designing with Purpose: Improving Classroom and Homework Assignments
Discover tools and strategies for improving homework and classroom assignments at your school. Homework is a hot topic today for educators, parents/caregivers, and students. Teachers struggle to meet standards and prepare students for tests without assigning unreasonable amounts of work; students report that homework is one of their top sources of stress; and parents grapple with the competing demands of family time, sleep, and extracurriculars. This workshop examines critical questions for educators to consider: What is the purpose of homework? How much is appropriate? How can I make classroom assignments as effective as possible?
Learning Objectives
- Learn the latest trends and research on homework
- Understand how to improve homework assignments and clarify their purpose
- Examine the tensions and concerns about homework in your school community and explore practical and effective solutions
Belonging Workshops FOR K-12 SCHOOLS
Well-being, belonging, and engagement are intrinsically linked. Learn how to nurture belonging for all students in your community.
Laying the Foundation for Belonging
All students need to be seen, valued, and respected in order to be healthy and engaged learners. Building an inclusive school community sets a critical foundation for a successful school year and beyond. In this workshop, participants will explore concrete classroom strategies and school-wide policies that foster belonging and support interpersonal connections, with a focus on giving all students, particularly those who have been marginalized, a sense of agency.
Learning Objectives
- Learn the research behind the importance of students’ sense of school belonging and its relationship to engagement, motivation, and well-being.
- Gain an understanding of how to build an inclusive classroom and school community.
- Explore proven strategies and policies that foster belonging and agency for all students.
Cultivate a Deep Sense of Belonging
At Challenge Success, we believe educators must create spaces where every child’s unique assets and identities are unconditionally loved, supported and honored. In this workshop, participants will immerse in practices to cultivate spaces where young people feel a deep sense of belonging. Through storytelling, reflections, and collegial dialogue, we will unpack and co-generate concrete strategies that create spaces for every child, within every classroom and school-wide environment, to feel known, accepted, and valued.
Learning Objectives
- Gain an understanding of how our own experiences of belonging impact the way we support our students
- Unpack school policies and practices that cultivate belonging and/or othering
- Learn strategies to deepen belonging, especially for historically underserved youth
- Contribute to our collective genius to heal, grow, and evolve
Pre-requisite: We recommend completing the “Laying the Foundation for Belonging” workshop prior to this offering.
DATA SHARING Workshops
From Data to Dialogue
This workshop empowers your school community to turn data into action in your journey to improve student well-being, engagement, and belonging. Sharing data transparently fosters trust and shared ownership—especially when it’s framed in ways that invite dialogue, build connection, and inspire action.
We’ll work with you to design a personalized session that aligns with the conversations you want to have in your community. Together, we’ll identify the key data points, select appropriate protocols, and shape a process that supports reflection, dialogue, and action. Each session is tailored to your audience—whether that’s staff, families, students, or leadership teams—and grounded in the questions that matter most to you. Participants will build shared understanding, generate tangible next steps, and leave energized to move the work forward.
Learning Objectives
- Generate actionable next steps to improve student outcomes.
- Gain a deep understanding of your school’s data and its implications for student well-being, engagement, and belonging.
- Build energy within the community for improvement.
Student Voice Workshops
Integrating student voice is essential for effective school improvement. Explore how to center the student perspective in your school.
Student “Fishbowl” Focus Group
“Listen in” as a small group of students share their experiences on a particular topic – academic stress, assessment, connection to teachers, and more. The learnings from this workshop can help drive the policy and practice decisions you make. We’ll help you prepare, execute, moderate, and draw insights from this event.
Learning Objectives
- Gain insight directly from a group of students from your school about their school experiences.
- Explore how these insights can be used to support changes to policies and practices in your school.
- Learn how to execute a similar process at your school in the future.
New Workshop! From Insight to Action: Harnessing Student Voice to Drive Meaningful Change
Student voice is a critical component to driving meaningful school change, yet schools may struggle with how to authentically integrate it into their work. In this workshop, you will discover strategies for collecting, analyzing, and applying student experience data to create a more responsive and inclusive educational environment. We will examine survey data trends from the Challenge Success-Stanford Survey of Student Experiences, administered to over 350,000 middle and high school students, focused on student well-being, belonging, and engagement. You will learn how schools have turned insights into action to improve school policies and practices and leave ready to amplify student voices in your school community using simple, yet powerful, tools and strategies.
Learning Objectives
- Gain an understanding of data trends from 350,000+ middle and high school students
- Make connections to your local context to highlight strengths and identify opportunities
- Learn strategies for amplify student voices in your community
FUNDING FOR STUDENT WELL-BEING, ENGAGEMENT, AND BELONGING
Many schools have accessed state, local, and community funding for youth mental health, professional development, or community engagement to support this work. In addition, Challenge Success strives to offer need-based financial assistance in an effort to support schools and organizations with limited resources. We believe that cost should not be a deterrent to accessing quality programs. To apply, please complete this form. All requests will be reviewed by our Executive Director.