The third Standard of Effective Practice relies on eight components to unpack assessment through an asset-based mindset that honors the whole student. As educators develop this mindset, they will flexibly engage with all five SEL competencies. In particular, educators must rely on social awareness centered in belonging, relationship skills centered in collaborative problem-solving and responsible decision-making centered in curiosity.

Ideally, educators cultivate social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making skills during their pre-service licensure programs and in-service practices, model and rely on those skills with colleagues, students, families, and community members in school and community settings, and utilize parallel grade-banded, benchmarked SEL competencies for students (SEL Framework: Five Competencies) in order to integrate evidence-based Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) practices across all subject areas and in all settings. For Standard Three: Assessment, we developed two learning goals for social awareness, one learning goal for relationship skills and one learning goal for responsible decision-making, set measurable benchmarks, provided a learning target for each benchmark with space for noting evidence of the benchmark and to action plan, and identified resources from local and national partners.