Various components make up the GiveThx software. The overview below outlines all of the main elements.
Materials
The GiveThx Program materials include curricular practices and lessons, software, and professional development. The curriculum guide and software guide provide detailed information on each. Professional development resources are covered later in this training guide.
Practices
Practices are interpersonal (giving) and personal (reflecting) activities ranging from 4-10 minutes in length. They are meant to be integrated into existing learning and professional routines to support wellbeing and skill development.
Lessons
Lessons are 30 minutes each week. They include the aforementioned practices while also providing additional learning activities to provide a deeper learning experience. The lessons can be broken apart and done over multiple sittings for flexibility. There are 4 weekly lessons in a unit, 8 units in a year, and 3 years total in the scope and sequence.
- Review the scope and sequence and a sample lesson. Read about how to use the lessons here.
Lesson Themes
The year themes are community, identity, and agency. They progress this way developmentally. The first year is about forming new relationships and community. The second focuses on considering one’s own identity and strengths in the community. And the third explores the individual’s agency to impact their community with their strengths and relationships. While this progression works well anywhere, it is a particularly good fit for students as they enter a new learning community, such as in 6th and 9th grade.
Software
The purpose of the GiveThx software is to provide a safe, sustainable, and coherent way to build wellbeing and social-emotional skills through gratitude.
The software helps create an identity safe environment for students, helps them develop skills by revealing patterns of their impact on others, and identifies students (and facilitators) that need support.
There are four roles in GiveThx:
- Students - send/receive thanks, reflect, and experience lessons for learning
- Staff - send/receive thanks and reflect but do not facilitate learning with students
- Facilitators - send/receive thanks and reflect while also facilitating lessons and practices with students
- Administrators - send/receive thanks and reflect while coordinating implementation and support
There are three dashboards in GiveThx’s web app:
- Participant - Everyone/every role has this dashboard for sending/receiving thx and reflecting
- Facilitator - Facilitators will facilitate learning with students have this additional dashboard
- Administrator - Administrators who coordinate implementation have this along with the previous dashes.
Who has which dashboard?
- Students and staff (non-facilitating) only have the participant dashboard.
- Facilitators have a second dashboard, the facilitator dash.
- Administrators who coordinate implementation have all three dashboards.
Review the Software Guide for how to use the program as a student, teacher, and administrator.