Program Profile: MindUp

This is a classroom-based intervention that facilitates the development of social–emotional competence among students through “mindful attention” training. The program is rated Promising. Participants showed statistically significant increases in social–emotional competence, empathy, and perspective-taking; and decreases in aggressive and oppositional behaviors, fight starting, and rule breaking, compared with nonparticipants. However, there was no impact on measures of kindness.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

Program Goals

MindUp is a social and emotional learning program intended to promote cognitive control, self-regulation, well-being, and prosocial behaviors in fourth- to seventh-grade students via a series of lessons in which “mindful attention” is taught and practiced in a classroom setting. It is designed to foster positive behavior and improve learning, while also increasing empathy, optimism, and compassion.

Targeted Population

MindUp is geared toward students in fourth through seventh grade (ages 9 to 12); this period is viewed as a window of opportunity to help children optimize their health and promote their positive psychological growth.

Program Components

The MindUp program focuses on mindfulness, which refers to bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis with a nonjudgmental stance. The program uses a 10- to 12-lesson curriculum, and involvement of all students in the classroom is required. It has an emphasis on taking content and extending the key components to other aspects of the curriculum and dimensions of children’s lives outside of school.

The curriculum has four key components, which include 1) quieting the mind through listening to a resonating instrument (chime) and focusing on the breath, 2) mindful attention of sensations, thoughts, and feelings, 3) managing negative emotions and negative thinking, and 4) acknowledgement of self and others. Each part of the program builds upon previous lessons and skills, moving children from focusing on subjective, sensory-based experiences (e.g., mindful smelling, mindful tasting) to cognitive experiences. In addition, lessons involve performing acts of kindness and collectively engaging in community service–learning activities aimed at changing the classroom environment to one of belonging, caring, collaboration, and understanding.

The MindUp program draws ideas for lessons from the book, Mind Power for Children – The Guide for Parents and Teachers (Kehoe and Fischer 2002). Lesson topics covered over the course of the program include introduction to mindfulness, learning about affirmations, concentrating on positive emotions and outcomes, learning how to eliminate negative thinking, acknowledging one another, understanding goal setting as a group, having a healthy body, making friends, and celebrating successes. Each lesson lasts approximately 40 to 50 minutes.

Mindfulness trainings involve a set of practices that typically include meditation exercises and bringing awareness to daily activities. These practices consist of sitting in a comfortable position, listening to a single sound, and then using breath as a focal point for being mindful in the present moment. Mindful training exercises are to be practiced three times per day (3 minutes for each practice). Affirmations and visualizations are practiced in combination with mindful practices.

Program Theory

The MindUp curriculum is grounded in developmental neuroscience, mindfulness awareness, social–emotional learning, and positive psychology. The program focuses on pre- and early adolescence, because research has shown that it is during this developmental stage that personalities, behaviors, and competencies begin to merge into forms that persist into adolescence and on into adulthood (Eccles and Roser 2009). During puberty, executive functions in the prefrontal cortex (cognitive control) and self-regulation experience significant growth and change, and mindfulness trainings are used to support their development.

MindUp draws on a social–emotional perspective, which suggests that children with positive social and emotional skills demonstrate resiliency when confronted with stressful situations and experience more success and positive psychological growth. The program is also guided by research on mindfulness and its relation to well-being and positive psychology (Schonert-Reichl and Lawlor 2010).

Study

Schonert-Reichl and Lawlor (2010) used a quasi-experimental research design to evaluate the effectiveness of the MindUp program on pre- and early adolescent functioning in school on four domains: optimism, self-concept, positive affect, and social–emotional functioning.

Participants were drawn from fourth- to seventh-grade regular education classrooms in 12 public elementary schools located in a large urban school district in a western Canadian city. Of the12 teachers, six were selected to receive the MindUp program training, and six were selected to serve as wait-list controls and receive the program in the subsequent school year. There were no differences between teachers in the program and those on the wait-list controls regarding gender, years of teaching experience, or their ratings of importance for promoting their students’ social and emotional competence. To control for diffusion effects, only one classroom per school was eligible to participate in the study.

At total of 246 fourth- to seventh-grade students participated in the study. There were 139 in the MindUp program (70 boys and 69 girls) and 107 in the control group (57 boys and 50 girls). Students ranged in age from 9 to 13 years; the average age was 11. Fifty-seven percent of the participants identified English as their first language, 23 percent identified their first language as East Asian, and the remaining 20 percent identified their language as other. Teachers reported that all their students were competent in English and could participate and complete the study measures. Analyses showed no significant differences between program participants and nonparticipants on gender, first language learned, and family composition. However, students in the control classrooms were slightly older than those in the MindUp classrooms.

A questionnaire was administered to students and teachers prior to implementation of MindUp and again at the end of the school year. Questionnaires were used to assess student functioning in the four domains: optimism, school and general self-concept, positive and negative emotions, and teacher reports of social and emotional competence. Generalized linear model analysis of covariance was used to assess differences between the treatment and control classrooms. No subgroup analyses were conducted.

Study

Schnoert-Reichl and colleagues (2015) used a randomized controlled trial study design to evaluate whether the MindUp program would lead to improvements in executive functioning, stress regulation, social–emotional competence, and school achievement in fourth- and fifth-grade students. A control group of students who received a business as usual (BAU) social responsibility program was used as a comparison.

The study took place in a public school district serving approximately 35,000 students in a suburban, predominantly middle-class community near a large western Canadian city. Four elementary schools in the district (similar in size, achievement level, socioeconomic status, and racial diversity) were selected. To control for diffusion effects, only one classroom per school was eligible to participate in the study. Teachers of combined fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms were invited to participate, and of those who accepted the invitation, 50 percent had a chance of being randomized as a comparison classroom. There were no differences between teachers in the MindUp classrooms and those in BAU classrooms regarding years of teaching experience or professional development and education.

The sample included 100 students, approximately half in fourth grade and half in fifth grade. Participants’ ages ranged from 9 to 11 and had similar average family incomes. Sixty-six percent of the children reported English as their native language, 25 percent reported East Asian languages, and the remaining 10 percent indicated a range of languages. Analyses showed no significant differences between the MindUp classrooms and the BAU classrooms.

Outcomes of interest included peer reports of starting fights and breaking rules, peer reports of empathy and kindness, and self-reports of perspective taking and emotional control. Analyses included reaction times to dot tasks assessments (a test used by cognitive psychologists to assess selective attention), multilevel modeling of executive functioning, and analyses of covariance to assess 1) student changes in regulation of stress physiology over time, and 2) student self-report and peer reports of prosociality. No subgroup analyses were conducted.

In the study of MindUp by Schonert-Reichl and Lawlor (2010), teachers who implemented the program went through an intensive, 1-day training session and received biweekly consultation from one of the authors of the program curriculum.  During the training, teachers were given a curriculum manual that specified the theory and research guiding each program lesson as well as a description of each of the 10 lessons, which included detailed scripts and accompanying materials for teaching mindfulness. Interactive discussion on the implementation of each program lesson and presentation of the material through lecture, video, readings, and role plays were all used as instructional techniques during the 1-day training. The training also included an experiential-learning exercise, where teachers participated in a series of mindful attention training exercises.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile: