You're on track to get doubled donations (and unlock a reward for the colleague who referred you). Keep up the great work!
Take credit for your charitable giving! Check out your tax receipts
Donate
To use your $50 gift card credits, find a project to fund and we'll automatically apply your credits at checkout. Find a classroom project
Skip to main content

Help teachers & students in your hometown this season!
Use code HOME at checkout and your donation will be matched up to $100.

Your school email address was successfully verified.

Digital Wellness: Student-Designed Classroom Lessons

Thank you for your interest in the Digital Wellness: Student-Designed Classroom Lessons program!

This experience introduces teachers to two brief single-session interventions (SSIs), which are skill-building lessons designed to help students develop healthier relationships with technology and social media. These interventions were designed by high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in California and reviewed by clinicians and researchers at the Child Mind Institute. We are now bringing them into classrooms to understand what works, what doesn’t, and how they can be improved. These are not therapy or clinical interventions, but brief educational exercises designed to teach usable skills in a single class session.

You will review two SSIs and provide feedback before selecting one to administer as a classroom lesson. Each SSI package includes a teacher guide to assist you in administering the SSI and a student handout. Both are aimed at helping students recognize their habits and learn strategies for building a healthier relationship with technology. Your feedback will directly shape how these interventions are improved and scaled for broader use.


About the Two SSIs

Package 1: "Rethink Agency"
In this SSI, students explore the idea that technology is neither inherently good nor bad; what matters is how we use it. Through reflection and discussion, students learn what it means to have an agentic mindset toward technology, practice identifying adaptive and maladaptive tech habits, and leave with a personal boundary and one concrete way to use technology in support of their own well-being.

Package 2: "Overcoming Social Barriers: Rethinking Tech Use"
This SSI helps students think critically about how they use technology when feeling lonely or socially disconnected. Students learn about Psychological Capital and how building hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism can support stronger social relationships. They then apply the S.M.A.R.T. goal framework to set a personal goal around social connection and explore how technology can be used to help them get there.

Each intervention includes an engaging 20-minute lesson plan with a teacher worksheet to help guide your class through the interactive online exercise. To make it easy to use in class, we provide access to the intervention and a printable student worksheet to accompany the lesson.


What Students Will Learn:

  • Identify strategies for managing their technology and social media use
  • Establish goals for building healthy technology habits
  • Reflect on the relationship between their technology habits and well-being

This toolkit provides the opportunity for you to earn $400 in DonorsChoose credit.

  1. Review and provide feedback for the two brief online interventions.
  2. Teach your class about healthy digital habits using one intervention, and provide feedback in a survey. The Child Mind Institute will use all feedback to improve our product offerings and educational materials for future classes.

To be eligible for this reward, you need to:

  1. Teach 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade in California.
  2. Have a printer and A/V equipment. Be able to print worksheets in advance for each student, and have a way to show the online activities with audio to the class.
  3. Review and provide feedback for both SSIs. Complete corresponding feedback questionnaires and select one intervention to deliver as a class lesson.
  4. Conduct a pre-lesson poll. Students will answer questions to assess their current knowledge of strategies to manage technology use.
  5. Lead a lesson using the intervention of your choice in class. Guide students through an exercise where they complete an intervention as a class, using a student worksheet to promote individual engagement.
  6. Conduct a post-lesson poll. Students will complete a brief survey to show what they've learned about managing their technology use.
  7. Tell us how it went by completing a feedback form. Your responses will be shared with the Child Mind Institute.


Part 1

Time Activity Description
30 min Review SSIs and Provide Feedback Complete both SSIs and feedback questionnaires

Part 2

Time Activity Description
2 min Pre-Lesson Poll Assess initial understanding
15 min Guided Lesson Using Your Selected SSI Each SSI and its accompanying lesson plans are designed to help students reflect, make choices, and build healthier habits
2 min Post-Lesson Poll Measure learning gains


Materials For the Lesson



We will review your responses, and if everything checks out, you’ll be emailed your $400 DonorsChoose gift code within three weeks.

With support from

Please sign in to your DonorsChoose teacher account to access the survey.