Rebecca Baelen is a postdoctoral research associate for Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research and teaching focus on the implementation and impacts of social-emotional learning and mindfulness-based programs for students and teachers. She also studies the design, implementation, and testing of interventions to support early-career teacher well-being, namely through the cultivation of adaptive mindsets and social-emotional competencies. In 2020, Rebecca earned her Ph.D. in Education Policy from the University of Pennsylvania. For her dissertation, she conducted a field experiment of a brief self-compassion intervention designed to support beginning teachers’ adaptive mindsets and well-being in the transition to teaching. She also is engaged in efforts to measure teacher well-being and to examine the relations between teacher well-being and student well-being and/or learning. Rebecca spent five years as a classroom teacher and spent two of those years teaching and coaching in independent schools while she earned her master's degree from the Independent School Teacher Residency program at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education.
Courses:
ORLA 5199: Cultivating Adaptive Mindsets
