Social Emotional Learning

The competencies as defined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) are:

• • Self-Awareness refers to students’ ability to identify and recognize their own emotions; develop an accurate self-perception of their strengths, needs, and values; and a well-grounded sense of self-efficacy.

• • Self-Management includes students’ ability to: control their own impulses; effectively manage their emotions (including anxiety, stress, frustration, and anger); motivate themselves and develop self- discipline; set and achieve goals; and develop organizational skills.

• • Social Awareness addresses perspective taking, and helps students recognize similarities and differences between themselves and others; develop empathy, compassion and respect for others and diversity.

• • Relationship Skills encompasses a broad array of important social skills, including effective communication skills; skills to support social engagement and build relationships; cooperation; negotiation, conflict resolution and interpersonal problem solving; assertiveness skills, refusal skills; and the ability to seek help from others, when needed.

• • Responsible Decision Making includes the skills needed to problem solve and make effective choices, including problem identification and situation analysis; generating alternative solutions, making a choice, implementing a decision, and evaluating and reflecting on choices; all within the context of personal, social, and ethical standards, safety and responsibility.

Information from the Responsive Classroom website:

The Responsive Classroom approach to teaching is comprised of a set of well-designed practices intended to create safe, joyful, and engaging classrooms and school communities. The emphasis is on helping students develop their academic, social, and emotional skills in a learning environment that is developmentally responsive to their strengths and needs.

Guiding Principles

1. Teaching social and emotional skills is as important as teaching academic content.

2. How we teach is as important as what we teach.

3. Great cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.

4. How we work together as adults to cre­ate a safe, joyful, and inclusive school environment is as important as our individual contribution or competence.

5. What we know and believe about our students—individually, culturally, developmentally—informs our expec­tations, reactions, and attitudes about those students.

6. Partnering with families—knowing them and valuing their contributions—is as important as knowing the children we teach.

Classroom Practices and Strategies

• Interactive Modeling—An explicit practice for teaching procedures and routines (such as those for entering and exiting the room) as well as academic and social skills (such as engaging with the text or giving and accepting feedback).

• Teacher Language—The intentional use of language to enable students to engage in their learning and develop the academic, social, and emotional skills they need to be successful in and out of school.

• Logical Consequences—A non-punitive response to misbehavior that allows teachers to set clear limits and students to fix and learn from their mistakes while maintaining their dignity.

• Interactive Learning Structures—Purposeful activities that give students opportunities to engage with content in active (hands-on) and interactive (social) ways.

• Morning Meeting—Everyone in the classroom gathers in a circle for twenty to thirty minutes at the beginning of each school day and proceeds through four sequential components: greeting, sharing, group activity, and morning message.

• Establishing Rules—Teacher and students work together to name individual goals for the year and establish rules that will help everyone reach those goals.

• Energizers—Short, playful, whole-group activities that are used as breaks in lessons.

• Quiet Time—A brief, purposeful and relaxed time of transition that takes place after lunch and recess, before the rest of the school day continues.

• Closing Circle—A five- to ten-minute gathering at the end of the day that promotes reflection and celebration through participation in a brief activity or two.

Information from the Marblehead Public Schools website:

What is PBIS?

It is a system framework used to achieve important positive behavioral change using positive behavioral systems and interventions that support success in academics as well as social interactions. PBIS is not a program, per se, but serves as a framework for all other programs that may already exist in the system. PBIS builds incentives into the school day improving individual behavior as well as the overall climate of the classroom and school. First, expected behaviors are established for students, with multiple reminders and reinforcements put in place. When fully implemented, individual students, as well as the class as a whole, work for positive rewards, most of which do not entail purchases or added expense.

What does behavior have to do with academics?

The foundational principal of PBIS is, "Problems do not occur in isolation but in relation to each other." When the climate of the building improves and students are able to know what is expected of them, they are better prepared to learn and are less distracted.

How does it work?

School PBIS teams each adopted a set of values such as Respect, Responsibility, and Safety and created a matrix of how these values would be seen in student actions in a variety of environments within the school (e.g. hallways, bathrooms, lunchroom, classroom). They set up creative ways to educate students and reinforce positive behavior. All students and staff receive instruction in the behavioral skills; skills are modeled and staff and students receive ongoing feedback; school-wide acknowledgement plans are implemented; data is collected to determine what is working and what should be worked on in the future.

How are actual violation of behavior rules addressed?

A clear set of responses are laid out for the classroom and office discipline referrals; all staff learn and use the same flow chart to address unwanted behaviors.

Do schools develop different approaches with PBIS?

Each school has its own individual culture, so we should expect that PBIS may look different in each school, and that is appropriate.

How does PBIS intersect with the bullying prevention and other district programs?

PBIS serves as a framework inside which all other programs can exist. It provides the climate control for the building, allowing a positive and safe environment for students and educators to work. At the same time, it gives each building a foundation in which the social/emotional and academic curriculum can flourish.

How is data used in PBIS?

The data that is collected tracks the effectiveness of PBIS and promotes understanding of factors that can lead to prediction of behaviors and prevention. The underlying theory is that if you can predict it, you can prevent or minimize it. Tracking the effectiveness is a key part of the feedback that guides actions.

What are the benefits?

Research data collected from many systems over time shows reductions in number of student suspensions, an increase in teacher job satisfaction and a reduction in staff turnover, reductions in the number of students requiring intensive services, reduction in serious infractions, and an overall improvement in school climate.