Session 2: Socio-Emotional Learning

The topics in this lesson are Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). Social-Emotional Learning or SEL includes forming strong relationships with students and fostering within them a strong sense of belonging.

To deepen our understanding about SEL, watch the video and find out what SEL is about in the learning environment and how different teachers practiced SEL in their classrooms.

What are the different accounts from teachers who integrated SEL in their academics did you find striking?

Given that Social and Emotional Learning is integral in the learners' academics, what have you observed about the school climate for teachers practicing SEL strategies?

SEL practices and policies help children and adults “acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that can enhance personal development, establish satisfying interpersonal relationships, and lead to effective and ethical work and productivity. These include the competencies to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show caring and concern for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions” (Weissberg et al., 2015, p. 6). Systemic SEL is integrated into classroom practice and through partnerships with families and community members, implemented schoolwide with the whole school community, and aligned with targeted services for students who need them (Weissberg et al., 2015).

SEL takes different forms at different levels of the school system. SEL can take the form of packaged curricula directed at teachers in the classroom to intentionally build social and emotional competencies in their students through a standalone lesson or instruction embedded into standard curricula such as English language arts (Jones & Bouffard, 2012; Yoder, 2013). Impactful SEL programs can “spill over” to the whole class to improve conditions for learning in the classroom and school, making it easier for teachers to teach and other students to learn (Kellam, Ling, Merisca, et al., 1998; Thomas, Bierman, & Powers, 2011; Yudron, Jones, & Raver, 2014). SEL can be infused into everyday adult–student and student–student interactions in the classroom and throughout the school day. This is aided by SEL for teachers, which can include educator preparation and professional learning and SEL interventions for teachers such as mindfulness training aimed at reducing teacher stress (Roeser et al., 2013; Weissberg et al., 2015). At the whole-school level, SEL can build supportive conditions for learning by providing students consistent opportunities to build relationship skills and make responsible decisions (Weissberg et al., 2015). SEL also can be a coordinating framework for partnerships between and among educators, families, and communities to promote social and emotional competencies as well as for practices and policies that shape interactions among school members (CASEL, 2016).

We define social and emotional competencies as the social and emotional skills, knowledge, and dispositions necessary to function within and across social fields. Social and emotional competencies include emotional processes such as regulating emotions and displaying empathy; interpersonal skills such as social competence and social perspective taking; and cognitive regulation including cognitive or mental flexibility, working memory, and inhibitory control (Jones, Bouffard, & Weissbourd, 2013; Zelazo, 2015). SE competence frameworks include different terms and definitions that imply that social and emotional competencies provide a foundation for healthy development, enabling young people to engage with others and with their environments; to handle stress; to become mentally, emotionally, and academically healthy; and to succeed in work and life (Osher et al., 2015). Social and emotional competencies are sometimes called noncognitive factors or soft skills, life skills, character, and—more recently— 21st century skills. Some of these terms—namely, noncognitive factors and soft skills—can be misleading because cognitive processes and social and emotional development are intertwined (Osher et al., 2016; Osher et al., 2017), and social and emotional competencies may drive success as much as traditional academic skills do (Heckman & Kautz, 2012). One’s cognitive ability to regulate emotions, impulses, behaviors, and focus plays a large role in one’s ability to perceive, acknowledge, process, and act on the social world, just as social and emotional competencies contribute to academic performance (McClelland et al., 2007; Nagaoka et al., 2015; Rudolph, Lambert, Clark, & Kurlakowsky, 2001).

Frey, Fisher, and Smith developed a framework that covers different SECs. These are:

• identity and sense of agency such as self-belief and growth mindset,

• emotional processes such as understanding and regulating emotions;

• interpersonal skills such as building and maintaining relationships and social perspective-taking;

• cognitive regulation including cognitive or mental flexibility, working memory, and inhibitory control, and

• public spirit such as social responsibility and respect for others.

How do SEL and SEC-related practices look like in school?

Watch the video below and try to identify examples of SEL and SEC from the Integrated SEL Framework by Frey, Fisher and Smith. While watching, take note of these guide questions:

1. How does SEL and SEC practices contribute to school climate?

2. How does SEL and SEC help students perform in challenging learning tasks?

3. Are there practices that you are already doing in your school?

4. What are the new practices or insights you got from watching the video?

Both SEL and SEC were reflected in the video where we saw the school using the concepts of SEL to build a schoolwide program where SEL and SEC were formally and intentionally practiced.

Hence, in relation to school climate, SEL programs and the development of SEC help improve school climate. School climate and SEL and SEC are complementary concepts. Take a look at this Venn diagram that shows the specific areas of school climate and SEL and the common ideas that both share or results that both produce.

Read an excerpt from "Intersection of School Climate and Social and Emotional Development (2017) from the American Institutes for Research.

What is at the intersection of conditions for learning and social and emotional development?

At the intersection of conditions for learning and social and emotional development are the conditions that allow students and adults to practice and build their social and emotional competencies. These include:

• Supportive, respectful, trusting relationships

When students feel they belong in school, they feel more engaged. When they feel connected to teachers, they are more likely to see them as models and accept feedback from them, which enables teachers to model social and emotional competencies and foster engagement in their students (Osher, Weissberg et al., 2015). Students who have a stronger web of relationships with adults and peers have greater self-awareness, emotional competence, openness to challenge, and personal responsibility (Roehlkepartain et al., 2017). The strongest relationships are those in which each person expresses care, pushes the other to become better, provides support, treats the other with respect and enables each to have a voice, and provides the opportunity to expand each one’s horizons (Roehlkepartain et al., 2017). Students who have strong regulation, empathy, emotional expressiveness, and interpersonal negotiation strategies can develop positive relationships with adults and peers (NRC & IOM, 2009).

• Emotionally and physically safe environments

Stress and anxiety, brought on by a lack of safety, can be emotionally taxing, distracting, and can impair working memory (Shackman et al., 2006). Student learning can be affected by a sense of unsafety in school. On the other hand, students who feel emotionally, intellectually, and physically safe can better provide feedback to their teachers and respond positively to efforts to build social and emotional competencies through direct instruction and modeling (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Schools characterized by safety have students with strong social and emotional competencies (Kendziora, Osher, & Chinen, 2008; Osher et al., 2007).

• Cultural competence and valuing diversity

Individual and contextual factors influence interactions between individuals of similar and different cultural groups in positive and negative ways (Hecht, Jackson, & Pitts, 2005). These factors include relative power held by each individual, immediate and past experience, stereotypes, communication styles, one’s strength of ingroup identity, and one’s cognitive representations of groups. The diversity of backgrounds and experiences among members of the school community require that schools facilitate communication and interactions between individuals from diverse backgrounds by infusing cultural awareness and understanding and inclusive practices into every aspect of the school culture. Cultural competence has been defined as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that enables schools, agencies, or providers to work effectively in bicultural and multicultural interactions (King, Sims, & Osher, 2007). Cultural competence can help schools and agencies systematically set the conditions for students and families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to feel supported, respected, and safe (Osher et al., 2017). Cultural competence in schools will ensure that students and adults feel that they belong and form trusting and supportive relationships and facilitated through regular assessments of how the schools practices, programs, policies, rituals, and artifacts meet the facilitate interactions and meet the needs of all members of the school community (Bustamante, Nelson, & Onwuegbuzie, 2009). Cultural competence in schools can also increase the chances that students are on-task and feel efficacious during learning (Appel, Weber, & Kronberger, 2015; Johns, Inzlicht, & Schmader, 2008; Pennington, Heim, Levy, & Larkin, 2016; Steele, 2010; Szymanski, Kashubeck-West, & Meyer, 2008).

Schools also directly teach students competencies that facilitate cultural competence as part an SEL program. Self-awareness, for example, is related to both cultural competence and the ability to be culturally responsive. Culturally-relevant self-awareness includes being aware of one’s privilege without being defensive. These approaches will be most relevant to all students when they consider the cultural relevance of values, attitudes, and cultural diversity (Osher et al., 2016). Cultural and historical factors affect what comprises SEL and the meaning and salience of social and emotional competencies (Hecht & Shin, 2015; Torrente, Alimchandani, & Aber, 2015). Collectivism in China and piety in Korea are two examples of social and emotional competencies that may not be included in many Western definitions (Lee & Bong, 2017; Yu & Jiang, 2017 in Martin, Collie, & Fryedenberg, 2017). Negative emotions such as sadness, sorrow, fear, and shame also play useful roles in child development in the Confucian tradition and some such as pessimism could have positive components (Martin et al., 2017; Norem, 2008). SEL may be deeply embedded in educational practice in some cultures and seen as counter to educational goals in other cultures (Martin et al., 2017). With more research on how to address these differences, culturally competent approaches in SEL can be more responsive to this variation.

• Culturally responsive, participatory, and diverse instructional approaches to meet diverse needs

Instructional approaches that are individualized, personalized, and culturally responsive support all students in using adaptive learning strategies and realizing their goals (Osher et al., 2017). Culturally responsive approaches are instructional approaches that acknowledge students’ cultural displays of learning and meaningmaking and scaffold learning by connecting new knowledge to cultural knowledge (Hammond, 2016; Lee, 2007; Lee, Spencer, & Harpalani, 2003). Teachers can use methods that leverage students’ culture knowledge to scaffold new concepts and content, which helps students process information, connect learning experiences inside and outside the school, and master new information (Ambrose & Lovett, 2014; Lee, 2007; Hammond, 2016; Valenzuela, 1999). Cultural competence and culturally responsive approaches to instruction build upon students’ strengths and prior knowledge to create learning environments that feel safe, inclusive, supportive, and challenging (Gay, 2010; Powell, Cantrell, Malo-Juvera, & Correll, 2016; Rickford, 2001). These approaches are responsive to the emotional, motivational, and interpersonal needs of diverse students while also building related competencies through experience, modeling, and reinforcement.

Instructional approaches such as collaborative learning and design-based learning are participatory by nature and enable students to connect learning to their own lives, while providing them with opportunities to make responsible decisions and build their interpersonal skills (Gillies, 2014; Hattie & Yates, 2014; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 1999). Service learning integrates and reinforces social awareness (DarlingHammond et al., 2015; McKay-Jackson, 2014; Villegas & Lucas, 2002; WillisDarpoh, 2013). Culturally responsive and participatory instructional approaches can be used for academic content, but can also be useful approaches to SEL, and can embed SEL into academic learning. By viewing cultural diversity as an asset rather than as a deficit and by enabling students to be agents in their own learning, teachers can create learning environments that promote belonging, support, respect, and emotional safety (Gay, 2010; Powell, Cantrell Malo-Juvera, & Correll, 2016; Rickford, 2001).

• Shared and consistent expectations and norms across contexts

Shared experiences support relational trust among all members of the school community and contribute to feelings of safety (Osher et al., 2007; Thapa et al., 2013) and help students and individual who are new to the environment master behavioral expectations. High expectations and behavioral norms, when accompanied by support to realize these norms, contribute to opportunities and learning outcomes (Osher et al., 2007). Shared norms and expectations enable desired behaviors to be reinforced across interactions and microcontexts and help ensure that adults will demonstrate equal expectations of and treatment of all students (Thapa et al., 2013). In addition, clear and consistent shared norms and expectations give students opportunities to actively exhibit their commitment to and uphold those norms, and students who feel a sense of belonging are more likely to adopt those norms and expectations (Solomon, Battistich, Watson, Schaps, & Lewis, 2000).

• Shared narrative and support for different viewpoints

Positive shared narratives that are culturally competent and responsive can counteract dominant narratives that are negative, build resilience, agency in individuals, and build a sense of safety among members of the school community (Godsil & Goodale, 2013). Simultaneously supporting individuals to have their own narratives supports personal agency and can be empowering (Hernandez, 2015). SEL can help students build positive individual and collective narratives in school when SEL is culturally responsive and tailored.

• Strengths-based approaches

Each student and educator has unique strengths and needs, and effective approaches address both of these (Osher et al., 2007). School cultures can focus on strengths (or deficits). Schools can be most effective at further building competencies and building conditions for learning by guiding students and adults to leverage these strengths and transfer them from one context to another (Nagaoka et al., 2015). Being able to draw on one’s strengths supports the development of other competencies such as setting goals (Nagaoka et al., 2015), while doing this collectively may contribute to collective resilience (Ebersöhn, 2012). • Necessary additional supports for those who need them School climate and SEL approaches are often thought of as a universal approaches. Some students may need additional supports to feel safe, supported, and engaged and to build social and emotional competencies. This may apply to students who experience trauma, students with learning disabilities, students with mental health needs, and English language learners, as well as for students with the co-occurrence of some or all of these needs. When students need additional services, their interactions with others students and adults can be affected. Providing additional supports to students who need them will improve the quality of all interactions in the school and therefore improve conditions for learning. These supports and services should build as well as build upon strengths while addressing needs.

• Leadership and staff modeling of social and emotional competencies directly through behavior and indirectly through fair and equitable policies

Administrative practices and policies play an important role in establishing cultural competence, consistent and shared norms and expectations, and feelings of belonging (Sprague & Walker, 2010). Some practices and policies that promote conditions for learning and build social and emotional competencies include fair and consistently enforced disciplinary policies, regular assessments of culturally competent practices, strong partnerships with families and community members, clear rules regarding bullying, support for professional learning in SEL, and active efforts to promote staff collegiality.

School staff can set the conditions for SEL and can model social and emotional competencies in their everyday interactions with students. Teachers in particular can build social and emotional competencies in their students when they have the capacity to manage their classrooms and provide emotional security through supportive teacher-student interactions (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Students are more likely to learn to regulate their own emotions and behaviors when they are in classrooms that are calm and organized and teachers are less likely to feel burnt out (Jones et al., 2013). The inability to manage a classroom can affect student behavior and teacher stress (Kellam et al., 1998). Teachers can also model social and emotional competencies in their interactions with students. Teachers need social and emotional skills to create conditions for learning in the classroom. Socially and emotionally competent teachers have high self and social awareness, the ability to manage their emotions and behaviors, a sense of responsibility and the ability to make responsible decisions, and relationship building skills (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Leaders can build the capacities of teachers by creating practices and policies that build their social and emotional competencies and reduce stress and burnout (Jones et al., 2013). Keeping teacher stress levels down also reduces student stress and their capacity to self-regulate their emotions and behaviors, which contributes to classroom conditions for learning (Jennings, Frank, Snowberg, Coccia, & Greenberg, 2013; Oberle & Schonert-Reichl, 2016; Roeser et al., 2013).

• Open communication and partnerships with families and community partners

Partnerships with families and communities help align ecological settings, facilitate access to social and emotional supports, and promote greater sense of community to the benefit of children’s development (Epstein, 2001; Simmons, 2011; Spier et al., forthcoming). Collaborations strengthen school policies, curriculum, and programming (Weissberg et al., 2017), as well as facilitate culturally competent practices (Birkett & Espelage, 2009) and engender a shared sense of responsibility, which promotes student competencies. Effective collaborations with families are culturally competent and family-driven (Osher et al., 2011; Osher & Osher, 2002; Szapocznik, Muir, Duff, Schwartz & Brown, 2015), and these can build upon staff social and emotional attributes such as self-awareness, empathy, and compassion.

• Measurement of these components for continuous improvement

Schools can most efficiently and successfully assess needs and ensure that they are setting the conditions for learning and social and emotional development when they systematically collect and use data for continuous improvement. This includes using data to identify individual and collective needs, reporting the data back to educators, providing educators the means to use the data to improve programs and practices, and monitoring changes (Osher et al., 2008). This data is most representative of the needs of all members of the school community when it is collected from leaders, school staff, students, and parents (Berkowitz et al., 2016). Measures that are reliable and valid, that align well with schools’ ongoing efforts, and that are easy to use in the regular school context will be most useful for purposes of monitoring and evaluation (Weissberg et al., 2015).

Click or copy and paste this link to access the full content of the study: https://www.air.org/sites/default/files/downloads/report/Intersection-School-Climate-and-Social-and-Emotional-Development-February-2017.pdf

What do these discussions on school climate and SEL and SEC mean for you as school heads and supervisors?

Let us apply the SEL and SEC framework with a particular situation.

Click the arrow on the side of the images to move to the next image.

Before we move to the next lesson, let’s take a look back at Aida’s case and see if she had any actions related to the Social Emotional Learning practices.

The details about the framework of Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) will be discussed in the next module. To emphasize, with the GESI framework we can uncover important factors that hinder the students’ literacy performance, especially factors that we ourselves are not aware that we are doing.