Incorporating Social/Emotional Learning in Your Classroom

Facilitator: Lori Gracey (@lgracey)

It's important to include avenues for social/emotional learning in your classroom, whether that is remote or face-to-face. Learn some easy activities that can foster this skill.

Topics

Defining SEL

Why SEL Matters

Incorporating SEL in the Classroom

But First!

A Quick SEL Scavenger Hunt

Find something that:

Makes you feel happy

Helps you remember a trip

Makes you laugh

What Is Social/Emotional Learning?

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) lists five core competencies involved in SEL:

Self-awareness: The ability to accurately recognize one’s emotions and thoughts and their influence on behavior. This includes accurately assessing one’s strengths and limitations and possessing a well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism.

Self-management: The ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations. This includes managing stress, controlling impulses, motivating oneself, and setting and working toward achieving personal and academic goals.

Social awareness: The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behavior, and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.

Relationship skills: The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help when needed.

Responsible decision-making: The ability to make constructive and respectful choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, social norms, the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and the well-being of self and others.

Some people add a sixth competency: future self.

SEL Is Not Just for Kids; We Must Model It Ourselves.

https://www.fosteringresilientlearners.org/blog/2019/4/8/rubber-bracelets-to-support-emotional-regulation-absolutely

What does the research say about sel?

A 2011 meta-analysis that found that students who receive high-quality SEL instruction have achievement scores on average of 11 percentile points higher than students who did not receive SEL instruction.

A more recent study revealed that a lack of SEL regularly correlated with unfavorable outcomes such as an increased chance of unemployment, divorce, poor health, criminal behavior, and imprisonment.

Advances in neuroscience imply that developing SEL skills in kindergarten “can have long-term academic benefits on students’ reading and vocabulary, including in high poverty schools, suggesting that SEL may assist in closing achievement gaps.”

It also stated, “researchers at Columbia University concluded that for every dollar a school spends on social-emotional learning programs, it sees an eleven dollar return on its investment,” indicating the investment in SEL is worthwhile.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-06-04-the-future-of-education-depends-on-social-emotional-learning-here-s-why

In addition, John Hattie's work on teacher/student relationships shows that improving those relationships carries an effect size of 0.72, which is almost two years' of growth.