social emotional learning

Social emotional

learning

self-awareness

The abilities to understand one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and
how they influence behavior across contexts. This includes capacities to
recognize one’s strengths and limitations with a well-grounded sense of
confidence and purpose and includes having a growth mindset.

Self-management

The abilities to manage one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in
different situations and to achieve goals and aspirations. This includes the
capacities to delay gratification, manage stress, and feel motivation and
agency to accomplish personal and collective goals.

Social awareness

The abilities to understand the perspectives of and empathize with others,
including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts. This
includes the capacities to feel compassion for others, understand broader
historical and social norms for behavior in different settings, and recognize
family, school, and community resources and supports.

Relationship skills

The abilities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships
and to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups. This
includes the capacities to communicate clearly, listen actively, cooperate,
work collaboratively to problem solve and negotiate conflict constructively,
navigate settings with differing social and cultural demands and opportunities,
provide leadership, and seek or offer help when needed.

Responsible decision-making

The abilities to make caring and constructive choices about personal
behavior and social interactions across diverse situations. This includes the
capacity to consider ethical standards and safety concerns, and to evaluate
the benefits and consequences of various actions for personal, social, and
collective well-being.

The Benefits of SEL

SEL is beneficial to both children and adults, increasing self-awareness,

academic achievement, and positive behaviors both in and out of the

classroom. From an academic standpoint, students who participated in SEL

programs saw an 11 percentile increase in their overall grades and better

attendance. On a more individual level, the skills learned within an SEL

program have been shown to help students better cope with emotional

stress, solve problems, and avoid peer pressure to engage in harmful

activities.

What is social emotional learning theory?

Broadly speaking, social and emotional learning (SEL) refers to the process
through which individuals learn and apply a set of social, emotional, and
related skills, attitudes, behaviors, and values that help direct students. This
includes thoughts, feelings, and actions in ways that enable them to succeed
in school. However, SEL has been defined in a variety of ways.

How do you incorporate social emotional learning in

the classroom?

There are many ways to incorporate SEL in the classroom. The main idea is

to provide an ongoing SEL influence throughout the day. In the beginning, you

could start by checking in with students to see how they feel. Another great

way is to provide students the opportunity to see how a tricky or troubling

situation is being handled. This will give them some ideas on how to handle a

tricky situation they may encounter. Utilizing students to role-play in front of

the class would be a viable example. Make sure there is a place for students

to calm down. This safe space will allow for the student to reflect.

Measuring social-emotional learning impact

Measuring the impact of implementing SEL inside the classroom goes way
beyond just grades. As Dr. Christina Cipriano explains, “When students are
struggling and school performance is poor, they are more likely to find school
and learning as a source of anxiety, manifesting in diminished self-efficacy,
motivation, engagement, and connectedness with school.”

Why is SEL important?

While SEL has been more formally stood up as a program in preschools
throughout all 50 states, very few states have made SEL a designated part of
school curriculum at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. To date,
only three states have a fully-designed set of standards for SEL programs
with benchmarks for students at every grade level from K-12, according to the
AEI/Brookings report. These states are Illinois, Kansas, and Pennsylvania.