I. Developing self-awareness, empathy, respect, kindness, friendship, and conflict-resolution skills

Our students are now spending more time at home than ever before. They’re interacting with their family members, experiencing different situations, and going through various emotional states. Since their well-being matters a lot, we need to assist them in developing the necessary social and emotional skills to connect with others and feel well. So, the following activities can help you out with this.

# My letter!

It has always been necessary to know about our students’ feelings in learning. Helping students get these out and share them with the rest can be a source of relief and comfort, mainly when we listen to them and provide a helping hand.

How can you do that?

-You can ask your students to write letters to each other. Give them the choice to select their peers. In those letters, students tell about what they like about learning, their teachers, the things they like to do together and enjoy, how they’re spending their time now, etc. They can send these letters via email or read them aloud in case you’re meeting with them online.

-Or you can ask them to write letters to you telling you about what they need to learn, prefer to do in your class, etc. After receiving them via email, you can in turn reply to each one of them.

# I’m HERE for my classmates

For those students who could not join your online class, those who attended but have difficulty understanding your content, or who’re struggling with the materials you’ve sent online, invite their classmates to help them. They can talk on the phone, use Skype, send emails, or post on your Facebook group or class blog to explain further your lessons and/or assignments.

Encourage your students to help each other by assigning roles (one group of students is in charge of explaining content, another one is concerned with clarifying assignments and reminding them about the deadlines…).

Your students need to keep you informed about the process (what they’ve done so far). This is by sending you their report or progress checklist. Yet, check it by yourself to learn more (using assignments, asking students to fill in reflective worksheets, inviting them to send you their inquiries via email, etc.).

# This week’s stars

This is a kind of incentive to make students more respectful, self-aware, empathetic, kind, friendly, and deal with conflict wisely. In this activity, students keep a weekly record of those situations (or just one situation) where they succeeded in displaying the above traits or attitudes.

This means your students will describe in detail what happened and how they reacted. At the end of each week, you listen to your students (more preferable to do it in the presence of their parents) or read their achievements (in case you’re not meeting them virtually) and decide who deserves the FIVE STARS of the week.

Note: In case you have not done any SEL lesson, before starting this activity, explain why such attitudes are important and how to show them, giving simple examples.

# I help my family

Encourage your students to do good. Ask them to help their parents and the people they live with and share with others how they’re doing so.

You can send them these cards (see my resources below) to fill in. They can share them with the rest of the class.

II. Building confidence and a sense of responsibility

This is another important objective of social and emotional learning. You may think this is impossible to attain. You’ve got less control over things. So, how can you help your students develop these skills?

On the contrary, you CAN make this real. And this is YOUR opportunity to do it. Why? Because now your students are likely to feel more accountable for their learning at home.

But, this feeling either renders them excited to dive into and explore this new learning experience or makes them self-doubt and shrink from taking any step forward.

So, you’re the only one who can fuel that excitement, by nudging and supporting students to make choices, to reflect, and make decisions while they’re learning at home. Use the following activities to provide such opportunities.

# I can use my time more effectively

It’s so important to help our students to get more organised and make effective use of their time at home. This process requires some learning and practice to make it part of their daily routine. To this end, provide your students with a daily checklist that they should keep up with (with their parents’ help).

They’ll get more organised and productive. You can download my suggested checklist. Go to the link at the end of this post.

# When I’m at home challenge

To make your online learning more interesting, fun, and effective, spark your students’ creativity and productivity by involving them in competitions or challenges to do at home. You can assign different tasks.

Here are some examples :
• Turning a story into a song of their creation.
• Writing a story, a dialogue, a poem.
• Reading short stories of their own choice and reporting their reflection.
• Creating a video that teaches something.
• Sharing successful learning tips or strategies.

Think about tasks that match your students’ level and interests.

To make it more interesting, make your list of tasks and label each using numbers or letters. Don’t show or send them to your students, just ask them to choose those numbers or letters. Then assign the task whose number or letter was selected by the majority.

Give your students time (for example two weeks) to do it individually. Praise and reward the best work.

If you’re not meeting with your students online, select the task, assign it, and collect students’ work via your email. You can share your feedback in your Facebook group, class blog, etc.

# Reflecting on my home learning experience

We need to get feedback about how our students are getting on with online learning: their interests, needs, and difficulties which concern not only the learning content and materials but also the technology they’re interacting with.

So, whatever grade level you’re teaching, help your students reflect on their learning. You’ll find a reflective worksheet sample below.

This was my suggested list of activities to nurture your students’ social and emotional development in distance learning. What other activities would you recommend? I would love to learn from you. Take care.

Click on this image to download some of the resources mentioned in this post