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SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING
What is Social-Emotional Learning?
16 February 2022/ By Zineb DJOUB
The objective of education is no longer limited to maximizing academic achievements, but it also includes developing students to become good citizens, promoting their physical, emotional, and economic well-being, and inculcating skills and attitudes that encourage lifelong learning. Social-emotional learning factors (e.g., student-teacher social interactions, classroom climate, and peer group) can affect students’ learning.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2002), among the major reasons cited for dropping out of school involve social and emotional factors: not getting along with teachers or peers (35.0% and 20.1%, respectively), feeling left out (23.2%), and not feeling safe (12.1%). So, because students’ social-emotional development matters to their academic and life success educators need to understand better its process and relation to learning.
Social and Emotional Learning Definition
Interest in social-emotional learning sparked in the mid-1990s with the publication of Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence (1995) and Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences (1993).
That interest continues to grow with the contributions of CASEL (the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning): an independent non-profit organization that was originally part of the University of Illinois, Chicago (the United States of America).
CASEL has developed free-access resources to help education systems use and effectively engage in SEL-related activities, established learning standards and assessment for schools, and allowed researchers to have theoretical and methodological reflections.
To clarify the process of social-emotional learning, different definitions have been attributed. Still, most of them agreed that SEL is a capacity, an ability, or a skill that can be developed throughout a process. The latter involves acquiring and effectively applying the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.
This means that SEL is about recognizing and managing emotions, solving problems effectively, and establishing positive relationships with others. So, such a skill requires integrating thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Therefore, to develop their SEL skills, students should learn to think, moderate their feeling,s and act properly. Similar to the way they learn academic skills, they need to practise and apply SEL skills by engaging in positive tasks in and out of the classroom.
Many frameworks account for social-emotional competence and skills. Among these are the five SEL categories identified by CASEL.
1. Self-awareness
Self-awareness is a necessary building block of emotional intelligence. It refers to one’s understanding of emotions, thoughts, values, and talent and one’s awareness that these may affect interpersonal relationships.
So, high levels of self-awareness require the ability to recognize how thoughts, feelings, and actions are interconnected.
Researchers identified two broad categories of self-awareness. The first one is internal self-awareness or how we see our values, passions, aspirations, fit with our environment, reactions (including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses), and impact on others.
The second category, external self-awareness, is understanding how other people view us. Research findings showed that people who know how others see them are more skilled at showing empathy and taking others’ perspectives.
Self-awareness is important because it allows one to assess his/her growth and effectiveness and change course when necessary.
So, when we support our students to recognize their emotional state we’re helping them to control their emotions, focus on self-development, and make relevant choices.
To cultivate self-awareness among your students:
- Devote some time to practice mindfulness. Ask students to meditate, practice yoga, express their feelings, and share their experiences.
- Encourage them to keep a journal, writing their thoughts and inner states. You can help them using prompts such as; what did you do well today? What challenges did you face? How did you feel? How did you respond? What are your intentions for tomorrow? etc.
- Teach them how to actively listen to others, and observe and understand others without any judgment or evaluation. This is through involving them in reflecting on and discussing scenarios, working in groups to achieve tasks, and sharing feedback.
- Enhance their metacognition by prompting them to reflect on their learning needs, set their goals, and monitor their progress.
2. Self-management
Besides the need to recognize emotions, it’s necessary to manage them. Self-management refers to one’s ability to effectively manage emotions, control impulses, and persevere through challenges. The aim is to maximize productivity, pursue desired goals, and experience positive outcomes.
So, if you have self-management skills, you are well organized, able to set goals independently and manage time, motivate the self, and hold accountable for your actions.
To develop students’ self-management skills, you need to focus on:
- Student Self-assessment: Assessing their learning can help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and take actions to improve further.
- Student Autonomy: Help students take some ownership over their learning. Provide opportunities where they make choices, set their learning goals, and monitor their progress.
- Learning How to Learn: Encourage students to develop good learning habits, learn how to plan for their learning, set deadlines for tasks, and get more organized to accomplish more.
- Self-Care: Students also need to recognize the importance of self-caring. So, bring it into the classroom through lessons, activities, personal reflections, and encouraging them to practise it and share their routines with their peers.
3. Social awareness
This refers to one’s ability to understand the perspectives of others based on different cultural and life experiences and thereby express empathy and compassion.
Social awareness can help us build connections with others. By understanding what people are thinking and feeling, we can respond appropriately in social situations.
Students also need to learn how to create healthy relationships, connect with others more effectively despite cultural diversity, and share their knowledge and views.
So, it’s necessary to develop our students’ social awareness by building or practicing empathy; the ability to understand another person’s views and feelings. This is through encouraging teamwork and teaching positive communication skills such as listening, conflict resolution, and cooperation.
4. Relationship skills
These involve communicating, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking help when needed.
Relationship skills provide individuals with the tools they need to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships, and to act by social norms.
They are closely linked to social awareness. Students need to empathize with each other (social awareness) to resolve a conflict between themselves (relationship skills).
So, to develop their relationship skills, design tasks that teach students to:
- Build relationships with others;
- share their thoughts and feelings appropriately;
- communicate effectively and avoid stereotypes;
- practice teamwork and collaborative problem-solving;
- resolve conflicts constructively;
- seek and offer support when needed;
- hold responsibility for group tasks.
5. Responsible decision-making skills
These refer to making effective decisions about one’s behaviour in social interactions, as well as considering future goals.
Responsible decision-making requires the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to make constructive choices about personal behaviour and social interactions across diverse settings.
In the classroom, to foster good decision-making skills:
- Provide opportunities for students to make choices in a variety of contexts;
- involve them in problem-solving tasks where they analyze situations, find and solve problems, and be more creative;
- engage them in reflecting and evaluating challenging scenarios;
- encourage them to make decisions, reflect on them and make adjustments when necessary.
Today, in an ever-diversifying world, students need to be aware of their thoughts, and emotions and develop more empathy for others. So, developing their social-emotional learning skills is crucial to help them thrive not just inside but also outside the classroom. To grab more SEL resources click here.
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