When done well and with consistency, social and emotional learning (SEL) strategies can have a powerful impact on student learning and overall well-being. CAESL identifies three important ways to implement SEL in schools: 1. A safe and supportive classroom learning environment, 2. Integration of SEL into everyday lessons, and 3. Explicit teaching of SEL during advisory periods and morning meetings. Not only is SEL a research- and evidence-based practice, it’s a fundamental responsibility of teachers and school leaders. 

The Professional Standards for Educational Leadership (PSEL) identify the creation of a classroom and school that supports student mental health and well-being, citing the “collective responsibility [for teachers and staff] for meeting the academic, social, emotional, and physical needs of each student.”  

Social and emotional learning isn’t just a “nice-to-have” aspect of school that we layer on the academic needs of students. The truth is that without a supportive learning environment and the strategies associated with SEL—for both teachers and students—teaching and learning become far more difficult. In other words, SEL has the potential to improve how we teach and how much students learn. The following four strategies for SEL come from a number of sources, which can be located using the links herein for further reading and research. As always, at Maia, we want to help educators implement strategies to support a more college and career ready student, and we believe the SEL is a core function of that.

Social and Emotional Questioning Techniques

Jeffrey Benson, author of Improve Every Lesson with SEL says that one simple way to add SEL on a regular basis is to use SEL-style questions with students, especially at the beginning of a lesson. SEL-style questions are open-ended and don’t have wrong answers. Asking students what they remember from yesterday’s lesson or what interests them the most from the reading opens a door for all students to participate in a way that doesn’t penalize them for being wrong. 

Because all students can participate with open-ended questions such as these, they provide a level of comfort with the content, the teacher, and the other students in the room. This mechanism for safety creates a supportive and welcoming classroom whereby students’ ideas and thoughts are valued as much as right answers about the content. Of course, students still need to be assessed based on their knowledge and skills, but adding open-ended questions that don’t have right or wrong answers is a simple way to get students participating and feeling comfortable in every classroom setting. 

Executive Functioning Skills

Mitch Weathers, author of Executive Functions for Every Classroom, posits that clarity, modeling, and routines make all the difference for student success in school. Because so many students are missing skills like organization and goal-setting, teachers can incorporate these skills into daily lessons to support academic engagement and achievement. This is reinforced by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), particularly in their learning strategies.  

The problem that lots of students have with school isn’t that they’re incapable of learning the content but rather that they lack the skills associated with acquiring new knowledge because of executive dysfunction. Helping students with time management, planning, note-taking, and other skills diminishes the cognitive load necessary for all of the ancillary aspects of learning subject matter so that their brains can focus on learning new information. Including executive functions as part of the lesson helps to alleviate stress and anxiety, allowing teachers and students to make space for new concepts.  

Mental Health and Self-Regulation Strategies

One of CASEL’s competencies for SEL is self-management–“the abilities to manage one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations and to achieve goals and aspirations.” In quality SEL programming, students are taught self-regulation strategies that can improve their interactions in school as well as their overall mental health and well-being in life. There are a number of strategies that students can learn for self-regulation and personal management, some of which are simple to implement in early grades through high school. 

Dr. Lori Blake, assistant professor of early childhood education, suggests using texts with younger students that have specific themes like emotional competence, flexible thinking, and perseverance. For older students, researchers suggest explicit teaching of mindfulness tools, such as positive self-talk, self-reflection, and breathing techniques. Helping students to learn about their brain, express their needs verbally, and make real-time adjustments to their expectations of the environment around them can translate to social and academic success. 

Social and Emotional Learning for Educators

Social and emotional learning is not just for students. Wendy Turner, author of Embracing Adult SEL, argues that it’s difficult for adults to model SEL strategies for students if they don’t use the strategies for themselves. Staff wellness is also a critical component of retention, and stress and burnout in education are among the leading causes of turnover. Burnout is avoidable, especially when warning signs are evident, but it also requires a culture where SEL is included for students and staff. 

Authentic and empathetic leaders provide safe spaces and help with the tools necessary to increase the social and emotional skills for both personal and professional use. Teaching is a highly complex profession with a myriad of complicated scenarios occurring all at once. For staff to be in tune with the needs of their students, they must also be aware of their own needs. Social and emotional strategies, such as mindfulness and breathing techniques, are useful on a regular basis and should be promoted within the culture of the school from the beginning of the school year and throughout it. 

Conclusion

While SEL strategies are a critical element of a quality school culture, they can be misunderstood. For example, a popular phrase, “connection before content,” has been misconstrued as a strategy whereby students reveal their favorite pizza topping or ice cream flavor. Although things like this can be fun, they don’t meet the standard for psychological safety or explicit teaching of strategies for self-regulation, for example. Educators should be well-versed in actual SEL practices, which require professional learning and deeper dives into what makes for quality implementation and the rationale to do so.

Another barrier to the cultural shift that SEL can bring to a school is when some teachers use SEL strategies and others do not. The power of SEL is diminished if it’s not a whole-school strategy because students won’t necessarily transfer the feeling of safety from one teacher to the next, managing various expectations throughout the day rather than the consistency that SEL can provide. Best practice in the use of SEL is for the entire staff to be trained and to use the same system of support as the day and year unfolds.

If you want to talk about whole-school SEL implementation with a thought leader, book a time here. 

If you want to see a comprehensive SEL curriculum, book a demo with Maia today.