Were you able to hear about the Social Emotional Learning Curriculum? Maybe you haven’t or maybe you have. But surely, SEL should be becoming that your district should make as it’s the priority.
Still, to have a deeper understanding, you should know first what social emotional learning really is, why social emotional learning is important and other things that you should know about social emotional learning.
The Social Emotional Learning Curriculum – What To Know
The process of developing and then using social and emotional skills is known as social emotional learning. This is the skill set that a person uses when it comes to coping up with feelings, goal setting, decision making, and getting along with – through empathy for other people.
People who have been equipped with strong social-emotional skills are better equipped when it comes to managing everyday challenges, build positive relationships with other people, and also make an informed decision. With the social emotional learning curriculum, this will be a gauge in helping students and adults to thrive not only in school but also in life because these skills are not only taught and learned during preschool but all the way through a person’s adulthood.
The Social-Emotional Learning Skills in a Social Emotional Learning Curriculum
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning or CASEL is the front-runner in the field of SEL instruction. This is because this identifies five key areas or core competencies that are making up the social emotional learning:
1. Self-awareness
Self-awareness is defined as the ability to identify emotions, recognize strengths and needs, and the development of a growth mindset.
2. Self-management
Self-management is defined as the ability to manage emotions, control impulses, and goal settings.
3. Social awareness
Social awareness is defined as the ability to see things from another person’s perspective, show empathy, and be able to appreciate diversity.
4. Relationship skills
Relationship skill is defined as the ability to communicate, cooperate and resolve conflict.
5. Responsible decision-making
Responsible decision-making is defined as the ability to think about the consequences of a particular person’s behavior.
The Benefits of Social-Emotional Learning Curriculum
There are already a number of research that is pointing to the social and emotional skills such as cooperation, ability to help others as the foundation when it comes to thriving in life. For those students who possess strong skills in this type of area are getting along with other peers. These students are also those who are highly likely to graduate from high school and be able to get a full-time job.
The Role of Social-Emotional Learning at School
These core competencies can then be taught in different ways. The instruction for SEL usually focuses on the emotional intelligence of the child where the main goal is to teach such children the ability to understand and respect themselves and other people. This will then yield a positive behavior that is promoting social acceptance and friendship which is referred to as prosocial behavior.
To have an outline of the learning goals for such SEL-specific activities, you can use explicit instruction thereby explaining the SEL skills to the students. But, of course, it is normal that this type of learning can happen in more than just one lesson a day.
And when SEL becomes a part of the school culture, this will result in a big part of the schoolwide effort in improving the well-being of the student. There are different approaches to SEL that are being used amongst the various schools. However, there are still some common evidence-based SEL programs that you may find familiar. Some of these approaches which may be familiar to you are Responsive Classroom, Open Circle, and RULER or recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing and regulating emotion.
What are the Social and Emotional Learning Activities
Behavior management can also be helped through SEL support by working on the skills that will enable the student to understand how and why they are behaving in such a way, including the type of supports that they are going to need if their behavior is already getting in the way of learning or making new friends.
The overall quality and character of school life can be improved with the help of SEL including the improvement of the school climate. So, when SEL practices are being implemented in your school and the students are now getting the help that is necessary for them to understand themselves and one another, this can ultimately lead to positive outcomes not only in school but beyond.
These SEL skills can still be woven into the traditional lesson plans, and here are the following examples of instruction that you can use at different grade levels:
1. The social-emotional learning activities for preschool
You can do this by showing the student how to work in pairs and by modeling how to read a book together. Then point out how to hold the books so that this is going to be centered between two students including the flipping of the book’s pages. With this type of explicit instruction, this allows that kid to learn about sharing, thinking about the needs of other persons, and be able to develop mutual respect.
2. The social-emotional learning activities for grade school
This can be done by asking students to identify their own strengths and weakness as part of math instruction, for example. You can also help in encouraging each child to do other things like fill a hundred grid or a pie chart in order to show how strong the child is feeling at a certain skill.
3. The social-emotional learning activities for middle school
With this group, the SEL learning should be focusing more on human connection. You can do this by getting students to ask one another how their weekend went. With explicit instructions, these can help in making the classroom a safe space wherein they can express themselves freely as to how their weekend went, good or bad. The class can also make another agreement to prohibit teasing and bullying.
4. The social-emotional learning activities for high school
You will be helping teens in practicing how to take the perspective of other people such as getting them to think about how a book character felt or why historical figures took such certain actions. You can also ask them to reflect on how and why someone is fighting for justice and equality. And with this, it will build the SEL skills in such students by producing opportunities where they can discuss these kinds of things in small groups.
