Key points:

• SEL helps students develop skills for academic and professional succes
• See article: Sensory spaces may help support all students
• See article: Empowering staff and students with a sense of belonging
• For more news in SEL in classrooms, visit eSN’s SEL & Well-Being page

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is an integral part of today’s schools. Through SEL, students learn how to manage and regulate their emotions, identify and work through tough feelings, and serves as a foundation that supports students’ personal and academic achievements.

There are many resources to guide SEL implementations in districts and schools (CASEL is a great place to start). Here’s a look at how five educators are approaching SEL integration in their districts, schools, and classrooms.

Over the past two years, Tempe Union High School District has centered its focus on prioritizing student mental health, writes Dr. Kevin J. Mendivil, the district’s superintendent. District leaders and educators took several steps to establish solid mental health support, including asking student representatives what social-emotional support they and their fellow students needed, partnering with Care Solace to coordinate mental health care for needs that exceed the scope of school-based services, and normalizing conversations around mental health, which is one of the district’s most significant wins. Learn more about how the district is actively supporting student mental health and SEL.

School bullying is a consistently tough issue to address, but students in Alabama met that challenge head-on when they participated in the PACER Center’s National Bullying Prevention Center, which engages and empowers kids to combat bullying in all its forms. Through the Students with Solutions contest, 5th grade students in Dr. Yuvraj Verma’s Birmingham City Schools System classroom worked together to raise awareness about bullying and encourage children to actively participate in addressing this issue. This challenge amplified their voices and empowered them to inspire and support one another, creating a united front against bullying. Here’s how Dr. Verma guided students.

With increased awareness of student mental health needs, many districts are examining how to elevate the impact of school counselors. With increased awareness of student mental health and the need for student support, many districts are asking themselves: How do we elevate the impact of our school counselors? Here’s how Livingston Middle School in rural California achieved just that. Alma Lopez, lead school counselor at California’s Livingston Middle School and the 2022 School Counselor of the Year by the American School Counselor Association, offers insight and advice for other schools looking to improve school counselors’ reach and, in turn, boost student outcomes.  

SEL skills are essential for navigating both academic and non-academic environments successfully, and they’re critical for improving outcomes. For SEL instruction to be effective, however, educators must create a welcoming and inclusive learning culture for everyone. It’s not realistic to ask students to develop an understanding of and empathy for diverse people and perspectives if their own needs and perspectives aren’t valued and supported within the classroom environment. Educators must practice and model these ideals for themselves if they expect students to acquire them. Implementing culturally responsive teaching practices, incorporating UDL into the learning design process, and building accessibility into every learning experience are three critical components. Read more here, as George Hanshaw is the director of eLearning operations for Los Angeles Pacific University, explains his school’s approach.

Damion Morgan, a social-emotional learning specialist in Windsor Public Schools, notes the importance of before- and after-school programs–the bookends of the school day. Before- and after-school programs offer critical support, including caring and supportive mentors, as well as safe spaces where students build confidence and a sense of belonging. They also provide opportunities to work collaboratively, problem solve, and think critically. SEL skills are not separate from those activities–SEL is not sprinkled on the cupcake; it’s part of the cupcake. Before- and after-school programs must make every interaction more intentional to complement classroom learning. But to ensure that these programs are set up for success, there are two essential questions every program coordinator should ask: “How well do I know my students?” and “How can I ensure my program meets their needs?” Learn more about the district’s strategy for integrating SEL into before- and after-school programs.

Key points:

• Effective social-emotional development includes families and teachers
• See article: Using SEL to support before- and after-school programs
• See article: Schools are key to solving mental health equity gaps
• For more news on social-emotional development, visit eSN’s SEL page

Everyone had that favorite teacher; the one who inspired your confidence to succeed or fostered love of a certain subject. For me it was Ms. Pierre, my high school English teacher who embodied social-emotional mastery before there was such a thing. Her balanced approach of rigor and care created a nurturing environment where I felt supported. She tapped into my untapped potential, fostering a profound sense of self-belief and cultivating my passion for learning.

I often think about how our students’ futures would be different if more teachers were able to have such a connection with individual students, like I had with Ms. Pierre. Now I can make this a reality as district administrator for social emotional learning (SEL) for the Windsor Public Schools. Windsor puts a premium on SEL, hiring dedicated resources to support students and teachers, and transforming the educational experience with data.

Putting the resources in place

Under the leadership of our superintendent, Dr. Terrell Hill, Windsor has made a commitment to integrating SEL districtwide, and dedicating the resources to the social, emotional and educational growth of all our students, teachers, staff and families. His goal: Creating a place where all students graduate from school with the skills, attitudes, and values necessary to anchor their success in work, life, and their social-emotional well-being.

To ensure the success of this vision, it was critical to have key pieces in place. First, he established a unique position of administrator of SEL in the district’s executive suite. As the person in this role, I work hand-in-hand with our schools and teachers to ensure they have the tools and knowledge they need to recognize and address social-emotional concerns, apply SEL in their daily activities and support our overall efforts to enrich our school community. Then Dr. Hill invested in SEL specialists who work in all of our schools, from K-12. These individuals assist with interventions as needed and support programs and training to advance SEL in each school.

Why data matters

Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the program is our use of data to understand the impact of our SEL efforts and inform change that enables us to make our efforts more effective. To that end, we’ve implemented Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA), a nationally standardized, strength-based behavior rating scale for social and emotional competence. Data generated by this brief questionnaire helps our educators screen, assess, guide intervention planning, monitor progress and evaluate outcomes related to SEL.

Through DESSA data, we’ve become more intentional about aligning students with the support they need. We’ve added SEL specialists on staff at schools to work with individual students or small groups. And we’ve taken steps to help students improve self-awareness, foster peer-to-peer modeling, and engage in appropriate, positive interventions.

The three prongs to SEL success

Working with the students isn’t all we do. Effective social-emotional development requires a three-pronged approach that includes families and teachers. SEL doesn’t just live at school. Windsor Public Schools knew that for the work they were doing within school time to be long-lasting, they needed to get the larger Windsor area also to understand its importance to speed up development of social-emotional skills. In partnership with Parent Teacher Home Visits, the district encouraged in-person interactions that focused on relationship building. Nothing was planned for these visits; we didn’t come with worksheets or anything; it was solely an opportunity to learn about the needs of our students’ families. 

Classroom teachers perhaps play the most critical role. Teachers can model responsible decision making, positive relationship building and other important SEL skills in their everyday interactions. Plus SEL lessons can be naturally woven into the curriculum.

But using the DESSA data enables us to dig deeper to find out if our efforts are working, why some students continue to struggle, and how teachers can best reach them in the classroom. For example, one of our high schoolers, James, isn’t doing his assignments in World History class. The teacher knows he’s into basketball, so she reroutes him with differentiated learning. Instead of focusing on World War II, she has him research the history of Air Jordan shoes. By redirecting him with an assignment that piques his interest, the teacher helps James boost his confidence and understand that he is truly capable of doing the World History assignments. This same approach would work in other classes as well. In math, James could be tasked to analyze basketball stats, or in English, he could write an essay on his favorite athlete.

Even though this approach may seem like an inconvenience, and off track with curriculum and grading, it has a more important long-term benefit. James has been effectively redirected back to his classroom assignments, and proceeds with a greater sense of self-assurance and accomplishment.

We also leverage DESSA data for professional development (PD) to encourage more modern teaching practices that nurture stronger connections between teachers and students. We recently revamped these efforts, turning some PD’s into film sessions where we can review classroom interactions and teaching strategies. During these sessions, teachers and district leaders are able to meet in mini groups to discuss the approaches shown and how they may have handled the situation differently. The interactive discussions help our professionals develop new strategies to align themselves to the needs of their students.

Over the last couple of years, Windsor has made remarkable strides in its implementation of SEL, as demonstrated by the compelling data trends. With keen attention to the SEL needs of its students, Windsor has shown an impressive uptick in the proportion of students exhibiting typical to strong SEL abilities. In one academic year, Windsor witnessed impressive progress, with over 88 percent of students showing positive growth in one or more SEL skills, exceeding the previous year’s 79 percent. Notably, 32 percent of students excel in all five core SEL competencies, surpassing the national average by 16 percent. This outstanding achievement showcases the effectiveness of our SEL interventions.

By measuring the right metrics, we can empower teachers to embody the qualities of exceptional educators like Ms. Pierre. Her masterful integration of SEL competencies and her ability to lead with both rigor and compassion set her apart. We must support and provide educators with the tools necessary to create meaningful connections for students to thrive.

Results at Windsor show that transformative change is possible when the right pieces are put in place. Leveraging DESSA helps our district take a data-driven approach and gather insights that can be put into action. Having dedicated resources – from an advocate in the executive suite to addition of SEL support staff and targeted PD in each school – Windsor gives schools the tools they need to effectively address shortcomings and build an environment where students will have more than just one favorite teacher who influences their lives for years to come.

Key points:

• The integration of sensory spaces into education is a necessary evolution
• See article: Schools are key to solving mental health equity gaps
• See article: How to build relationships with students
• For more news on SEL trends, visit eSN’s SEL and Well-Being page

As we stand on the cusp of a new year, it’s remarkable to reflect on how sensory spaces for schools have evolved. It has been quite heartening. This shift is not merely a coincidence; rather, it is a result of the collective recognition of the crucial role sensory well-being plays in the overall development and learning experience of our students. And in 2024, I predict that more districts will fully embrace the value and develop sensory spaces in their own schools.

Sensory spaces, initially developed as havens for individuals with severe sensory processing challenges, have found their place in mainstream education. The journey of sensory spaces from specialized rooms to widespread adoption within schools is a testament to the seismic changes occurring in our understanding of education, mental health, and well-being.

One catalyst for this shift has been the increased focus on social-emotional learning (SEL) in the wake of the global pandemic. The pandemic exposed the emotional vulnerabilities of our students, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to education that extends beyond traditional academics. Sensory spaces have emerged as a tangible solution to address the emotional and sensory needs of students, contributing to a more inclusive and supportive learning environment.

Sensory spaces everywhere

Schools across the nation are integrating sensory spaces into their infrastructure, and this trend shows no signs of slowing down. Whether they’re using dedicated rooms or integrating corners within existing classrooms, educators are recognizing the transformative power of sensory spaces. These spaces are carefully designed to provide students with a variety of sensory stimuli, catering to individual preferences and needs.

Sensory spaces are not one-size-fits-all; they can be tailored to meet the unique requirements of different students. For some, a dedicated room filled with calming lights, soft textures, and interactive elements may be the ideal retreat. Others may find solace in a designated calming corner within their regular classroom, offering a discrete yet effective escape when needed. The flexibility of incorporating sensory spaces ensures that they can be adapted to suit the specific needs and available resources of each educational institution.

Why this matters in 2024 and beyond

The benefits of incorporating sensory spaces into educational settings are well-documented and far-reaching. Improved focus, reduced stress levels, and enhanced emotional regulation are just a few of the positive outcomes. Classrooms that embrace diverse learning styles and sensory needs foster an environment where every student can thrive.

As we move into 2024, the integration of sensory spaces into educational settings is not just a trend but a necessary evolution. It’s time for schools and districts to recognize the potential these spaces hold in shaping a more empathetic, inclusive, and effective learning environment. The benefits extend beyond the students to encompass teachers, administrators, and the entire school community.

For those educators and districts contemplating the introduction of sensory spaces, the process need not be overwhelming. Start by assessing the specific needs of your students and available resources. Engage with professionals experienced in sensory integration to design spaces that align with your goals and constraints. Seek input from students themselves, recognizing the valuable perspective they bring to the conversation.

The era of sensory spaces in education has arrived, and it’s a change worth celebrating. As we look toward the future, let us embrace the power of sensory spaces to create a learning environment that nurtures the well-being and success of every student. By 2024, I believe we will witness the widespread adoption of sensory spaces in schools, marking a monumental step towards a more compassionate and effective educational landscape.

Key points:

• SEL is critical for students, and it should be a key part of before- and after-school programs
• SEL should be embedded throughout every program, starting with students’ arrival
• See related article: It’s critical to promote mental health supports at the start of the school year

Incorporating social and emotional learning (SEL) throughout the school day has risen in popularity over the last few years, especially to counteract the increasing rates of anxiety and depression in students since the COVID-19 pandemic. Lost in the discussion, however, is the importance of before- and after-school programs–the bookends of the school day. 

These before- and after-school programs dedicate a significant amount of time to activities that can help students develop social-emotional skills. In fact, a 2021 survey of program providers found that in addition to academic enrichment, 86 percent of programs give young people the time to interact with their peers and build social skills. Plus, students themselves report that 80 percent of the programs give the students time to talk with peers and adults about how they’re feeling. Yet, staff may not approach every interaction with intention to foster social and emotional growth.

Before- and after-school programs offer critical support, including caring and supportive mentors, as well as safe spaces where students build confidence and a sense of belonging. They also provide opportunities to work collaboratively, problem solve, and think critically. SEL skills are not separate from those activities–SEL is not sprinkled on the cupcake; it’s part of the cupcake. Before- and after-school programs must make every interaction more intentional to complement classroom learning.

These programs help children develop strong social skills, gain self-control and confidence, improve work habits and grades, and build healthy relationships with peers–all the things we want young people to have to be successful. But to ensure that these programs are set up for success, there are two essential questions every program coordinator should ask: “How well do I know my students?” and “How can I ensure my program meets their needs?” 

Running an effective program

SEL should be embedded throughout every program, starting with students’ arrival. How do you greet students when they show up? When a student hears a caring adult say their name, it instills a sense of belonging, supporting self-awareness.  

An overview of the schedule at the beginning of the program is important. Kids need to learn how to self-manage and regulate their emotions. For a young person who is excited for the craft part of the program, understanding what else is on the agenda is key to them mastering the skills of self-management and self-awareness.

The actual activity is when the rubber meets the road. As program directors and administrators, we need to analyze the activities–how much time are they alone, in small groups and in large groups. It is important to outline the program activities so students have an opportunity to participate in all three options and balance between them. As students develop, they must know how to interact at all three levels. If you find that some students don’t perform in large groups, you may have to reevaluate how well you know your students. For example, if behavior problems spike when you do large groups, maybe the answer is that you have too many students in these groups.

Finally, do you have a clearly defined dismissal policy? This is an ideal opportunity to introduce students to social awareness. When your program has an established system of welcoming and dismissing students, it demonstrates consistency. It also helps young people see how their individual behavior fits into the overall success of the program. This is a key component of social awareness, where students understand how they fit into the larger community in various ways. Additionally, it’s a way to model other ways they use social awareness for example while leaving a store or restaurant. It’s a reminder that the SEL skills developed in school are useful in all aspects of life.

For students, SEL is not just limited to the classroom. Before- and after-school programs play an equally important role. With every interaction between staff and students, these bookends to students’ days provide the opportunities to hone these competencies and grow, if there is consistency and intention in programs’ approach.

Key points:

• In-school bullying is a persistent and problematic issue for students–particularly for students with disabilities
• Now, online professional development curriculum can help educators respond to and prevent bullying in school
• See related article: 5 ways bullying changed during the pandemic

Students with disabilities are often bullied and socially excluded in school at a far greater rate than their classmates. To help teachers recognize, respond to and prevent bullying toward these students, researchers at the University of Missouri collaborated to develop an evidence-based, online professional development curriculum.

The curriculum highlights the value of teachers building a strong rapport with their students, noticing changes in student behavior as potential warning signs, incorporating social skills and communication skills into classroom learning objectives, as well as practicing behavior-specific praise in a way that showcases students’ strengths and encourages collaboration with peers.

While the online curriculum has recently been successfully received and implemented by 200 elementary school teachers in a pilot study in the southeastern region of the United States, the researchers hope that, with additional federal funding, the online curriculum can be soon accessed by teachers nationwide.

“Teachers often tell us they don’t feel prepared to address bullying issues at school, especially those complicated cases involving at-risk youth or kids with disabilities,” said Chad Rose, an associate professor in the MU College of Education and Human Development. “Students with disabilities often get bullied more than their peers without a disability. For example, kids with a stutter or kids that may walk or talk differently than their neurotypical peers often get mimicked, which could actually be a violation of federal civil rights laws related to disability-based harassment.”

Given the busy schedules of teachers, Rose and colleagues created an evidence-based online curriculum that can be completed in four hours, compared to most bullying-related professional development courses that take place in-person for a full day and don’t always include evidence-based information. The trainings are broken up into different modules, covering how to recognize and respond to bullying, as well as overall strategies to improve classroom climates in a way that reduce or prevent bullying in the first place.

“In the diverse public school district where we piloted this program, the teachers found it enjoyable and relevant. It increased their knowledge in bullying prevention, and it increased their willingness to intervene when they see bullying happening,” Rose said. “One of the easiest, fastest, simplest and most effective things teachers can do is implement social and communication skills as a learning objective into their already-made lesson plans. Instead of just teaching students math or science, tell them you will be monitoring how well they interact with one another.”

Rose encourages teachers to walk around their classroom and praise students who are having positive interactions with others.

“The two biggest predictors of bullying I have seen throughout my career are deficits in social and communication skills,” Rose said. “If we can improve those two areas, not only will the bullying decrease, but the confidence students have in themselves will increase. That sets them up for success regardless of what they go on to do in their lives.”

Rose explained that students with disabilities are often socially excluded by their peers for being “different” at a much higher rate than other students. In a 2022 study, Rose found that social exclusion is a far more common form of bullying than physical or verbal aggression.

“Imagine trying to learn algebra if you are more focused on if the kid sitting next to you even likes you in the first place,” Rose said. “We don’t all have to be best friends, but we need to be friendly to everyone.”

Rose added that for students who are bullied most often, he encourages them, depending on the situation, to know when to be assertive and to stand up for one’s values system, know when to walk away from a situation, as well as know who to tell if the environment seems unsafe.

“From the students’ perspective, self-advocacy, self-determination, goal setting and knowing how to be assertive without being aggressive is key,” Rose said. “From the teachers’ perspective, we want them to highlight students’ strengths in front of the entire class so that others start to perceive them differently. Some students tend to focus on what makes someone different, but if teachers can give behavior-specific praise when they see good things happening, it can improve the way students look at themselves.”

Rose is the director of the Mizzou Ed Bully Prevention Lab and has been researching bullying prevention for 18 years. He became interested in the topic during his first job out of college as a high school special education teacher working with at-risk youth.

“I want to help the kids who go to bed thinking about what they don’t like about themselves,” Rose said. “If I can help them feel better about themselves by emphasizing what makes them great, that is my ultimate goal.”

Future plans include incorporating bullying “office hours” into the online curriculum so that teachers can reach out to Rose, his collaborators, and their team of bully prevention coaches about specific case studies they may be dealing with in real time.

“Development of online professional development for teachers: Understanding, recognizing, and responding to bullying for students with disabilities” was recently published in Education and Urban Society. Funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

Editor’s note: Rose collaborated with Dorothy L. Espelage from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill on the study. Other authors on the study include Anjali Forber-Pratt, Katherine A. Graves, Rachel A. Hanebutt, America El Sheikh, Ashley Woolweaver, Tracey Kenyon Milarsky, Katherine M. Ingram, Luz Robinson, Angelica M. Gomez, Pam K. Chalfant, Christine Salama and Phil Poekert.

Related: How my 5th graders are taking a stand against bullying

Key points:

• The new school year is a perfect time to remind students and teachers to take care of their mental health
• School leaders should incorporate mental health into teacher training and into the student curriculum
• See related article: This key strategy can help boost teacher well-being immediately

As the new academic year approaches, it’s crucial to pay attention to an aspect of school life that often doesn’t feature prominently in back-to-school prep: mental health. For both educators and students, safeguarding mental health is important to promoting a positive, supportive, and successful educational environment.

Anxiety, stress, and uncertainty can permeate the school atmosphere at the beginning of the year. Teachers might face pressures from lesson planning, meeting new students, or adjusting to changes in curriculum. Students often grapple with academic pressures, extracurricular activities, social dynamics, and the transition from lazy days spent playing on devices to the more structured school day. These collective stressors necessitate an emphasis on mental health support.

The start of the year is an opportune time to establish a proactive mental health strategy. Administrators can incorporate mental health support into teacher training programs, allowing educators to identify signs of stress in themselves and their students. Workshops focusing on coping mechanisms, stress management, and resilience can provide invaluable tools for teachers to employ in their classrooms. Arming teachers with these resources will provide much needed support and normalize talking about mental health in schools at all levels.

For students, integrating mental health education into the curriculum can create an environment that encourages open conversation about mental health struggles and reduces the associated stigma. Providing students with resources like access to counselors, peer support groups, and mindfulness activities can also aid in their mental well-being.

Active engagement from all stakeholders–administrators, teachers, students, and parents–is essential in fostering a mentally healthy school community. Promoting mental health is not solely about managing crises, but also about fostering empathy, and cultivating a supportive, nurturing educational environment.

To prepare for mental health-related issues, I suggest educators engage in intentional check-ins with every student. These check-ins can range from high-fives to more relational dialogues that show the student that they are noticed. Allowing students to share can be a crucial component to fostering a healthy environment. Establishing these connections can also help foster deeper links between students and teachers that will span the year and create a safe working environment.

Additionally, communication with parents is vital. Teachers should encourage families to share any struggles their children might be experiencing. A simple heads up from a parent that their child is struggling can help teachers better understand and support their students. This open dialogue can also help identify students who may need further resources or support. Families can play a large role in their child’s success by being proactive through informative communication.

For students feeling anxious about returning to the classroom, it’s important they know they’re not alone. An open conversation about the reality of their fears, along with normalizing their experiences, will help to diffuse the intensity of their emotions.

Discussing executive functioning skills can also help them to reintegrate and adjust with a greater sense of ease. Reminding students of coping strategies such as plenty of sleep each night, eating a diet low in refined sugars, connecting with friends or trusted adults, getting plenty of exercise, and engaging in alone time to recharge can provide a reprieve from high-pressure situations. It comes down to self-care and healthy habits. From leadership to students, a healthy culture can be a game-changer to kick off a great year.

For the 2023-2024 school year, let’s ensure we’re not just equipping our teachers and students with the academic tools they need to succeed, but also the mental health resources necessary to support their overall well-being. As the focus on mental health in America’s classrooms deepens, instilling open-door policies for support as well as over-communicating available resources will enhance student and staff engagement, retention, and overall well-being.

Related:
Effective SEL instruction isn’t possible without this key element
Creativity in the classroom reduces burnout and improves well-being
New initiative targets online students’ mental health

Key points:

• An inclusive learning culture support high-quality SEL instruction
• UDL makes learning accessible for all students, leading to impactful SEL
• See related article: 5 to thrive: SEL resources to help students grow

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is a critical component of education today, and that’s especially true in the wake of the global pandemic, which has left many students grappling with anxiety, depression, and other social-emotional challenges. While high-quality SEL involves many elements, at its foundation is the need to establish a welcoming and inclusive learning environment for every student.

SEL is the process by which students learn the skills they need to understand and manage their emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. These skills are essential for navigating both academic and non-academic environments successfully, and they’re critical for improving behaviors, attitudes, and educational outcomes.

For SEL instruction to be effective, however, educators must create a welcoming and inclusive learning culture for everyone. As the Global Citizenship Foundation notes: “Fostering welcoming communities, promoting equity and equality, combating discrimination, and developing respect for others are all objectives aligned with SEL.”

It’s not realistic to ask students to develop an understanding of and empathy for diverse people and perspectives if their own needs and perspectives aren’t valued and supported within the classroom environment. Educators must practice and model these ideals for themselves if they expect students to acquire them—and this starts with designing inclusive learning environments in which everyone feels welcome and empowered to reach their full potential.

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the leading authority on SEL instruction, recognizes the importance of inclusive learning environments in teaching SEL. The organization includes “welcoming inclusion activities” in its “3 Signature Practices Playbook,” a guide to implementing systemic SEL instruction in schools.

Aside from CASEL’s advice, here are three other important ways that educators can create learning environments that are welcoming and inclusive of all students.

Implement culturally responsive teaching practices.

Culturally responsive teaching integrates students’ cultures and life experiences into the learning process, such as by choosing culturally diverse teaching materials that reflect a wide variety of perspectives. This practice helps students feel seen and valued as members of the learning community.

Research shows that when students see themselves represented in the classroom, they’re more likely to engage in learning. When students feel like they belong, they become more deeply connected to school and more motivated to succeed. Culturally responsive teaching not only creates a sense of inclusion that leads to deeper engagement; it also helps students connect what they’re learning to their own lives—a strategy that makes learning experiences more personally relevant and meaningful.

Incorporate UDL into the learning design process.

A key way we make learning more inclusive for students at my school is by incorporating the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines into instruction. UDL is an accessibility framework from CAST, the Center for Applied Special Technology, that helps educators develop flexible and inclusive learning environments that can accommodate students’ individual differences and learning preferences.

The UDL Guidelines call for giving students multiple ways to learn content, engage with course materials, and demonstrate their understanding. This allows all students to leverage their unique strengths and skills during the learning process.

Build accessibility into every learning experience.

For every learning activity we design, we ask ourselves: Is this accessible for every student? If not, can we build in modifications so that all students can participate equally?

The learning management system we’ve chosen for our courses, Brightspace by D2L, was created with full accessibility in mind. For example, it includes a tool that generates transcripts of online videos automatically. Many other popular LMS platforms still don’t do this today.

What’s more, we’ve embedded a text-to-speech software program called ReadSpeaker within our LMS. As students access course materials and other resources online, there is a prompt within the margin of the LMS that says: “Listen to this page using ReadSpeaker.” When students click on the “listen” button, they can hear the text read aloud, regardless of its source.

The software reads the characters and then converts the text into an audio file that sounds like a human talking. Students can listen to any text on the page, and they can speed up or slow down the audio as needed. They can enlarge the text, choose from a menu of different voices, or have the text translated for them. They can even download the audio file so they can listen to it on their phone like they would do with a podcast.

By ensuring that all students feel welcome and supported on their educational journey, educators are establishing the foundation upon which successful SEL instruction relies. When students feel valued and included for themselves, they’re much more likely to embrace the message of empathy and respect for others.

Related:
5 essential SEL reads
Advocating for student mental health starts here

Editor’s note: This blog post originally appeared on CoSN’s blog and is reposted here with permissions.

Part of a Blog Series from the Emerging Technologies Committee Leveraging Technology for Improving School Wellness and Safety

The renewed focus on the whole student, specifically on social and emotional needs and growth (social emotional learning – SEL), is certainly a positive direction in K-12 education. Technology leaders and providers have answered the call, with the development or enhancement of digital content and resources to assist teachers and parents in promoting students’ growth. However, perhaps we as edtech and curriculum leaders are overlooking the value of other high impact avenues for addressing those needs.   

Alongside the increased focus on SEL, we have been working to leverage technology to promote more customized, or personalized, learning experiences. I see a distinct overlap between the objectives and outcomes of these two areas of focus. In my former district, leadership has been working for many years to develop paths for learning that optimize student choice and interest.

As an example, several years ago the district transformed coursework to offer personalized learning paths, focused on areas of emerging technology and industry trends. High schools began providing students customized coursework, with intensive areas of focus in career clusters such as health sciences, information technology, STEM, public safety, international law, performing arts and technology, and now even artificial intelligence. To date, the district offers students more than 60 different pathways to high-demand, high-skill, and high wage careers.

As research and practice predicted, students immersed in studies within areas of individual interests experienced secondary (or perhaps primary) benefits of growth in collaborative skills, problem solving, self-regulation, self-efficacy, i.e., social and emotional growth. Technology plays a key role. Teachers must rely heavily on technology to keep up with vetted content in these ever-emerging fields. In addition, the offered pathways are future-focused and in the epicenter of the emerging technologies that will define society’s future.  

The district stretched the skills and concepts of these emerging fields back into the middle and even elementary school content as well. For instance, in a cluster of schools where the high school offers an artificial intelligence (AI) focus, students as early as kindergarten are exposed to AI concepts as consumers. The AI content builds through the grades, helping students move from informed consumers to skilled developers and creators. The content by its very nature embeds supports for students to become effective contributors to society as well as promoting a sense of self worth and efficacy… again, social and emotional skills.  

While not all schools or districts are positioned to provide multiple course programs in an array of fields, all can seek to offer increased choice and personalized options to students. What might otherwise be a heavy lift for development can be eased by ready access to a wealth of digital content, increasingly sophisticated scheduling systems, computer-based curricula, etc. 

Technology now also provides unprecedented support in the design and delivery of more personalized learning experiences, down to the lesson level. Most learning management systems help teachers manage differentiated instruction by using performance data to automate the learning path, allowing students to receive just-in-time, personalized instruction. Through curriculum-based measurement and management tools, teachers can facilitate learning activities exactly where, how and and when students need them.  In fact, many if not most systems now incorporate SEL standards into those learning paths. These tools can truly change the way students learn. We know the myriad benefits for students who are continuously operating in their zone of proximal development, benefits that definitely support students’ social and emotional development. 

It is a struggle to meet all of the demands placed on K-12 education, and they are only growing. We serve ourselves and our students well to look for strategies and mechanisms that not only offer a high return on investment, but also hit multiple targets with a single arrow. The pairing of personalized learning and social emotional supports can be a great example. Let’s keep asking ourselves how we can leverage more customized, personalized, and therefore engaging learning opportunities to help our students grow in social constructs and emotional strength? 

EdTechNext 2023 Blog series:
Download the resource here. 

And listen to the Education meets the universe: The promise and the worry Webinar Archive organized by the Emerging Technologies Committee.

CoSN is vendor neutral and does not endorse products or services. Any mention of a specific solution is for contextual purposes.

Related:
5 to thrive: SEL resources to help students grow

Key points:

• It is imperative for school leaders to understand the dire need for student mental health support
• Partnering with a care coordination service can help bridge mental health support gaps
• See related article: Why student and teacher wellness comes first

For the last 17 years, I have devoted my career to advocating for comprehensive school counseling programs. This is my passion and the focus of my efforts every day. But I did not choose this career path because I had an amazing school counselor in middle school. In fact, it’s the opposite. I did not have access to a school counselor at all. I was in the academic middle and did not need school counseling. Right? WRONG! I was desperate for guidance about my future and was overlooked due to the high student to counselor ratio.  

I do not want what happened to me to happen to other students. School counselors play a vital role in a school’s ecosystem–and it is absolutely paramount to ensure every student has access to the support they need–especially today. 

The latest data shows the ratio of students to school counselors is headed toward its lowest level in 36 years, with an average of 408 students for every counselor. While this is good news, and while I’m proud of the progress we’re making, it is still missing the mark, according to the American School Counselor Association’s (ASCA) recommendation of 250 students to one school counselor. 

With increased awareness of student mental health and the need for student support, many districts are asking themselves: How do we elevate the impact of our school counselors? Here’s how we achieved this at Livingston Middle School in rural California and my advice for other schools looking to improve school counselors’ reach and, in turn, boost student outcomes.  

Understanding the need for student mental health support 

Shortly after we returned to the classroom after the pandemic shutdowns, it became extremely apparent that many of the students at my school were facing serious mental health challenges. I was one of two school counselors at the 800-student middle school and we were used to supporting about 30 students on an ongoing basis.

Upon returning to school, nearly one-quarter of our student population was requesting support from a school counselor — up 566 percent from pre-pandemic levels. We certainly did our best to be there for every student but, in reality, the need far exceeded what we could provide. 

The challenges our students were facing were also very different across grades. Students had just spent a year in a remote learning environment and many were struggling to connect and build relationships again. We also saw more students who were anxious, worried, and fearful. Even though there was a collective sense of grief and trauma, we were determined to use this moment to make a lasting impact on our school and community. 

Engaging in advocacy 

Since I came to Livingston in 2006, the district has always been focused on student mental health. As the lead school counselor, I was given a seat at the table with leadership and that enabled me to take an extremely proactive approach when discussing the benefits of school counselors with administrators. I shared ASCA position papers to set the stage, and shared the latest data to illustrate the importance of school counselors in academics, mental health, and overall student success. At the meetings, we all listened to each other and it was collectively determined that we needed more student mental health support. 

At this time, the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) funding came in and my school allocated funds toward school counselors and services. We received the opportunity to expand and build a program that supports every student–the high-achieving, low-achieving, and students in the academic middle. For the first time in my career as a school counselor, I felt like we had the support to adequately serve all of our students and connect with the community. 

Bridging the support gap 

As one of two school counselors at the school, I quickly realized we were going to need additional resources to meet the vast needs of our middle school students. I received an email from a company that specializes in helping schools navigate the mental health care system. By joining forces with this company, Care Solace, known for care coordination services for K-12 school districts, we extended our student support footprint and increased our impact on the students at Livingston. 

Our partnership opportunity with a care coordination service also expanded access to school counseling through telehealth and hybrid options. It opened up more doors for our students to get help–no matter where they were–when they needed it most.  

Elevating school counselor impact 

With access to additional resources, my school and our district now have a go-to source to power up our commitment to mental health care for our students, staff and their families. Not only have we invigorated our school’s existing support structures, but we are also providing students referrals to providers for needs that exceed the scope of our services. In a rural area with limited resources, this is absolutely essential and creates even more opportunities for student mental health care and support. 

Thanks to the support of our district team and community, we have doubled down on our commitment to the social-emotional wellness of students at Livingston and expanded our dedicated school counselor team to six. We have continually demonstrated the benefits of school counselors and are ultimately improving student outcomes through our efforts every day.  

Even though I can’t go back to middle school and seek out the school counselor I wanted so badly, I can continue to focus on my mission of increasing awareness of school counselors’ impact and the crucial role they play in the big picture. Our students are counting on us, and their success depends on it. Let’s give them the support they need and develop school counselor programs that make a difference. 

Related:
3 strategies to support student well-being and SEL
4 edtech SEL trends to follow this year

Key points:

• SEL skills are vital for students’ success now, and in the future
• Here are tips on how to create a thoughtful and impactful SEL program
• See related article: Why SEL isn’t a dirty word

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is critical for our students as they move through school and as they enter the workforce. Learning to work with others who have different backgrounds and viewpoints, having emotional regulation skills, and being able to navigate social situations are must-have skills that employers prioritize as they seek high-quality employees.

Educators are doing all they can to instill these important SEL skills in students—an even more important goal considering the increasing number of students who are experiencing mental health struggles.

Here are five must-reads about SEL and well-being:

1. It’s important to seek out ways to mobilize students in support of SEL. Many local, regional, and nationwide organizations offer contests and scholarships that ask students to demonstrate how they’re using social and emotional learning in their everyday lives to help themselves, their peers, and their communities.

For example, the PACER Center’s National Bullying Prevention Center engages and empowers kids to combat bullying in all its forms. Through the Students with Solutions contest, students worked together to raise awareness about bullying and encourage children to actively participate in addressing this issue. This challenge amplified their voices and empowered them to inspire and support one another, creating a united front against bullying.

2. Because children spend one-third of their lives in the classroom, schools are a natural setting for students to receive support in a non-stigmatizing and barrier-free environment where they have seamless access to early intervention and treatment in one location. School-based mental health care also presents a unique opportunity for us to eliminate barriers to accessing care. Other benefits include students missing less of their classes, parents not having to call out of work to bring their child to appointments, giving parents the ability to attend their child’s appointments virtually, and more opportunity for collaboration between school staff and mental health professionals. 

3. One district developed a comprehensive mental health policy after asking student representatives about SEL skills and support needed by the student body. Data reflects these needs–a survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in three high school students experienced poor mental health during the pandemic, and nearly half of all students felt persistently hopeless. The Tempe Union High School District has centered its focus on prioritizing student mental health. The district uses a three-pronged approach of enacting a policy, engaging internal staff, and using third-party resources to identify three areas of opportunity for mental health resources: improving wait time for care, embedding a seamless staffing model, and encouraging mental health conversations.

4. As more districts implement SEL programs, it’s important to take a multi-pronged approach to SEL. Prioritizing SEL at the district level, finding programs that help cover multiple bases, and practicing and rewarding positive behavior. Adopting an online student safety and wellness course is another way to connect students with valuable and critical SEL content.  

5. Trends come and go, but it’s not a bad idea to track SEL trends to make sure you’re aware of new resources, changes, etc. Some of the most recent SEL trends include on-demand professional development; bite-sized social family communications that help parents, guardians, and caregivers obtain critical information in just a few minutes.

Related:
As Seattle schools sue social media companies, what’s the legal impact?
3 strategies to support student well-being and SEL

Key points:

• SEL teaches students to think and behave like healthy, mature adults
• SEL helps students become better learners and take ownership of that learning

Every educator hopes to equip their students with the knowledge they need to thrive as a healthy adult. It’s a daunting task, especially considering there is so much to teach in such a small amount of time.

We want students to fall in love with reading while building up skills in language and grammar. We try to show them that math and science can be outlets of wonder and imagination, while also grounding them in foundations of history and social studies. And yet, out of all the knowledge at our disposal, fostering healthy social-emotional learning (SEL) may be the most important lesson that we impart to our students.   

According to CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, SEL is “the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.”

In other words, SEL is about teaching students how to think and behave like healthy, mature adults. This is certainly a worthy goal, but how exactly do we go about teaching this? Well, there is no one-size-fits-all method for teaching SEL, but there are resources that teachers can draw on to start applying these principles in the classroom.

Here are just a few tools for teachers looking to implement social-emotional learning in their classroom:

1. CASEL: As mentioned, CASEL is the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. CASEL is helping make evidence-based social and emotional learning an integral part of education from preschool through high school. It offers many free resources for educators that support this work.

2. Peace First: Peace First is an organization dedicated to building future leaders who can solve problems by connecting with others through compassion, standing up for ideals and others with courage, and creating collaborative change. This is a resource worthy of getting to know better. Peace First currently has a focus on supporting young people ages 13-25 to create a more compassionate, just, and peaceful world by providing digital tools, community support, start-up funding and stories that celebrate their social change journeys and impact.

3. Second Step: Second Step is a comprehensive SEL program available for schools to purchase. However, the website’s free resources can also be incredibly helpful. These include a selection of lessons, activities, and materials for early learners, families, and educators.

4. Kindness Curriculum: The Kindness Curriculum is inspired with the mission to make the world a kinder place. The Kindness Factory, Kaplan academics, Kindness ambassadors, and the community have collaborated to create activities that promote kindness attributes to children and students. The free resources available are both practical and engaging, and these offerings are quite extensive. Best of all, they are inquiry-oriented with lots of opportunities to get students thinking.

5. Truth Be Told: Truth Be Told includes activities that help teens truly process key social emotional learning concepts. Great for middle and high school classes, these SEL activities use quotes, along with a variety of learning strategies, to help teens understand social emotional learning topics including healthy decision making, reducing risk, communication skills, positive interpersonal relationships, self-awareness, acceptance and inclusion, responsibility, and more.

Social-emotional learning can seem intimidating at first, but with patience and time, students won’t just become better learners, they’ll become better people. So, take a moment and explore the fundamentals of social-emotional learning. The maturity gained from SEL skills will support students long after they’ve left the classroom, and for an educator, that type of knowledge is priceless.     

Related:
Why SEL is the foundation of Future Schools
How did the pandemic impact students’ social capital?

Unseen and often silent, the shadows of bullying loom within the walls of schools, casting a dark cloud over the lives of countless students. The PACER Center’s National Bullying Prevention Center engages and empowers kids to combat bullying in all its forms. Through the Students with Solutions contest, my 5^th grade students worked together to raise awareness about bullying and encourage children to actively participate in addressing this issue. This challenge amplified their voices and empowered them to inspire and support one another, creating a united front against bullying.

The winning entry within the “Student with Solutions” national anti-bullying competition this year is a video by my two 5^th grade classes within the Birmingham City Schools System. The students wrote, filmed, and edited the video. It inspires unity and support, drawing from the students’ experiences, with the main message being that bullying hurts and everyone matters.

Students enjoy technology, so being able to integrate technology in an academic setting is highly advantageous. In this instance, we were able to combine social-emotional learning and technology, which are both important in this day and age.

Bullying refers to repeated and intentional aggressive behavior, where one or more individuals target another person to harm, intimidate, or exert control over them. Bullying can take various forms, including:

Physical bullying: This includes physical acts of aggression, such as hitting, kicking, pushing, tripping, or damaging someone’s belongings.

Verbal bullying: Verbal bullying involves using words, gestures, or language to hurt, belittle, insult, tease, or intimidate others. It includes name-calling, taunting, mocking, or making derogatory remarks about someone’s appearance, abilities, or characteristics.

Relational bullying: Also known as social bullying, it focuses on manipulating social relationships to harm others. It includes excluding someone from a group, spreading rumors, gossiping, publicly embarrassing them, or intentionally damaging their reputation.

Cyberbullying: With the rise of digital communication, cyberbullying has become a prevalent form of bullying in schools. It occurs through electronic devices and platforms such as social media, text messages, emails, online forums, or gaming platforms. Cyberbullying can involve sending hurtful messages, spreading rumors, sharing embarrassing content, or engaging in online harassment.

The connection between bullying and mental health

Exploring the connection between bullying and mental health is paramount. Bullying profoundly affects a person’s psychological well-being, especially when the victim is a child. The emotional toll of constant harassment, fear, and isolation can disrupt one’s overall mental state and lead to heightened stress levels and a diminished sense of self-worth. Victims often experience fear, sadness, and anger, which increases the risk of developing mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.

Bullying can also result in social isolation and have long-term effects, impacting individuals well into adulthood. Recognizing the connection between bullying and mental health underscores the importance of early intervention, support systems, and creating safe and inclusive environments that prioritize empathy and compassion.

Building social and emotional skills

While academic subjects such as math, reading, science, and social studies are essential, promoting a sense of happiness and safety among students is equally imperative. Student-involved antibullying campaigns, such as “Students with Solutions,” significantly promote social and emotional learning among students. Social and emotional learning (SEL) is acquiring the knowledge, attitudes, and skills to understand and manage emotions and navigate social interactions. Bullying is often a maladaptive coping mechanism toward internal emotional turmoil or pressure exerted by external social factors. Unfortunately, it also causes significant emotional distress to the victims. SEL can cultivate empathy by helping students understand the emotional toll of bullying on individuals.

Reflecting on their behavior, students gain self-awareness and learn to regulate their emotions effectively. They develop critical thinking and ethical judgment through responsible decision-making, empowering them to intervene against bullying. These campaigns also foster a positive school climate where social and emotional well-being is prioritized, creating an environment where students feel safe, respected, and empowered.

Creating a positive and lasting impact

Harnessing the power of student experiences and active participation can be a transformative approach to combating bullying. Most students have encountered bullying in some form or other as victims, observers, or perpetrators.

Cultivating a supportive and inclusive school environment is possible by tapping into these encounters and empowering them to take a stand. Students can become advocates for change, driving awareness, empathy, and understanding among their peers. Through their stories, ideas, and actions, they become catalysts for creating a culture where bullying is confronted head-on, fostering a community that values kindness, respect, and compassion. 

We forge a powerful alliance against this pervasive issue by amplifying student voices. We are fostering a generation of upstanders who champion empathy and help build a safer and more inclusive school environment for all.

The hope is that when students learn about bullying at a young age, it instills positive community values that enable them to choose compassion over cruelty, even in adulthood. They become advocates for kindness, creating lasting change in their communities, schools, and even the wider world.

Related:
3 key parts of this district’s student mental health support

Key points:

• Social emotional learning looks to evidence-based classroom practices to support a critical development in children
• Educators can employ several strategies to deal with the politicization of social emotional learning
• See related article: 3 key parts of this district’s student mental health support

The concept of social emotional learning​​ (SEL) has been around for 30 years—a bit of esoteric, if well-meaning, academia intended to improve the way kids are taught. Post-pandemic, the phrase has somehow entered the culture wars leaving educators with a delicate balance between implementing these essential concepts without becoming politicized. 

If the pandemic taught us nothing else, it’s that the mental health of students is the first and foremost concern to successful teaching and learning—not to mention their parents, teachers, and everyone else associated with that student’s learning experience. So how can educators and admins cope? We sat down with Justina Schlund, Vice President of Communications at Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) to bang out some specific strategies for schools to employ if this becomes an issue in your district. Scroll down for some of the transcribed and edited highlights:

ESN: It’s best to start at the beginning. What is CASEL’s definition of SEL?

JS: You can look on our website for the official definition but basically, social and emotional learning is about developing all of the skills that last a lifetime. Things like staying motivated, communicating really effectively, understanding other people, and making decisions that are good for ourselves, and the community around us. So it is a sort of developmental process that happens from the time we were born, and now throughout our adulthood.

What the field of social emotional learning then has done has said, if this developmental process is so important, what are some of the evidence-based practices that we can do in classrooms to really support this development of children? And what that has involved? What does this look like in a school or a classroom? 

There are lots of different approaches and ways to do it. Number one, it involves developing really positive strong relationships with and for students, between their teachers, and with their peers. There’s a lot of research that shows that when students feel supported when they feel respected in a classroom, they tend to do better on their schoolwork, right? 

It also involves being really intentional about how we teach academic subjects so that we’re letting children connect both socially and emotionally. So that means that it might be like teamwork, right? I’m having an opportunity to not just learn from the teacher, but I have an opportunity to discuss that idea to see how I personally connect with that idea to have an emotional reaction to it. 

And then thirdly, what most people will traditionally think about is perhaps a program in a classroom that has a scope and sequence that says “Today we’re going to learn about empathy,” or, “Today we’re going to learn about teamwork.” And I’m going to really explicitly put a name to those skills and teach that so that students are able to then take that skill and apply it across their lives.

ESN: What do you make of these recent media reports of SEL getting up in these school board culture wars?

JS: There are definitely earnest concerns and conversations and questions around social emotional learning that I think need to be surfaced. The concern is that parents want more attention to SEL, and they want it done right. They want it done in a way that’s effective for their children. This is versus this political narrative that we’ve seen in many aspects of education right now, which is oftentimes a deliberate misinformation campaign. It’s coming from politicians and extremist groups, really trying to create a wedge issue here. 

And I think that is separate from the actual concerns of parents and educators on the ground. The politics are a distraction at a moment when we should all be focused on the recovery of our kids right now. And there’s a long way to recovery.

ESN: So how can educators deal with this?

JS: Most parents, contrary to what some of the politics may have you believe, take the term SEL at face value. They support it. Now, they want to know what does this actually look like in the classroom and what does this actually mean for their kid. And that’s what I would say is the biggest strategy, particularly for educators is to open that bridge with families and parents and to really begin the conversation away from all the education terms and the jargon…I’m thinking about this educator who we spoke with recently, who shared that he had some pushback from parents. And you know what he did? He said, “Come to my classroom, come see for yourself, what it looks like.” And he invited the parents into his classroom, and I believe a handful of them came and watched what he was doing on a day-to-day basis, both the explicit teaching of SEL, as well as how he was naturally creating these relationships with kids. And he said, at the end of that visit, all of them said to him, “You know what, you’re right. This is something that I want for my kids. And you know, this looks drastically different than this crazy news story I read or this thing that this politician shared.” And that’s what I think needs to happen right now is really like having those conversations because there’s a lot more shared ground than we might think given the media narrative.

ESN: So how does all of this play out?

JS: I hope people are slowly coming to their senses around it. I am seeing some movement there. In Montana recently, there was a state legislator who tried to introduce a bill banning social and emotional learning. And at the hearing, so many educators and parents came and spoke up and said, “No, this is what it actually looks like. This is what we’re doing.” that the Republican legislator—you can see this on video too—she turns around at the end of this hearing. And she said, “You guys have taught me so much. I didn’t have a clear vision of what social emotional learning is. And I could see, I could hear clearly that it is effective, and we need it right now.” And she basically declined to move that bill forward. And it’s all but dead right now. And that’s a state legislator. So I think I think there is an opportunity for movement and growth and a better understanding of what kids need.

Related:
Why SEL is the foundation of Future Schools
How did the pandemic impact students’ social capital?

One of many post-pandemic truths exposed and emphasized is that learning outcomes suffer without proper student mental health measures.

In this episode of Innovations in Education, host Kevin Hogan has a conversation with Sonny Thadani, CEO of Robin, to explore how SEL can be integrated into district policies and school curricula. The key? Get everyone involved.

When GEMS American Academy returned to in-person schooling after the COVID shutdowns, one of the first things our positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) team noticed was that we had a significant increase in behavior problems. We knew that our students would respond well to rewards for positive behaviors, but in the past, we found it difficult to manage a schoolwide system and to ensure it was used consistently by teachers.

We decided to continue using our updated House system, CritterCoin, to track positive behaviors and manage rewards, and took some extra steps to encourage teachers to use it. Each year our use of the system has grown. In year one, some teachers struggled to make the transition, but those same teachers are now taking the lead in using it to encourage positive behaviors in their classrooms. Here’s how we’ve been working to bring teachers and students on board.

Addressing Negative Behaviors

Though we believe the most effective way to improve student behavior is to encourage positive behaviors, negative behaviors don’t just go away if we ignore them. In order to be able to fully address them, we need to have the necessary data to be able to identify key areas of concern. We’d previously been using a shared Google form where all teachers could log negative behaviors, but this data can easily be lost and is hard to track. Due to those struggles, we are moving our behavior tracking system over to PowerSchool so that our admin is able to see the log of information for any student for as long as they are in our school.

Once that data is all collected together, we can see patterns, such as cohorts of students who are having a difficult time or problem areas in the school where incidents tend to occur more frequently. If we notice that young students are frequently having issues in the bathroom, for example, we will send lesson plans to the teachers in those early grades so that they can take their students to the bathroom—or wherever else the behavior is occurring—and teach them what the expected behaviors in that place are.

We also have posters printed to put up in specific areas, such as the hallways, bathrooms, classrooms, auditorium, outdoor play areas, and even on the iPad and laptop trolleys. These also focus on the positive behaviors we’d like to see in those areas, which are all based on our four values. Those attributes are that we are Respectful, we take Ownership, we have a positive Attitude, and we are Responsible. Our school mascot is a wildcat, so we use the acronym ROAR to help students remember these attributes.

How Our PBIS System Works

To award and track points by students and by House, we use the CritterCoin system. Right now we have two separate systems because our secondary students were using a different set of values to identify positive behaviors, but we plan to combine the two with a single set of shared attributes in the next few years. We also plan to add a school-wide display with the running House totals at the same time.

Aside from the values, both systems work the same. Students are divided into four Houses, with some students from each grade in each House. Teachers can award individual students custom-designed 3D digital coins, each of which have a set point value, for exhibiting positive behaviors. Students can use the points to buy prizes whenever they want, though they must save over time to earn enough for the most exciting prizes. Each time a student earns a coin, they earn reward points for themselves and also points for their House.

Teachers can assign points from their phones, laptops, or any device with an internet connection. One of our teachers who didn’t hand out a single coin to students last year has awarded by far the most this year. He pulls up the class list on his laptop at the beginning of each period and displays it on the board for everyone to see, and then he can easily award students coins for positive behavior throughout class without interrupting instruction at all. This has led to fewer behavior concerns during his lessons.

In the elementary school, we have two competitions each year, one per semester, and the winning House gets an ice cream party or some other collective award.

Early on, one student complained to me that she didn’t want to spend her coins because there was nothing in the store she wanted. So, I asked her to talk with the other students and give me a list of things they would like to purchase with their coins. They had such charming ideas—such as notebooks with their House symbols on the front, House pencils, and Rubik’s Cubes—that I now make it a point to ask them regularly for suggestions. Adding rewards that teachers would like to see is just as easy. They just tell me what they want it to be, how many points they think it should take to earn it, and I add it into the system.

At first, we had a few experiential rewards, but we found they were not used very often. Eventually we decided to replace them with generic rewards of various values (5 points, 10 points, 20 points, 50 points, 100 points). The idea behind this is that it allows the teachers and students to have more agency and voice to choose the rewards and also to decide how much they should cost. Some examples are getting extra recess time or VIP seating in the classroom. These awards give teachers more leeway in rewarding their students with experiences that will be meaningful to them, instead of choosing from a list the whole school uses.

Earning Teacher Buy-In

No matter how easy a new system is to use, it takes some teachers time to dive in. They have to think about the House system in order to award points in it, and it simply won’t be front of mind on day one.

In the earlier grades, where teachers have been slower to begin using the system, students themselves have helped bring their own teachers on board. They see older students with things like House backpacks that are only available through the CritterCoin store and immediately want them. They let their teachers know they need coins so they can have the cool gear the big kids have.

But sometimes the whole school needs a reminder that Houses are an important part of building a positive culture on campus. Recently, we decided to increase teacher engagement with the system using the positive incentive of free cookies and coffee. Once teachers had a cookie in hand, we asked them how CritterCoin was working for them in class.

Sure, we leveraged a bit of guilt to bring them on board, but just as with the PBIS system as a whole, the focus was on a positive experience to reinforce the behaviors we want to see. If you catch more flies with honey, we think we’ll catch more teachers with cookies—and they’ll in turn catch more students with coins.

Related:
Using house points and digital coins to promote school values

Technology has become increasingly important to every level of education, and its value to social-emotional learning, or SEL, is no exception. Just as digital tools provide educators with innovative and flexible ways to reinforce learning in core academic subjects, they can be used to more effectively teach the social-emotional and life skills that students need to thrive in the classroom and beyond.

An essential part of my role as vice president of product for Committee for Children, an industry leader in SEL, is to keep a close eye on trends in education technology. After spending more than 25 years in edtech, I know how crucial it is for educators to understand how to leverage technology to support SEL in practical, meaningful ways.

Here are four of the latest SEL edtech trends that districts and schools can use this year to support the social-emotional well-being of students and staff, enhance students’ engagement with SEL content, and improve family communications.

Trend 1: On-Demand Professional Development

Professional development (PD) that strengthens educator well-being is a crucial and sometimes overlooked part of SEL for students. With teacher turnover rates on the rise, sustained, meaningful investments in the mental wellness of educators should be a top priority for school and district leaders. Professional learning that’s rooted in SEL can help by giving staff tools to manage stress, build trust, and increase resilience.

Higher levels of educator well-being also benefit students. Research shows that teachers with strong social-emotional skills have better relationships with students, enhanced instructional quality, and improved classroom climate.

However, the last thing teachers need is more work on their plates. I’ve seen time and again how leaders can help create buy-in by choosing a program that works for teachers’ busy schedules. It’s increasingly important that teachers can access PD online and on demand. This way, they can engage in learning on their own, and in their own time, rather than at costly, all-day conferences.

Districts nationwide are providing ongoing education for staff, with an increased focus on skill development and flexible learning. The incremental nature of on-demand PD gives teachers take-aways they can use immediately while allowing for consistent practice and growth throughout the year. This presents them with the ability and opportunity to infuse SEL throughout the school day and across disciplines to support students’ development. 

Trend 2: Bite-Sized, Social Family Communications

Communication with families has always been essential for schools and districts, but in the last few years, I’ve seen an increased demand for bite-sized, highly focused messages. Gone are the days of the three-page newsletter—there’s just no time! Families are already inundated with communications from schools, their own work, and everything in between.

Educators are finding that fun video- and audio-based communications are an effective way to share information. Whether they take the form of TikTok-style videos, texts, or app-based messages, to-the-point digital communications are a great way to keep families engaged in their children’s social-emotional learning.

When communications are more accessible, they can also be more equitable. In-person meetings or long Zoom calls require time, equipment, and other resources that families may not have. Language can be another barrier to family communication (the National Education Association estimates that by 2025, one of four children in U.S. classrooms will be English-language learner students), but some messaging tools include translation features to help everyone in the school community stay connected.

Trend 3: Gamified SEL

It’s no secret that video and online games are a huge part of many children’s lives. Transferring students’ enthusiasm for digital games to the classroom is a great way to keep them motivated and engaged—and enhance their social-emotional development. A research-based approach to gamified SEL gives students the opportunity to practice and strengthen social-emotional skills in fun, interactive, low-stakes ways.

Introducing gaming into the classroom is also a way to observe and develop the social-emotional skills kids may have already started to learn in their personal gaming at home, such as working with others and making decisions as a team. Research has shown that popular games like Minecraft can be used in the classroom to foster social connectedness and collaboration and support learning across subject areas.

Trend 4: Digital Check-Ins and Pulse Surveys

It’s valuable for educators to be able to get quick and meaningful feedback about the social-emotional climate in schools and classrooms. Simple tech tools like digital word clouds, polls, and gamified quizzes are a great way to take a “pulse check” on how students and educators are feeling in the moment.

Over time, this data may show trends in moods, behaviors, and performance. For example, feedback might reveal that students are less engaged on the first day after a long break, more enthusiastic on Thursdays, or sleepier in the first week of daylight savings. Teachers can use these insights to adapt their approach and set students up for success.

Additionally, digital SEL programs may include tracking tools, data reports, and self-assessments that capture in-the-moment information about individual and classroom progress. When leaders are more informed about the well-being and performance of their students and staff, they can better support SEL implementation and strengthen school climate.

More Technology, More Possibilities for SEL

As the volume and variety of technology that’s available to educators continues to expand, so do the possibilities for how these tools can be applied in the classroom. Throughout my career, I’ve seen edtech evolve in its ability to give teachers more options for efficient, flexible, and responsive instruction.

When applied to SEL, these tools can also help you strengthen staff and educator well-being, reinforce students’ social-emotional development, engage and connect families, and gather insights to support learning. By leveraging a few of these latest tech trends, you can create opportunities for serious enhancements to the social-emotional well-being of everyone in your school communities.

Related:
SEL is an educator essential
Prioritizing teacher well-being can help schools retain talent

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is an approach to learning that focuses on the social and emotional skills necessary for students to succeed in school and life. SEL is not new, but it has recently gained momentum as more educators recognize the importance of teaching social and emotional skills.

With this new approach, schools focus on developing students’ social and emotional skills to help them succeed academically and socially. Emotional intelligence is the capacity to identify and manage one’s emotions and those of others, use emotional information in thinking, and understand the emotional significance of events.

What are the Benefits of SEL?

SEL is a process that helps people manage their emotions, develop social skills, and build relationships. It’s a way to help children and adults become more aware of the world around them. It also helps them develop better relationships with others. SEL is a process that helps students develop critical social and emotional skills. The goal is to help children become more successful in school and life. The benefits of SEL are numerous. For one, it helps children develop self-awareness, which can be an essential aspect of success. Secondly, it can help reduce bullying behavior because children learn how to identify the emotions of others and how to manage their own emotions. Finally, it has been shown to reduce aggression in students and increase academic achievement. SEL is not just about overcoming challenges or dealing with difficult situations. It’s about developing the skills necessary for success in life.

How to Implement SEL in Schools?

SEL is a type of education that focuses on children’s social and emotional development. It helps students develop skills in empathy, self-awareness, self-management, interpersonal relationships, responsible decision-making, and the ability to control impulses. SEL aims to foster a healthy school climate by providing opportunities for all students to learn about their emotions and how they affect themselves and others. There are many ways to implement SEL in schools, but it is important to remember that this must be done in a meaningful and effective way for the students. SEL strategies are a vital part of a teacher’s toolkit. They help students develop the skills they need to succeed in the classroom and beyond.

The three most common SEL strategies teachers use are:

1) Teaching self-awareness: Students learn to recognize their own feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. They also learn how these affect others and themselves.

2) Teaching social awareness: Students learn about different cultures, groups, and relationships between people.

3) Teaching responsible decision-making: Students learn how to make decisions that will result in positive outcomes for themselves and others.

Teaching students to control their behavior and emotions is a relatively new one for teachers to consider. However, changes in family dynamics, the rise of social media, and increased technology use have necessitated a shift. Teachers should set clear goals for students, provide feedback on work, and maintain a positive classroom environment to encourage self-regulation skills.

The Importance of Teaching Students Social-Emotional Skills

The importance of teaching students social and emotional skills is not to be underestimated. It is challenging to know how much these skills will affect a student’s life, but it is clear that they have the potential to make a huge impact. Students developing social and emotional skills are more likely to succeed in school and their future careers. They are more likely to have better relationships with their peers, teachers, and parents. They are also less likely to experience mental health conditions like anxiety or depression.

As the world becomes more connected and technology advances, we are seeing a shift in how children are raised. This change has led to an increase in mental health issues in children. Teaching social-emotional skills can help children develop these skills and lead them to be more successful in life. Social-emotional skills are essential for every child to learn, and they can be taught through everyday interactions with other people, such as teachers, parents, or even peers. These skills include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

Related:
What SEL teaches us about safety
Teachers can’t keep up with the need for SEL

As was the case for so many other therapists working with children and families, March 2020 felt overwhelming in our center for child and family therapy. From seeing clients in-person all day in our client-centered, carefully designed therapy rooms equipped with all the therapeutic tools that a child therapist might need to engage a child in the hard work of therapy, we scrambled to figure out a way to transfer our clinical tools to the virtual realm. The transition from using toys, games, animal assisted therapy, art, music, movement, and parent-child attunement enhancing interventions to connecting through a digital screen seemed at times to be an impossible mission.

The transition was especially challenging for our very young clients and those who appeared to have significant struggles with the adjustment to virtual education. Even after weeks of creating and identifying multiple virtual tools that enabled us to engage most of our clients in expressive ways to process their experiences and share their internal worlds with us, we consistently received skeptical messages from parents who were certain that their child would not be able to effectively use a virtual platform for their therapy work.

We were convinced that we would be eager to return to our carefully designed, in-person therapy rooms as soon as we possibly could safely do so. Little did we know that we would not only find the virtual therapeutic tools to be highly effective, even in some of our most challenging and complex cases, but we would also discover that there are many unexpected and valuable therapeutic benefits that come with this virtual approach to providing child and family mental health therapy services. 

Logistical and Therapeutic Benefits of Virtual Therapy

The benefits of virtual therapy are both logistic and therapeutic. Parents have found that avoiding the “schlep” has been a significant help for them in their overly scheduled family-lives. In addition, the common reasons for canceling sessions have been greatly reduced, allowing for a consistent and predictable therapy schedule for children, which are significant factors in the efficacy of treatment and child-therapist relationships.

Related:
Teletherapy’s crucial role in reaching remote students
COVID-era teletherapy authorizations are expiring, but the problem persists

Therapeutically, we have been able to include family members (especially furry family members!) in new ways. When animals/pets are included in therapy, children feel more comfortable and open to process difficult thoughts and feelings. Connecting from the comfort (or for some, the discomfort) of their own personal environment encourages clients to share more fully and deeply about themselves and their home lives. They are able to show us their rooms, their favorite stuffed animals, and the reality of their family-life burdens. We observed this to be a clear benefit when one of our clients who had been in treatment for over a year began revealing family difficulties that they (and their parents) had kept protected until the therapist was able to “be in their home” virtually. While the treatment had been slow to progress during in-person sessions, the family dynamics were more distinctly revealed during virtual sessions, and the treatment started progressing in a more targeted way towards healing and repair.

“Being invited to our clients’ homes” also allows us to observe our clients’ experiences in their natural environments, rather than relying on reports and different perceptions. This proved to be highly valuable not only for our clinical assessments, but also for our ability to more accurately understand some of the environmental context as we witnessed some of these events and relationship dynamics first-hand. While these benefits became clear as we witnessed more and more therapeutic progress in our clients, we also had many hurdles to overcome; especially when it came to enhancing the efficacy and children’s (and parents’) willingness to engage in virtual therapy.

Challenges of Virtual Therapy

The transition to online sessions posed some significant challenges to the three main areas we consider to be crucial for the establishment of the sense of safety and trust that are at the root of the therapeutic relationship: How would a child feel connected, represented, and reflected with two screens and many miles between us?

Based on our training and previous experience, it seemed inconceivable to us that an authentic, trusting therapeutic connection could be created when the therapist and the client were not sharing the same physical space. A strong sense of connection reduces cortisol and increases dopamine, promoting client’s availability for therapeutic processing as well as resource- and skill-building. Many of the modalities we had been using for the purpose of promoting such a sense of connection (such as Theraplay®, sensory motor therapy, somatic therapy, expressive therapy, nature therapy, and animal-assisted therapy) are based on the therapist’s ability to incorporate playfulness, presence, eye contact, and touch. While we quickly found ways to be playful and engaging on a virtual platform, not sharing the same physical space made it challenging to demonstrate attuned presence, while use of eye contact and touch became impossible.

The physical distance, combined with the limited ability to notice important nervous system signals such as subtle nonverbal cues including the breath and the energy level of our clients, posed significant barriers to our ability to “accurately read” our clients’ mental state in order to effectively connect and intervene.    

Furthermore, the materials we had selected to share with clients in our office had been carefully selected and designed to demonstrate positive representations of our clients, their unique attributes, cultural diversity, different abilities, mobilities, areas of strengths and needs, and areas of interests. Research shows that self-representation leads to an increase in:

• Self-esteem;
• Sense of belonging and comfort in social settings;
• Understanding of self and others;
• Pride in your own identity; and
• Capacity for learning.

We wondered if seeing our clients virtually would allow them to feel welcomed and represented in the same ways. Infusing diverse representation requires a level of attention to details that did not seem to be as widely available in the commonly used online therapy tools. According to NAEYC.org, a social setting that doesn’t reflect and validate children’s diverse identity may lead children to feel invisible, unimportant, incompetent, and ashamed of who they are. These feelings stand in complete contrast to what we work so hard to foster in our safe, affirming, and normalizing therapy settings.

Techniques such as reflective statements, head nods, eye movement, and synchronized breathing are widely used in therapy to foster a sense of security and safety between a therapist and a client. This careful and intentional reflection by the therapist will provide them with the supportive messages of, “my feelings make sense and are ok to feel.”  By paying close attention to both their nonverbal and verbal communication and attempting to reflect it back, we can co-regulate our client’s nervous system and help them feel seen, heard, understood, and contained, which enables children to form an organized and integrated framework for processing and articulating their experiences and internal worlds.

This response to reflections can be explained by mirror neurons, which are a group of neurons that activate in our brain when we perform an action that mirrors another person’s action, or when we see our own action being performed by others. These neurons are active in human babies from birth and are considered crucial for our species’ survival. As Dan Siegel explains, a predictable sequence of motor actions being perceived by a series of sensory inputs creates a clear neuro-mapping of behavioral intentions that will determine the level of safety and security that a person can feel during an interaction with another person. Since virtual platforms limit our view of each other’s body language, and with connection through mirror neurons being necessary in order to build empathy, reciprocity, theory of mind, and other skills that are foundational for our capacity to form human connections and foster a sense of security in relationships, it was clear that we would need to find ways to “fire up” our mirror neurons within the limitations of the square screen.

Once we were able to identify these possible barriers in using virtual platforms for therapy with children, we were determined to find tools that would enable us to continue practicing in ways that address what we consider to be at the root of the therapeutic relationship: connection, reflection, and representation. Here is a list of some of the tools we found to be highly effective in overcoming these barriers. 

Activities for Connection and Reflection While Apart

Theraplay© activities focus on four different dimensions of the parent-child relationships: engagement, challenge, structure, and nurture. These activities allow us to work with clients of all ages from prenatal to adolescents, along with siblings and caregivers by targeting the areas of needs in their relationships and enhancing the areas of strengths. Since we know that in-person Theraplay® activities are designed to activate our mirror neurons in order to facilitate deep connections and enhance attachments, we turned to these activities for our virtual sessions. In fact, in the spring of 2020 the Theraplay® Institute quickly rolled out modified virtual versions of attachment and connection enhancement activities which also included synchronicity as a newly discussed key element of connection.

One especially effective activity is the mirror game, where the therapist and client take turns moving their hands, head, and even facial expression as the “leader” while the other follows as the “mirror.” We also built special handshakes by bumping our fists, noses or elbows to the camera. These, along with other Theraplay© activities, are now part of our routines for opening and closing virtual sessions in order to establish and maintain reflection and connection with our clients. For example, a 6-year-old who had difficulty feeling connected on the virtual platform kept her camera off and stayed muted during school. She was enrolled in our virtual connection therapy group due to her severe anxiety about participating on screen. After observing her group peers creating their special handshake, each adding a new move to make it longer and more challenging, the screen came on with a monkey stuffed animal face, rather than the client’s face. The “monkey” joined in the handshake!

After three weeks of participating via the monkey, the client felt comfortable and connected enough to join the handshake, and soon after that, to join the entire group session. Not only did the client make these gains in the therapy group, but when we informed her teacher about this connection strategy, it enabled the client to increase participation and decrease anxiety during the difficult days of virtual school. One of her parents even started using the special handshake with her first thing in the morning to start the day off feeling connected!                                   

Virtual Tool for Expression and Representation

Pixton is an online comic creator that offers children an opportunity to design their virtual characters (aka avatars) and create comics, stories, and narratives in fun and engaging ways. This type of tool allows clients the ability to explore different experiences with an enhanced sense of safety that is created by each child’s ability to choose their own comfort level with the emotional distance from their characters and the narrative they represent.

For example, some children are comfortable being direct and using their own character and experiences, while others might feel a need to create additional layers of emotional safety by writing about a different character or an imaginative experience. In addition, because it provides character templates and pre-made backgrounds, Pixton allows children to tell their stories without the artistic skills limitations that so often become a barrier to children’s self-expression.

Furthermore, Pixton offers a highly diverse and inclusive array of options for the creation of characters that enable all children to feel fully and accurately represented. Options include non-binary gender expression, assistive technology and mobility devices, culturally diverse articles of clothing, diverse religious settings and symbols, many skin tones, different body shapes, and unlimited options for family structures.

By using Pixton during virtual sessions, we quickly saw clients making choices to represent themselves as they are, as they hoped to be, or as they might fear to be perceived by others. One of our adolescent clients shared that he fears being perceived as feminine through designing his Pixton avatar to look feminine and choosing non-binary clothing. This client’s experience of representation led the way to further exploring his gender, sexuality, and self-identity as well as his social anxiety as it relates to his identity—a significant breakthrough in his treatment. One of our 5-year-old clients with significant mobility and physical limitations accurately represented herself using a wheelchair, and then created her avatar to look like a powerful superhero! Her experience of representation allowed her to process and explore both her limitations and her unique strengths and resources. 

Creating Your Virtual Therapy Setting to Foster Connection, Reflection, and Representation

In many cultures “mental health is often perceived as a harmonious balance between a person’s internal and external influences. Thus, a person is intrinsically linked to their environment and vice versa.” What you surround yourself with on your virtual screen matters! Put careful thought into designing your virtual setting in a way that will be engaging to your clients and to represent their internal world. Your background will set the tone for how connected, reflected, and represented your clients feel during their virtual sessions. Ensure that your camera is not facing a door, as doors represent possibility for disruption and might decrease your clients’ sense of containment, and therefore can hinder their sense of connection. 

Consider intentionally placing interactive toys like a Kimochi with a wide array of feelings that can be experienced at the same time, a Feisty Pet that shows anger, and books, posters, and toys that reflect meaningful representations of differences. Tools and toys for representation are available from stores such as Toy Like Me, Multicultural Classroom Materials & Diverse Toys for Preschool, Representation Matters in Toys, and Best Anti-Racist Toys for Kids.

Ensure that your background meets the unique needs of each of your clients by placing and even replacing items that could facilitate processing relevant experiences to each client’s individualized therapeutic goals. For a client who is working on understanding their anxiety, you might choose to place different toy models of the brain and a Worry Monster; for clients experiencing or recovering from medical trauma or anticipating an upcoming medical procedure, you can place toy models of the body or different body organs.

One of our 9-year-old clients who had been experiencing a chronic medical condition requiring continued procedures and several major surgeries, was excited to notice different models of the human body and share their experiences in detail, allowing them to explore the body with a sense of control and process their traumas.

Final Thoughts on Virtual Therapy

While it was a long and challenging journey to adjust our expressive and experiential therapeutic modalities to a virtual platform, we now advocate for its high effectiveness. In fact, it is currently often our preferred platform for treating children and families. Not only do we see the benefits of the virtual tools we are using with our clients, but when given the choice, it seems that even parents who were once the biggest skeptics are opting for virtual therapy because they appreciate the flexibility, ease of access and evidence of progress in their families. Virtual therapy is not going away, and neither is the need to foster connection, reflection, and representation in every therapeutic setting.

According to a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) study, the number of children aged 3 to 17 diagnosed with anxiety increased by 29 percent between 2016 and 2020, while those diagnosed with depression increased by 27 percent.

The situation worsened with the pandemic. And now, stressed students are hurting others and themselves.

There’s a dire need for safety in schools and other educational institutions — it’s time for strategies that help create safe learning environments.

A nationally representative survey of nearly 700 pre-K-12 teachers found that social-emotional learning (SEL) was a popular safety solution for 91 percent of all the teachers surveyed.

Social-emotional learning is a long-term solution for making students and adults more socially and emotionally well-rounded, but what makes it an effective and critical solution for pressing issues such as safety in learning institutions?

Social-emotional learning: Foregrounding emotional and mental safety

While safety is most visibly threatened by physical acts such as bullying and school violence, the roots of such threats take us to social, emotional, and structural issues that need to be addressed to effect change.

Consider some of the most common reasons for bullying. Bullies are often victims of bullying themselves, and as a result of their perception of what has happened to them, they frequently lack empathy.

In other cases, bullies don’t have any real friends, and they struggle to build relationships. To combat their loneliness, they seek social attention the wrong way. Moreover, bullies often lack psychological well-being, often comparing themselves to others, which leads to frustration and envy. As a result, they undermine other people with acts of aggression to level the playing field.

The core SEL competencies help develop good mental, emotional, and social health — three elements that can contribute immensely to dismantling safety issues such as bullying and creating safe learning spaces.

For one, social-emotional learning helps students understand how their decisions will impact others. It enables students to develop and demonstrate values such as compassion, empathy, respect, and intelligent behavior while making and navigating life decisions in and out of school. Increased empathy can reduce aggressive behavior, both verbal and physical, as well as bullying incidents.

SEL also fosters relationship building and a sense of belonging and inclusion. For example, when teachers implement identity-affirming and culturally-responsive SEL they create supportive and responsive learning climates that help prevent isolation and disengagement, and positively impact students’ behavior.

This is especially important among students who are systemically more prone to being marginalized and excluded from social groups due to their identities and backgrounds. If a school’s learning instruction reflects diverse cultural identities and personal experiences, it’s easier to develop a culture that supports the equitable treatment of all students, thereby helping to create a safer school environment.

Furthermore, SEL provides a reliable structure to the learning process, making it easier to promote a safe learning culture and address student experiences of anxiety, helplessness, and general insecurity.

Ultimately, social and emotional learning skills are crucial in connecting character and lifestyle decisions, helping to foreground and sustain emotional and social safety in learning institutions.

With SEL, we can foster emotional safety and mental wellness, and help reduce violence and risky behaviors among students. In so doing, we can nurture safe, positive learning environments, and equally important, harness the power of restorative practices.

Conflict and the power of restorative practices

Bullying, fighting, and violence may not have a simple or singular solution, but we can change the way we respond to these issues.

Instead of a discipline system that centers on punitive and exclusionary practices, which mostly seem to do more harm than good, it’s far more effective to have a restorative system.

Restorative practices encourage supportive and respectful behavior, placing the onus on an individual to be truly accountable for their actions and to make amends for any harm done to others as a result of those actions.

These practices can tackle a situation like bullying with sensitivity and understanding; in a way that improves outcomes for all individuals involved, instead of trying to serve one at the cost of another.

For example, instead of merely ostracizing and punishing a student who engages in problematic behavior, restorative practices seek to create a safe space in which the student can learn from their past unacceptable choices, understand their impact, and improve their ability to make better decisions.

Restorative practices have a student reflect on their conduct by addressing specific questions like: What choice did I make and how did it affect others? Is there another way I could have handled this situation? Would I make the same decision if I had a second chance, and why?

The idea behind restorative practices is that “when you know better, you can do better.”

Restorative practices have several benefits, including developing empathy and respect, fostering positive relationships, and improving decision-making. These are also some of the benefits of SEL. As such, SEL intersects with and can help strengthen restorative practices, which, in turn, enable students to make positive choices that lead to safer schools.

Per the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the likelihood of positive outcomes in high schools — including improved school and classroom climates — is especially high due to the alignment of restorative practices and SEL in secondary settings.

Granted, the problem of safety is a large and complex one, and building social and emotional skills alone won’t solve it, but social-emotional learning is a major step in the right direction that can have powerful consequences.

Related:
Teachers can’t keep up with the need for SEL
Parents are turning to schools for student mental health

While teachers know their students need help developing social emotional skills, they rarely have time or adequate training to focus on them in the classroom, according to a survey from ReadTheory, an edtech company that helps students build reading comprehension skills.

The survey of nearly 1,700 teachers offers insights into the challenges of implementing social emotional learning (SEL) programs in today’s tumultuous educational environment.

In the wake of the disruption of the pandemic, U.S. students are struggling. In 2021, the Center for Disease Control revealed that 37 percent of high school students reported poor mental health during the pandemic, while 44 percent said they persistently felt sad or hopeless during the past year.

And with billions of dollars in federal ESSER funds available, schools are investing in SEL programs to help students–and teachers–cope. According to Simba Information, spending for SEL instructional materials was $1.725 billion for the 2021-2022 school year. 

While 63 percent of teachers responding to ReadTheory’s survey believe mental wellness throughout the pandemic adversely affected instruction, a third reported they rarely or never teach SEL skills. Lack of time in the school day and lack of support from school leadership are among the challenges teachers said they faced when attempting to implement SEL.

“What teachers told us provides a roadmap for the ways that school leaders, families and communities can help support social emotional learning for all students,” said Ron Kirschenbaum, managing partner, ReadTheory.

Other key findings of the survey include:

• Eighty percent of teachers indicated that some, most, or all students need support with social emotional needs.
• Nearly 60 percent of teachers said that the pandemic impacted their students’ motivation to learn.
• Teachers’ mental wellness throughout the pandemic affected their performance. More than 60 percent told ReadTheory their mental wellness impacted instruction.
• More than 50 percent of teachers said they had not received any SEL training.
• The home-school connection is not happening when it comes to SEL. Nearly 50 percent of teachers said families do not have the resources to teach SEL at home.

Related:
Our district is battling a loneliness epidemic
Children’s mental health remains a major concern

This press release originally appeared online.