Sunday, March 27, 2022

Social-Emotional Learning: Social Awareness

Social awareness is about our ability to understand the perspectives of other people. This includes having compassion andnrespect for others, regardless their background or culture. (CASEL

For us as teachers, this means having very keen understanding about situational changes in the classroom, and how to build an emotionally supportive learning environment. 


NCS 2021

Sometimes I see people heading west on the beach near my house (where this picture was taken), regardless of the time for the next high tide. Sometimes the waves can get suprisingly high, leaving very little or no beach at all between the waters and the pretty high bluff without a road nearby. Similarly, being aware of the social and emotional situations in the classroom is important, and we can learn to understand the ebb and flow of classroom interactions. Fostering positive emotions in classroom  is easier by intentionally using student-centered practices.

Student-centered and emotionally safe pedagogy is a choice, an instructional approach in any level of education. It is not a handbook of tips and tricks, to add diversity and equity into instruction, or help us survive our challenging days in the education profession. It is being intellectually and emotionally present when a student needs us. It is also about choosing the instructional strategies to support every students’ individual learning process and learner agency[1]

:)

Nina


Smith, N.C. (2017). Students’ perceptions of learner agency: A phenomenographic inquiry into the lived learning experiences of high school students. (Doctoral Dissertation).  Northeastern Repository

Wednesday, March 16, 2022

Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Management

Learning how to manage our emotions is an important part of education. Taking turns, making friends and helping others are necessary skills to be successful in life and learning. We don't acquite these skills magically overnight, they require lots of practice. (CASEL) Feeling motivation and agency to accomplish goals. 

Stress-management skills have been very necessary during the past two years. Learning something new helps us to focus on the future. But learning doesn't happen overnight, and we need to have the growth mindset to try again. And again. Until we meet our goal. Our students need this too! Engaging in positive self-talk helps! 

NCS2020 

This obviously means that we must build a learning environment where students can practice failing - if every assessment is high stakes it is impossible for students to learn from their mistakes. Emphasizing Growth Mindset is important, but even more important is to build student-centered assessments for students (projects, portfolios, etc.) so that they can get feedback about their learning, and try again.

To support students' self-management we must have strong pedagogical competence in all 3 areas of Teachers Pedagogical Knowledge: Instructional Process, Learning Process and Assessment. 

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Awareness

We often have too narrow view of learning. It is so much more than just memorizing what we are taught. Deep learning encompasses the whole personality when we try to make sense of what we learn, which leads to life-long learning. Isn't that exactly what we want as educators? 

Focusing on engaging students in Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) during every lesson makes the learning experience better and deeper. We must provide ample opportunities for students to grow on all 5 areas of SEL: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills and Responsible Decision-Making. (CASEL)This is a process that takes time - which is the reason for preschool focusing on SEL skills. Self-awareness is the first step!


Identifying one's own emotions and personal & social identities is a great start! Please check the CASEL framework!  Engaging in dialogue with our students helps them learn!

More about SEL: NotesFromNina blog  and  Tweets