Reflection

I am a proponent of Social Emotional Learning after taking a couple of professional development classes on the topic.  As a school based speech-language pathologist, I did not have this in my training in the 90’s and none of my professional development up to this point involved SEL.  I am the one who is proactively seeking the information so that I can incorporate this into my therapy sessions.  Back in March of 2023, I began my yoga training and a part of my training was on social emotional learning.  I feel that there is so much more that I need to know that I continue to seek classes on the topic.  I have seen how our children have changed in the 18 years that I’ve been a practicing clinician in the schools.  Students are coming into school with so much baggage, trauma, issues at home…whatever you want to call it.  They are struggling on all fronts.  Some of these kids are way too young to be dealing with what they are dealing with and yes, we see the outbursts at school as a result.  I work with a few kids that don’t have any support at home when it comes to academic and speech work.  I think that SEL begins at home.  For those students that don’t have the support at home, I think that they are at a higher risk of social, emotional, physical and mental health issues.     In my therapy room, I come and get my students so that we have the opportunity to talk in the hallway on our way to therapy.  It is their time to talk about the things that are on their minds and to talk about the things that they did over the weekend.  In my therapy room, we talk about raising our hands when we want to share out and being respectful to other’s perspectives.  When someone is being disrespectful, I talk it out.  We analyze what just happened, how it made the other person feel and what could have been done differently and what needs to happen now (an apology).  When my students get stuck when working on therapy tasks, I no longer jump in.  I model how they could ask for assistance.  We then talk about what the problem is and I ask questions to get them thinking about different ways to solve the problem so that in the end, they solved the problem and I point that out to them.  That they can be good problem solvers.  When doing a literacy unit, I always talk about how the character is feeling but then tie it in to the student.  How would you feel if you were in that situation and what would you do?  I’m hoping it provides them with good coping skills down the road. 

As a music teacher, there are ways in which I already incorporate social-emotional learning into my classroom for example with my younger students they learned a turkey song last month and we went through the different emotions they thought the turkey would be feeling and why. Going forward I could also incorporate social-emotional learning with my older students. They will be working on a composition group project soon and we can talk about social management skills and how to effectively work together. WIth music there is always the opportunity to talk about feelings in music and the reasons behind those feelings.

I can use SEL in my ELA classroom to create a safe and supportive classroom environment where students feel comfortable expressing themselves and engaging in discussions about emotions. By weaving SEL into my ELA curriculum, you contribute not only to academic development but also to the overall well-being of your students. I can do this by doing journal writing, TED Talks where students can talk about their personal connections, and also build team building exercises that help build meaningful relationships with my students. Our school uses Character Strong and I love it!

I can use SEL in my ELA classroom to create a safe and supportive classroom environment where students feel comfortable expressing themselves and engaging in discussions about emotions. By weaving SEL into my ELA curriculum, you contribute not only to academic development but also to the overall well-being of your students. I can do this by doing journal writing, TED Talks where students can talk about their personal connections, and also build team building exercises that help build meaningful relationships with my students. Our school uses Character Strong and I love it!

I completely believe that SEL is a crucial part in the success of our students, especially post COVID.  My students come to school with countless emotional issues that inhibit their learning and often the learning of other students.  It can easily be incorporated into any classroom and has profound implications.  Greeting my students at the door, having an organized classroom, clear procedures and expectations are only a few of the ways I do it.  Anytime there is a chance to incorporate self-regulation and decision making, I take the opportunity.  I try to begin my school year off with a lot of SEL components.  It takes some time, but the rewards later in the school year are worth it.  The last section with the data that supports SEL was encouraging.  I work in a district where there are fights daily, many of our students come to school with trauma, and teachers are getting burned out.  IF the entire district (admin, teachers, support staff AND parents) were are onboard, I think our district would be a very different place. 

I integrate SEL into my classroom by fostering academic mindsets, aligning SEL and academic objectives and use interactive instructional practices and structures to promote SEL.

I work in a district that has been focuses on SEL for the past 3 years now and I have adopted some of the practices into my classroom on a regular basis. I am a middle school science teacher and often times have students working in pairs or in small groups. At the beginning of the year we model what good group work should look like. I tell my students remember the three R's (Respectful, Responsible & Responsive). Students must be respectful to themselves by understanding their self worth and know that they have valuable things to contribute to the class and to a group setting. Students must be responsible for their own learning by understanding that it is up to them to write down due dates, to come to class on time and prepared, Students must also be responsive in their learning, they have to respond to myself and their peers. This means providing words of praise, advice or constructive criticism.  

Students in my homeroom also participate in community circles and they understand that they are being active listeners and do not interject unless they are holding the talking piece. This has been a nice way to build rapport between students that may not have necessarily crossed paths otherwise. I make it a priority to establish a community in homeroom and the idea that we are all in this together. 

I plan on continuing to incorporate new ideas and new ways for students to practice their SEL skills in my classroom regularly.

The videos and CASEL resources have reminded me the importance of explicit SEL learning. I enjoyed using the CASEL interactive wheel to explore the 5 components of SEL and it is clear that each part is equally important. I teach 1st grade and it is easy to implement lessons on self-awareness with identifying emotions. I am planning on using more words to describe emotions as one video suggested to build their vocabulary.

I also liked how the teachers modeled self-awareness by explaining how they were feeling and what they were going to do to manage their feelings. I like to use Go Noodle “Flow” videos that use relaxation and focusing techniques and I think I could do a better job of self-talk modeling when and how I can use those techniques in the classroom.

The last part that is circling with me is communicating with parents. I often focus on academic components in the classroom in my weekly parent emails. It would be nice to share some of the morning meeting questions with the parents or some of the SEL focused read aloud books. SEL continues throughout a child’s day whether at home, school or anywhere in the community. I should share what we do in class to increase the partnership in education with parents.  

Overall, I have learned how SEL is a whole-child approach to education.  I have learned about how it really focuses on giving students the tools that they need in order to navigate the world—not just within the confines of the classroom—but beyond it and long after graduation.  Initially, in learning about the five components of SEL, I was wondering how I could possibly include this in a high school ELA classroom.  Unfortunately, with the Regents Exam, I feel like I’m also backtracking to try to fill gaps and give students the best chance possible of passing the exam so that they can graduate.  A lot of times when I hear about these initiatives and it doesn’t present ways to get students reading and writing, it is difficult for me to focus on them (especially since so many fall into the unfortunate trap of only showcasing how the initiative works with elementary-age students).  However, several of the SEL videos discussed little things that I already do and can elaborate on.  I really liked how they discussed that for something like building Social Awareness, we may need to frontload some discussions and get students thinking about how to read body language and agree or disagree with each other in an appropriate way that isn’t as reactionary as what they may be seeing online.  I also liked the examples that it gave for group projects.  Since coming back from the pandemic even classroom discussions have been difficult to foster because students are used to hiding behind a screen and not verbalizing anything out loud.  I think having the structured groups, roles, and goals could be helpful.  Even if the end product isn’t great, it can give them that boost in understanding how to work with others around them and beyond their natural friend groups.   

I currently teach 5th grade in an ICT setting, with students who struggle with big emotions. The last two years we have incorporated a program called “Move This World” into our curriculum and with consistency I have noticed a change in some of my students who struggle with their emotions. It is very important that students are introduce to and have the vocabulary to vocally express how they are feeling, if the would like to. Everyday after our recess time we talk 5-8 minutes to write down how we are feeling at that moment, why we feel that way and reflect on anything that may be bothering us. These thoughts are kept in a journal that we can review whenever needed. This activity is then followed up with a video that is either teaching us about a new coping skill, a partner activity, or a breathing activity to get us to really think about our emotions and learn how to express them in an appropriate way. The program also touches on other aspects of SEL such as managing stress, the importance of setting goals, and teaching empathy.