New! Fun SEL Summer Worksheets!

If you have kids, you know how challenging it is to keep them busy when they’re not in school. It’s been especially tough to keep them from getting bored while many children have been attending school online. Television and YouTube can keep them occupied. But that’s not really what you want: to just keep them occupied. You’d love for them to be doing something where they’re having fun while learning and growing. 

We’re debuting our new SEL Worksheets for Summer!

All of our email subscribers will get a new worksheet sent to them every week for the entire Summer. They’re fun and creative. Children can do the worksheet on their own or work on them together. 

Our worksheets are great for helping kids explore their own thoughts and feelings. They won’t just be killing time. They’ll be developing their fine motor skills and using their own creativity to better understand themselves. They’ll also be improving  their cognitive skills and emotional coping skills. That will lead to better academic performance, fewer behavioral issues and fewer emotional troubles.

Research shows that SEL can be a major positive in a child’s development:

• SEL can help kids become better planners and more comfortable multi-tasking.

• Studies suggest that children involved in SEL will have 10% fewer psychological, behavioral, or substance abuse problems when they reach the age of 25.

• SEL improves children’s attitudes towards school 

No one is born with social-emotional skills. They need to be learned through observation, personal experience or direction. Not all children have the same opportunities to learn these skills at home and our increasingly online world is further limiting those opportunities. That’s why we want to help your kids continue to grow while they’re off this Summer. 

(And you’ll have something to give them when they say they’re bored)

Subscribe to our mailing list below and receive a brand new SEL worksheet every Tuesday. Watch out for more announcements Coming Soon!

Getting Kids on Track

The pandemic has made it clear that a one-size-fits-all approach to education won’t work for getting kids back on track when schools reopen. Educators and school leaders will need to address many effects of the pandemic on students, such as interrupted learning, mass social promotion, and trauma. To mitigate the effects of lost school time and the disparate impact of school closures on students experiencing poverty, students with disabilities, and English language learners, educators need to come up with strategies to understand individual children’s immediate needs. The response should avoid a uniform approach to all students and recognize the importance of individualizing strategies for each child. Schools should ensure that each student has an adult navigator who knows them individually and can guide each of them on developing a plan for success and connect them with the necessary academic and social emotional support to get back on track. Identifying and working on individualized success planning for each student can also help school leaders and educators meet individual needs, and it helps them get back on track quickly. 

What is Success Planning?

A flexible process is key to success planning, which will be facilitated by an adult navigator, who acts as a student’s advocate, for identifying each student’s needs and providing personalized support. The role of the navigator is to identify needs and then facilitate the creation and implementation of an individualized plan for action. Navigators will gather information both academic and nonacademic, about each student’s status, develop a plan for action, identifying sources of support and resources to address the elements in the plan. The process results in the creation of a concrete plan and implementation strategy that will be revised periodically.

Access to learning: 

• Computer or device

• Reliable internet

• Knowing how to access online learning

• Identifying other barriers to access (house, childcare, etc.)

Academic progress:

• Assessment of on/off track in academic subjects

• Plan for academic intervention: summer, tutoring, etc.

• Family communication plan

Wellbeing and enrichment:

• Assessment of need

• Connection to interventions and supports

• Enrichment opportunities

What is the navigator role? 

The navigator role can be filled in different ways and take different shapes depending on the needs of a school and on the age of the child. The navigator role is to ensure that there is an adult who is responsible for coordinating and implementing a plan for action and support. The navigator gathers data from many different sources, meets with the students and their parents, develops a plan and implementation strategy, and keeps in regular communication with the student and family. High schools could use counselors, homeroom teachers, or advisory leaders as navigators. Elementary schools may use classroom teachers or aides. 

What might this look like in practice? 

A high school homeroom teacher would check in with each of her students individually at the beginning of the year to review academic program, identify where learning is off track, whether the student has any barriers to online learning, and jointly develop a plan for support that could include tutoring, an after-school program, or buddy stem for kids to support each other.

An elementary school teacher would meet with students and parents to review the assessment of academic progress and nonacademic needs. They would help identify where learning is off track, decide what supports for mental health and summer enrichment would be beneficial, and develop a plan for support that could include tutoring or a referral for mental health services.

What key competencies do success planning navigators need?

• Ability to collaborate effectively with educators, administrators, and other school staff

• Ability to connect with individual students and match their needs with a proper and necessary support and services

• Ability to engage families in the school community, including involving them in the planning process and connecting families to appropriate resources 

Meta description:  There are many effects of the pandemic on students, such as interrupted learning, mass social promotion, and trauma. To mitigate the effects of lost school time and the disparate impact of school closures on students experiencing poverty, and students with disabilities, educators need to come up with strategies to understand individual children’s immediate needs.

Reference: https://edredesign.org/files/success_planning_rapid_response062420-final.pdf

10 Social and Emotional Learning Strategies for Responding to COVID-19

Starting in March, education leaders have been working to create new methods for schools that must satisfy public health, education, economic, and labor concerns. Now that most classes are operating online, students are being asked to learn in an atmosphere of prolonged stress and anxiety, often through a Zoom call or Blackboard. In this kind of situation, it’s important to ask educators how they can meet students’ needs? Moreover, the pandemic has complicated how schools address students’ social-emotional needs, with some having adapted their models to provide for them in a remote or hybrid setting. Their willingness to innovate can help other schools explore and implement similar practices. Here are 10 social and emotional learning strategies for responding to COVID-19.

1. Build Community

Families and educators can support their children and students by applying SEL into every part of their daily lives - across their classrooms, during all times of the school day, and when they are in their homes and communities. A supportive environment includes a caring, responsive learning community, where students are well-known and valued; structures that allow for continuity relationships, consistency in practices, and predictability in routines; and relational trust between students, educators, and parents.

2. Assess Social and Emotional Needs

During remote learning, it’s important to conduct a needs assessment for SEL for students and educators, to understand students’ home environments during COVID-19. The back-to-school season can help schools understand how best to provide resources to address the challenges students may have faced. It’s crucial to identify and build on the strengths, but pinpoint and nurture the areas that need attention. By asking a general question like “How are you?”, educators will demonstrate that they are putting the well-being of their students first.

3. Engage in Self-Reflection 

When students are experiencing stress and anxiety, it’s difficult for them to focus and pay attention, keep their emotions under control, or handle frustration in an appropriate manner. Providing students with the opportunity to reflect on their experiences and accurately identify their feelings through journaling or conferencing is essential. It allows them to recognize, label, and share their true emotions and feelings during these uncertain times. While looking out for the students and community, educators and families need to take some time to care for themselves first, to reflect on how they are feeling at this time, before being able to care for others.

4. Reinforce Self-Regulation Skills

The prolonged physical isolation from the pandemic may cause collective trauma, misbehaviors, and lack of self-regulation amongst students. Educators and families should work to understand and identify the cause of the emotion and help them overcome the behavior, rather than immediately punishing the students for their misbehavior. Building a stronger relationship with the educators and families can result when the students feel cared for rather than judged.

5. Promote Stress Management

Investing time in teaching students effective stress management techniques and providing physical activities or spaces within the classroom for students to practice deep breathing and yoga stretches is not only important for students, but also for educators, school leaders, and family members alike. Practicing self-care and maintaining one’s own positive well-being are crucial as educators model those behaviors to their students and children.

6. Nurture Diversity and Empathy

The integral SEL competencies are about considering multiple perspectives and appreciating those from diverse backgrounds and cultures. SEL includes having empathy for others, showing respect for others, and the ability to understand social and ethical norms for behavior. Listening to each other’s experiences and showing empathy towards others helps bring communities together. Understanding that one’s experience might be different from someone else’s is essential to acknowledge, and demonstrates that everyone has unique stories to share while collectively experiencing a common trauma. It’s very crucial for educators to promote respect and be a model for all rather than harboring discriminatory thoughts.

7. Serve as a Confidante to Promote Responsible Decision Making

Support all students by being a confidante for students when they need to make difficult decisions. By doing this, it not only strengthens a trusting relationship, but also develops a student's knowledge - solving and analytical skills. 

8. Establish a Sense of Belonging

A sense of belonging in the classroom and school is essential to their feeling of comfort and readiness to learn. To prevent misconduct, creating bonds with peers, educators, and others at school are also major key factors. Both online and face-to-face, promoting a sense of belonging and connection leads to happier and more engaged learners. For example, beginning the day or class by asking them some questions of the day or week leads to students sharing information about interests, family, and community values. 

9. Build Relationships

Research illustrates that building and strengthening the relationships that students form with educators, and each other, plays a major role in their face-to-face and remote learning environments. Hold office hours to provide a safe haven for students to discuss their emotions and feelings. Schedule one-on-one check-ins with each student-especially those who may be exhibiting depression, stress, and anxiety issues.

10. Partner with Mental Health Professionals 

Build and deepen relationships with mental health professionals within and outside the school. Educators can serve as liaisons with health care professionals to identify students who may need additional follow up counseling support. 

Meta description: 10 Social and emotional learning (SEL) strategies for responding to COVID-19 help and support parents, schools, and educators explore and implement all strategies and apply them to each child's needs. 

Reference: https://www.hmhco.com/blog/10-social-and-emotional-learning-strategies-for-responding-to-covid-19

Kernels of Learning

A new approach to social-emotional skills: flexible resources and bite-sized strategies.

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is one of the biggest educational trends of the past decade. A number of experts quibble over what these soft skills are but the term generally refers to managing emotions, learning to set goals, and maintaining relationships. At present, the number of programs helping students to boost these skills at school are increasing. Some are for sale by curriculum publishers and cost many thousands of dollars. Others are offered for free, but require hundreds of hours of teacher training. It’s therefore pretty hard for schools to afford them, allocate the necessary time and teach the complicated lessons properly. 

Stephanie Jones, a professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, is convinced that soft skills are very important for students. She has developed more than 40 social-emotional “kernels”, little routines that any teacher can do anytime. They can be done during a math class or while lining up students in the hallways. One great kernel is the belly breathing technique. This technique is intended to help students deal with stress and anxiety. Another good example is a five-minute brain game. Teachers can use this technique from the script Jones wrote. In a study conduced by Jones, she discovered that the students who participated showed the greatest improvements in cognitive areas that the games were targeting. A school can choose any kernel strategy based on their needs, and Jones and her team will provide training and technical assistance to launch the strategies into practice and then evaluate the outcome. 

The Kernels Approach

Kernels are specific activities that have been shown to bring about specific behavior changes. Here are three examples focused primarily on elementary school, taken from earlier published research by Dennis Embry and Anthony Biglan. 

• Turtle technique for calming down
  Description:
  Using a turtle metaphor, child holds self, breathes through nose, and engages in verbal or sub-verbal self-coaching to calm down
  SEL Domain:
  Managing emotions and behavior
  Behaviors affected:
  Reduces arousal and aggression against peers or adults

• Non-verbal transition cues
  Description:
  Visual, kinesthetic, and/or auditory cues to signal a need to shift attention or tasks in a specific, patterned way
  SEL Domain:
  Cognitive flexibility, attention, understanding social cues
  Behaviors affected:
  Reduces dawdling, increases time on task and engaged learning, gives more time for instruction

• Peer-to-peer written praise
  Description:
  Children write praise for peers on a pad, wall display, or photo album (and/or read them aloud)
  SEL Domain:
  Prosocial behavior, conflict resolution
  Behaviors affected:
  Social competence, academic achievement, violence, aggression, physical health, vandalism

Why Kernels?

The needs of individual schools vary, so social-emotional programs should be

adaptable to schools’ context, demands, capacities, and goals. Schools, organizations, and funders who want to invest in improving children’s SEL skills have few means of easily browsing to available options or comparing different SEL programs. A kernels approach can be a major key that contributes to a program’s effectiveness or the combination of the techniques can make the difference.

Kernels in Action

Jones and her team are working with HopeLab and four public elementary schools in South Carolina to implement and refine a set of “Brain Games.” These games, called SECURe, were originally developed by Jones and her colleges as part of a preK-3 SEL intervention. The games provide students opportunities to build their executive function and self-regulation skills in a fun, engaging, and consistent way. In terms of teacher, the games give the teacher specific language to use when talking with students about these skills (referred to as “Brain Powers”), including questions that will encourage metacognition and improve children’s internalization and transfer of skills.

What This Means for You and Your School

A series of partnerships to design and test SEL kernels are Jones’ plan over the next five years. The design and test will be worked to meet the needs of specific schools and other community organizations working with young children. To partner with Jones and her team, contact Rebecca Bailey at the EASEL Lab.

Meta Description: Kernels of learning is a new approach to social-emotional skills: flexible resources and bite-sized strategies. Kernels strategies help students deal with stress and anger, manage emotions and behavior, and reduce aggression against peers or adults. 

Reference: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/15/08/kernels-learning