Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is not a new thing but has a new position in our classrooms. With the current culture and climate we are in, SEL is becoming part of the underpinnings of all our lessons. Fortunately, the #2ndaryELA community came together to discuss this important topic and you can get more ideas for how to incorporate SEL by reading below:
Q1: How do you define social emotional learning (SEL)? #2ndaryELA
A1: I define SEL as interpersonal skills like self-awareness & self-management #2ndaryELA
A1 I define SEL as helping students to learn to respond to their emotions appropriately, especially coping with those more difficult feelings #2ndaryELA
A1: I also think of things like dealing with emotions (i.e. how to handle disappointment) #2ndaryELA
A1: I think of SEL as the underpinnings of many lessons - meaning that one might want to consider SEL as part of the lesson. #2ndaryELA
#2ndaryELA A1 social emotional #Learning is anything that honors the whole child. We need to recognize the importance of feelings any time we are working with groups of people.
Q2: How do you incorporate SEL into your lessons? #2ndaryELA
A2: I have tried using community circles to talk about things like I-messages. #2ndaryELA
A2 Anything SEL related I do during my homeroom time. I try to at least do a check in and check out on Mondays and Fridays #2ndaryELA
A2: I try to incorporate SEL into various games we play too. (And by games, I mean Kagan strategies.) #2ndaryELA
Q3: Give an example of your favorite SEL activity. #2ndaryELA
A3: I did a "What do your stand for?" activity you can read about here: https://mrsspanglerinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2017/01/celebrating-kindness.html … #2ndaryELA
A3 I like activities that allow students to see their commonalities. @mELTingTeacher shared one called Stand Up For A Friend that I really liked #2ndaryELA
Here's my adaption of her idea https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14gqKpeuOgUR1JYKG2kQakfMAip8EVWCh-LA5n-4ZH4k/copy … #2ndaryELA
A3: I also teach how to work in groups explicitly before we do any Kagan strategies or other group work. #2ndaryELA
A3: This post shares how I teach some of those group/partner skills: https://mrsspanglerinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2017/10/5-best-pins-for-organizing-partner.html … #2ndaryELA
Q4: Describe ways your school develops SEL for all students. #2ndaryELA
A4: My school really focuses on kindness and being inclusive through the principal's daily message and our student government's programs. #2ndaryELA
A4: We just had a "Hello Day" where Ss all wore these stickers - high five, fist bump and peace sign. Ss were supposed to find others with the matching sticker to say "Hello" to. #2ndaryELA
I saw your post about this on IG and I'm going too send the idea to our counselor #2ndaryELA
A4 School wide we use the Olweus anti-bullying program and we all have a buddy class in a lower grade that we work with #2ndaryELA
Q5: Share your favorite SEL resources. #2ndaryELA
A5: I am looking for Middle School appropriate songs and videos to give students a kind of anchor for their social skills. #2ndaryELA
A5: If someone can suggest any, I'm all ears! I'm thinking I may need to make my own as all the videos I have found are for elementary students. #2ndaryELA
A5 I'm new at this so I don't really have favorites yet, but looking for some ideas to make my favorites! #2ndaryELA
I hope you found an idea or two you can use to add more Social Emotional Learning into your classroom! If you have some you could add, I invite you to comment below or in our Facebook Group.
Thanks for stopping by!