University of Colorado Boulder

SEL for Students: A Path to Social Emotional Well-Being

8 ratings

Course 2 of 5 in the Specialization The Teacher and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)

Social and emotional learning, or SEL, programs have flourished in schools during the last decade. In this course the instructor (Emily Price) introduces you to the history and framings of social and emotional learning preK-12 curricula, as well as various elementary, middle, and high school SEL programs and associated research. This course is a part of the 5-course Specialization “The Teacher and Social Emotional Learning (SEL)”. Interested in earning 3 university credits from the University of Colorado-Boulder for this specialization? If so check out "How you can earn 3 university credits from the University of Colorado-Boulder for this specialization" reading in the first module of this course for additional information. We want to note that the courses in this Specialization were designed with a three-credit university course load in mind. As a participant you may notice a bit more reading content and a little less video/lecture content. Completing and passing the SEL Specialization allows the participant to apply for 3 graduate credits toward teacher re-certification and professional enhancement. We want to ensure the quality and high standards of a University of Colorado learning experience. Interested in earning 3 graduate credits from the University of Colorado-Boulder for The Teacher and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Specialization? Check out "How you can earn 3 university credits from the University of Colorado-Boulder for this specialization" reading in the first week of this course for more information.

From the lesson

Social Emotional Well-Being for Students

This course focuses on SEL for its most common audience – students in P-12 school-based contexts. We begin this exploration by introducing the concept of social emotional well-being in Week 1. We explore what social emotional well-being is and investigate the relationship between it and the current emphasis on achievement in educational reform. Then, we highlight SEL as one means of developing social emotional well-being, positioning it in relation to other approaches, while highlighting our course’s focus on SEL programs and theories.

Instructional Introduction - Emily4:24

"It Never Has Been, It Isn't Now, and It Never Will Be" by Robert Selman4:38

"SEL Practices" by Mark Greenberg6:03

Meet the Instructors

Dan Liston
Professor
School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder
Emily Claire Price
Instructor
School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder

My name is Bob Selman and I am a professor

of education and of psychiatry at Harvard University,

and I've been here for over 40 years.

I began my career at Harvard Medical School.

I was trained as a clinical psychologist and I directed a school.

I actually directed a school for socially and emotionally disturbed kids.

After 15 years of that kind of work I became very interested in

what causes these kids to end up the way

they were when we finally got to see them because if you look at them,

they didn't have a lot of biological problems,

so most of it was environmental.

So, I became interested in prevention.

And now, we're just looking at everybody and trying to figure out ways to promote

social development for all kids.

I've been puzzled by

a similar question to the one that random acts of kindness has which kind of goes,

if it's so important to promote social development,

why aren't we doing it?

There are a couple of new forces

emerging recently that really make this issue much more salient.

Social-emotional development or social development feels more

urgent for three reasons that are new.

One is that the federal government has started to put funds into

safe and secure schools and states are trying to figure out how to use those funds.

The second reason is that teachers are now

facing the effects of being evaluated in their classrooms,

and the evaluations are not limited to academic instructional time but also

the classroom climate and how teachers promote positive social relationships in schools.

And the third is a general cultural issue which is that social media,

social networking is putting kids' interaction with each other 24 hours a day,

seven days a week, and some of those interactions are clearly not going well.

There's a lot of teasing, harassment and bullying

on the web and that's just caught everybody's attention.

So the digital era is really also having an impact.

So often, when folks start to

talk about the kind of competencies and skills we're talking about today,

they're not sure what to call them.

So they call them something like non-cognitive skills.

And I think that sets a tone which is that they're not essential

because I think not everyone,

but a lot of people, have bought into the idea that

school is simply about academic achievement.

It never has been, it isn't now,

and it never will be.

But we need to bring back an interest in what I call social development.

Other people call them soft skills because somehow I guess they

think physics is hard and social relationships are easy,

but I would tend to disagree with them.

I think social relationships are among the hardest things we have to

learn how to do well.

I think one can make a distinction

between two kinds of school-based social development categories.

One is what I want to call

pro-social behavior and the other I'll call social understanding.

I won't give formal definitions but I'll try to exemplify them.

So pro-social behavior is being nice to people, having good discussions,

following reasonable rules, and just those kind of things that

almost everybody would agree are indicators of respect and decency.

And those we can find largely in the climate of the schools,

on the playgrounds, in the classrooms.

Those are not often taught directly.

That's a big leap. But the other kind of skills that we're talking about are

social understanding skills and those are really social cognitive skills.

Those are the kind of understandings and awareness that

traditionally are part of the content of curriculum.

So I think if we think about those two categories and

try to understand how they relate to each other we can make a lot of progress.