"SEL Practices" by Mark Greenberg

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From the course by University of Colorado Boulder

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

21 ratings

University of Colorado Boulder

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

21 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

I'm Mark Greenberg.

I'm the Bennett Endowed Chair in Prevention Science at Penn State University.

I was a young scientist and clinician,

and I was really interested in the problem

of why so many children have mental health problems.

Why so many children have aggression, anxiety and depression?

Why the rates are so high?

And there's the old story about the guy at the bottom of the waterfall with an ambulance.

And every time someone goes over the waterfall,

he picks them up and takes them to the hospital,

puts them in the ambulance and takes them to the hospital,

and someone says why don't you put a fence at the top of the waterfall.

So that was like a light bulb went off for me at that point.

How can we think about preventing problems rather than just treating them?

So I started in treatment.

So I decided to devote my career to how you could prevent problems in kids.

And when I did that I began to see that children's emotion regulation;

their ability to regulate their emotions was the key to

having them be healthy and having an effective life,

in which they were able to reach their potential.

When we taught children a lot of different emotions they would still just use happy,

sad, fine, tired and excited.

What we call the big five.

So we designed a new way to do this which was that teach this in the early grades,

in kindergarten, the first and second grade by using what we call feeling faces.

And these are little cards,

and the card has a picture of the face and they're color coded.

So comfortable feelings are yellow and uncomfortable feelings are blue.

And when a child, as we go through a path as children learn these emotions,

these feelings, both the teacher and they get a ring full of cards.

So let's say that you came in from

recess and you're very upset about something one of your friends said to you,

if I was a teacher I might say,

well the first thing we need to do is maybe just calm down,

do you want to take a deep breath with me?

And then I would ask you to go get your feeling faces and

find which feeling you're feeling right now,

or which feelings you're feeling right now, if you're a bit older.

So when you do that,

when you start looking through these cards and looking at the feelings,

of course, what happens as you begin to calm down

more and you begin to engage your thinking skills.

So we have these feeling faces on posters in the room.

In some schools, children carry them around

on a lanyard on their neck or they keep them in their desk or the cubby.

And the idea is that your mind has all these possibilities

inside and identifying how you feel is a good thing to do.

Right? And this is new for many people even for adults because

a lot of people feel that if they have uncomfortable feelings they should suppress them.

If I'm angry, well,

then that's there's something wrong with me.

Right? And that's because they often fuse together

the behaviors they've done when they felt angry with the feeling itself.

So for example, children when they get angry often hurt others.

So they begin to feel oftentimes that feeling angry actually is itself a bad thing,

because it's going to lead to hurting others.

So we have to help them to diffuse that,

to understand that feeling angry is normal,

it's natural, it's an emotion we all have,

it's instinctual and it helps us to survive.

But what we do about it is something different.

So we want them to be able to really recognize and talk about the feeling,

but then to decide to make a good choice about what kind of behavior they do, right?

So you can be angry at someone and still be kind to them,

your behavior can be kind or compassionate.

We do a lot of role playing.

So we might, for example,

if we're working on the problem of peer relations of

how to make a new friend or what happens when a new child comes to school,

we'll do a role play of that situation or how to make up when

a friend is mean to you and you feel really hurt,

or what you can do when you're getting ready for taking a test, right?

And what kinds of things you can say to yourself,

how you can prepare ahead of time.

All those kinds of things that are new skills that children are learning,

it's critical that we do Role play with them so they get

practice and they can see how to do the behavior.

Just didactically talking about these or telling stories about

these problems is not sufficient for children to be

able to enact the behavior well and feel confident about it.

So it's always teaching the skill,

opportunities to use the skills,

starting in role playing and then recognizing and supporting kids in real situations,

and then giving them feedback on how they're doing.

I think we're in a very difficult time in education

and it has this dialectic that it swings back and forth.

And, what many people call the No Child Left Behind Act,

I call the whole Child Left Behind Act because what we've done is we've focused almost

completely on academic subjects and yet it hasn't led to improvements and outcomes.

And that's because we've lost the sense that there's a whole child here,

and that children's ability to regulate themselves,

get along with others,

feel bonded to their teachers and schools,

is what helps them actually to learn effectively.

Children that feel confident,

they feel they are been cared for are more likely

to be able to relax and focus their attention on learning.

And that's why we have been able to show in PATHS and

other SEL programs that when these are done well,

it not only improves children's behavior but it improves the learning outcomes.

And you're probably all familiar with the studies that have shown 11% increase

in achievement testing as a result of SEL programs.

And that's because social emotional learning programs are not just

about teaching children how to behave or how to be nice,

they're also helping them to use their cognitive and attentional skills more effectively.

They are optimizing human experience.

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