A challenge for many educators is how to find the time to teach social-emotional skills to students during the instructional day. However, what educators may not realize is that explicit social-emotional instruction and practice are already an essential part of effective and impactful teaching.
Good teachers already embed social-emotional skill practice for students in their teaching—even if they do not realize it. One way to enhance the work you’re already doing in the classroom is to be more intentional and purposeful about how you embed instruction and practice of social-emotional skills using effective, high leverage practices. Using interactive pedagogical practices is key to making this happen.
Interactive pedagogy encourages students to become leaders of their own learning by inviting them into the learning process and facilitating their journey rather than directing it from a top-down approach. Interactive pedagogy involves purposeful and structured student-to-student interaction and teacher-to-student interaction.
Let’s look at some strategies for integrating social-emotional skill building and interactive pedagogy.
Discussion stems are an underutilized strategy that showcases what students are learning and how they are applying their learning. Discussion stems are a great way to teach students how to engage in deeper thinking and practice the social-emotional skill of social awareness through active listening and adding on to a partner’s responses. Examples of discussion stems in action may be:
Not only do discussion stems build social awareness, but they can also provide practice of productive and healthy debate and disagreement in a calm context to prepare students for those inevitable moments when they may disagree with peers in a less than calm context.
Another impactful practice is the use of collaborative structures, of which there are many. One example is think-pair-share. An educator begins by asking a question or sharing a topic relevant to the learning focus. Students start by independently thinking about a topic providing students with ample time to gather their thoughts. Then, they break out into pairs to discuss their independent thinking. Pairing allows students to practice communicating with others. After a few minutes, students return to their larger classroom setting to share what their pair discussed with everyone else. This serves to broaden students’ thinking by hearing from multiple perspectives and then allowing them the opportunity to adjust or build onto their current ideas. When thinking about how students’ social-emotional skills develop by engaging in these practices, educators may find it helpful to internally reflect on what they are observing about their students. Questions may include:
The DESSA assessments ask questions like these and more to help educators benchmark student progress in mastering their social-emotional skills and generalizing those skills throughout the instructional day.
Many educators do not realize the impact they can have on student learning by simply honing their own facilitation skills. A traditional lecture style of instruction requires students to be passive learners soaking up knowledge leaving the teacher to do all the work. In a more student-centered classroom, we want students to be active partners in the learning process, sharing the mental load, but that will require teachers to take a more facilitative approach. In a facilitative approach, teachers allow students to co-construct knowledge within the classroom community through purposeful deep questioning and use of nonverbal communication skills.
For example, we can use follow-up questions or statements (e.g., Why is that important? Tell me more) to foster deeper learning and critical thinking skills. We can use facilitative questions (e.g., What questions can we ask Amy about what she just said? How might Billy’s response connect to Amy’s response?) and encourage peer conversations among students while fostering social awareness and relationship skills. These tactics not only get students at a higher level of Bloom’s Taxonomy but foster critical college and career readiness skills.
When teachers facilitate discussion, never underestimate the power of purposeful think time. Once we pose an open-ended question, provide students with time to craft their responses. This provides our faster responders with time to craft a more thoughtful and cogent response and other students general processing time to gather their thoughts. This simple strategy can change the participation dynamics of a classroom and allow quieter students an opportunity to share their thinking and more boisterous students time to practice sharing the airtime.
Warmth and support practices contribute to building a positive, nurturing classroom. These practices center on understanding students better and inviting them to be an active part of a welcoming classroom community through a nurturing mindset. They provide intentional opportunities to make students feel welcomed and included, engage them productively in the learning process, and provide opportunities for students to reflect on their learning and apply next steps for growth.
Welcoming students into the classroom community is as simple as greeting students at the door and knowing your students’ names. Making sure students know each other builds belongingness and fosters relationship skills. Ensuring that students are provided with frequent opportunities to engage effectively with each other throughout the instructional day is crucial to deepen relationships and foster a student-centered classroom. Providing students with an opportunity to reflect on their learning is as simple as using an exit ticket to allow students to think about the content in addition to reflecting on how they demonstrated their social emotional skills. Building in foundational practices like these early on provides students with more sophisticated knowledge about how to effectively assess their own social-emotional skills during their secondary years and beyond.
Whatever practices we use in the classroom, we can seek opportunities for students to play an active role in learning. Fostering students’ ability to connect with their peers, communicate their ideas, and learn from others all contributes to students being better citizens.
Get started screening and assessing your students’ social-emotional skills to intentionally put practices into place that support their growth.
