8. SEL Projects

Man, Maria found herself thinking, it has been one long year! But I’m so proud of how I’ve been able to notice what my students need and can embed it into the day. The end of the year is going much smoother than the beginning did, and I see real change in Daniel and overall SEL growth in all my students. Now that our team has done this work together, it should be easier to put into place next year.

One team goal for next year is to increase our use of projects. I shared with my team how Daniel took so much ownership of the project I gave the class at the end of the year, and my teammates also noticed the same for many of the students in their classrooms as well. In fact, it was the most engaged we saw some of our students. As I reflected with my teammates, I wondered aloud if I could have used project-based learning earlier in the year to not just engage Daniel but help him develop his emotional regulation. We all agreed that this would have truly been good for all our students and not just Daniel, so we decided that we would plan for putting project-based learning earlier in the year and find ways to continuously incorporate it into our current curriculum.

The use of projects and presentations is a great way to engage learners and integrate multiple curriculum areas, including SEL. These presentations could be done independently or within a small group or with a partner. John Hattie (2009), in his book Visible Learning, states that reciprocal teaching is an effective practice used for student learning. In addition to supporting student learning, this work also creates opportunities for students to practice SEL building blocks 2 (reciprocal engagement) and 5 (logical and responsible decision making). Using this learning structure, students learn through the process of creating and teaching concepts and ideas to their peers, and in turn by being taught the concepts and skills through presentations and projects their peers create. Instead of the traditional model of the teacher instructing the students, in this scenario the students are teaching each other, and the teacher is acting as a facilitator. Students can teach their peers and present the social-emotional learning in various formats. Students can create SEL presentations (see figure 4.27) using various digital presentation software and videos. Also, students could present SEL skills and concepts by using visual poster presentations, acting out social situations in skits or plays, or creating their own SEL-focused songs.

Students can also engage themselves in learning through various SEL projects that specifically support literacy and writing skills (see figure 4.28). Ideas may include creating comic strips, bookmarks, magazines or newspaper articles, and stories that teach specific SEL concepts or skills.

Presentations

Reciprocal Teaching Use of oral language skills

Visual posters

Technological displays Creating content-focused songs Acting out social situations in skits or plays

Figure 4.27: Using reciprocal teaching methods with SEL presentations.

SEL and Literacy

Comic strips

Bookmarks

Magazines or newspaper articles

Brochures or pamphlets

Letter writing

SEL short stories

Use of Writing Skills

Figure 4.28: Connecting SEL and literacy with SEL projects.

Some upper elementary teachers have their classes pair up with younger primary classes and have their students read to younger students (or the younger students read to the older students). Another option is having upper-grade-level students gear their SEL projects toward younger students instead of creating and presenting them to their grade-level peers. It might also be important to use scaffolds to help students create their SEL projects. Figure 4.29 (page 206) is a graphic organizer that students can use when creating social stories. Dexter and Hughes (2011) find that using graphic organizers can support students (particularly students with learning disabilities) with making abstract concepts more concrete and help in transferring knowledge and ideas in new or unusual situations. Christopher Kaufman (2010) breaks down the executive functioning skills necessary during the writing process and states that teachers

should require all students to use prewriting processes and organizers, not just those with learning disabilities.

SEL Short Stories

Story Title:

Social Situation: PLOT

Beginning:

Characters: Middle:

Setting: End:

Figure 4.29: SEL short stories graphic organizer.

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this figure.

Social stories help to describe social situations in life and can be used to teach students about social behaviors and social expectations in everyday life (SEL building block 3: social awareness). They can also be used to help students learn about self-concepts and emotions and how our actions (both positive and negative) can affect ourselves and those around us. Historically, social stories have been used to teach students who have difficulty understanding social situations and communicating. However, we argue that social stories are effective for all students.

In addition to writing social stories, students can create their own SEL skits. Figure 4.30 is a sample graphic organizer that students could use to create short SEL skits with several scenes. In addition to these graphic organizers, students may need additional scaffolds to be put into place. Martha Larkin (2002) states:

The ultimate academic goal is for students to become independent lifetime learners, so that they can continue to learn on their own or with limited support. Scaffolding instruction optimizes student learning by providing a supportive environment while facilitating student independence.

Therefore, we feel that at first students may need examples of social scenarios (see figure 4.31, page 208) that they can choose from as they begin to generate their own social stories or social scenes in skits. These social scenarios should align to the gradelevel SEL essential standards. In fact, it is best practice to have all SEL projects align to the grade-level essential standards. The samples we provide for you are just that— examples—so that your team can begin to see what this work can look like. The real work and learning come from what you generate together as a team.

SEL Skit or Play

Title of the scene:

Social Situation:

Problem:

Solution: Scenes:

Scene 1:

Characters:

Scene 2:

Setting:

Props: Scene 3:

Figure 4.30: SEL skit or play organizer.

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this figure.

SEL Social Scenarios

Social Situation 1: Joining in Play

A student is out at recess and wants to join in playing with a group of students playing basketball. What can the student do to join in? What shouldn’t the student do?

Social Situation 3: Active Listening

A student in class wants to share what happened to her this weekend. She is talking, but there is a substitute teacher and some students are not listening to her. What is active listening? What does active listening look like? What does it not look like?

Social Situation 5: Fair Play

What does being fair during play look like? Think about examples of fair play in school and outside of school. What are nonexamples of fair play? What emotions do people feel during fair play, and what emotions do people feel when play is not fair? What strategies can a person use if they are in a situation where play is not fair?

Social Situation 2: Changing Plans

You and your friends have a plan to play soccer at recess, but no one brought out the soccer balls today. What are you thinking and feeling? What can you and your friends do instead?

Social Situation 4: Taking Perspective

Everyone is excited to eat pizza and watch a movie for the class party but your best friend. She has allergies and cannot eat the pizza with the class. How is she feeling? What can you do to help her feel included and still have fun?

Social Situation 6: Logical Decision Making

Your two best friends both want to play different games during recess. How can you talk to both of them to find a solution all three of you are happy with?

Figure 4.31: SEL social scenarios.

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this figure.

Project-based learning (PBL) is another great way to integrate social-emotional learning. According to John W. Thomas (2000):

Project-based learning (PBL) is a model that organizes learning around projects. According to the definitions found in PBL handbooks for teachers, projects are complex tasks, based on challenging questions or problems, that involve students in design, problem-solving, decision making, or investigative activities; give

students the opportunity to work relatively autonomously over extended periods of time; and culminate in realistic products or presentations (Jones, Rasmussen, & Moffitt, 1997; Thomas, Mergendoller, & Michaelson, 1999). (p. 1)

Often project-based learning incorporates multiple academic content areas. Socialemotional learning typically occurs naturally through the process of project-based learning, but it can also be directly planned for and embedded into PBL. Projects can also be an avenue for building relationships with families as families can be encouraged to contribute to the process. Additionally, students can use technology to enhance their projects.

In fact, in the 21st century, technology has become a huge part of our everyday lives. In fact, if not for technology, our students’ ability to learn and stay connected during the COVID-19 quarantine period would have been very limited. Despite the necessity of technology to connect us, there continues to be much debate about the use of technology by our youngest learners: How does it affect their health? How long should children be allowed on devices? And how does technology impact children’s learning itself? As we learned during the pandemic, the use of technology should not be an either-or situation; rather, it should be a discussion of how we teach with and without technology in today’s education system and how we can use technology to enhance student communication and teach the skills students need in our everchanging world full of advancing technology.

Technology should not replace good instruction facilitated by a classroom teacher, but teachers can use it to engage students and enhance the learning of skills and concepts. In fact, Linda Darling-Hammond, Molly B. Zielezinski, and Shelley Goldman (2014) found that for the use of technology to have an impact on student learning, it must be effectively implemented, interactive, and used by students to explore and create.

Previously we discussed the possibility of using technology with daily or weekly routines (videos and interactive whiteboard presentations). Interactive whiteboard programs, various computer-presentation-based software, or online programs that offer digital presentation platforms or slideshows can all be used to support students in creating SEL presentations and projects with or for their peers. We also previously discussed the instructional practice of journaling (page 200). Teachers may consider having students use digital journals and store them on a shared server where the teacher can engage in the reciprocal engagement building block with students by responding to or commenting on their journal entries. Teachers can also show SEL videos in either large or small groups and then facilitate rich and meaningful discussions around what the students viewed, or students can embed these SEL videos in their projects.