Social emotional learning definition
Fundamentals of SEL - CASEL
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SEL can help all young people and adults thrive personally and academically, develop and maintain positive relationships, become lifelong learners, and contribute to a more caring, just world.
We define social and emotional learning (SEL) as an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.
SEL advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation.
SEL can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities.
What Does the Research Say?
SEL makes a difference. We know this from the research, which demonstrates that an education that promotes SEL has a positive impact on a wide range of outcomes, including academic performance, healthy relationships, mental wellness, and more.
Dive into the research
The Impact of Social and Emotional Learning
What is the CASEL SEL framework?
For many, our framework is known as the “CASEL wheel.” At the center are the five core social and emotional competencies—broad, interrelated areas that support learning and development. Circling them are four key settings where students live and grow.
School-family-community partnerships coordinate SEL practices and establish equitable learning environments across all of these contexts.
Explore the CASEL Framework
How Does SEL Support Equity?
We are driven by a vision of all children and adults as self-aware, caring, responsible, engaged, and lifelong learners who work together to achieve their goals. SEL can be a powerful lever for creating caring, just, inclusive, and healthy schools that support all young people.
Learn more about SEL and equity
How Can You Speak Up for SEL?
The majority of students, teachers, and families agree: SEL belongs in schools. But when it is co-opted by political agendas, students risk losing out on an education that will help them succeed in school and in life.
Now is the time for brave thinkers and tireless doers to speak up for SEL.
Resources to champion the facts
How does SEL connect to…
The COVID-19 PandemicMental HealthCivic LearningWorkforce Preparation
The COVID-19 Pandemic
SEL offers a powerful means to support one another during these challenging times by developing crucial competencies relating to empathy, resilience, and relationship-building that students and adults need.
Read more about COVID-19
Mental Health
While SEL and mental health are not the same, SEL can promote positive mental health in many ways, and should be incorporated in a system of mental wellness supports and resources.
Learn more about Mental Health
Civic Learning
Today’s dynamic and multicultural society calls on the next generation of civic leaders to develop strong social and emotional skills. Integrating SEL into civic learning gives students the opportunity to participate as caring and engaged community members.
Read more about SEL and Civic Learning
Ready to Engage
Perspectives of teachers and parents on social and emotional learning and service-learning in America’s public schools
View PDF
2021 SEL Exchange
Virtual summit (October 14, 2021) to explore the integration of SEL and civic engagement
Read more
Workforce Preparation
By aligning and integrating SEL and workforce preparation efforts, states and districts can promote the competencies and environments that will prepare youth to thrive and succeed in the workplace.
Learn more about SEL and Workforce Preparation
What Is the CASEL Framework?
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A framework creates a foundation for applying evidence-based SEL strategies to your community.
Our SEL framework, known to many as the “CASEL wheel,” helps cultivate skills and environments that advance students’ learning and development.
Schools, districts, states, and others can use CASEL’s Framework to:
- Foster knowledge, skills, and attitudes across five areas of social and emotional competence;
- Establish equitable learning environments and coordinate practices across four key settings that support students’ social, emotional, and academic development.
Our framework provides a foundation for communities to use evidence-based SEL strategies in ways that are most meaningful to their local context. It can be applied to many different priorities and aligned with each community’s strengths, needs, and cultures.
- Download more information on the framework (available in English and Spanish).
- Use our reflection protocol to facilitate a discussion on implementation efforts in your school, district, or other setting.
- Read more about the 2020 update to our framework, which highlighted the potential of SEL in promoting educational equity and excellence.
Interactive CASEL Wheel
Back to topEngage with our interactive wheel by selecting a competency or setting to learn more.
COMMUNITIESAligned Learning Opportunities Authentic PartnershipsFAMILIES & CAREGIVERS Schoolwide Culture, Practices & PoliciesSCHOOLS SEL Instruction & Classroom ClimateCLASSROOMS Self-Awareness Self-Management ResponsibleDecision-Making RelationshipSkills SocialAwareness Social &EmotionalLearningThe CASEL 5
Back to topThe CASEL 5 addresses five broad and interrelated areas of competence and highlights examples for each: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.
The CASEL 5 can be taught and applied at various developmental stages from childhood to adulthood and across diverse cultural contexts. Many school districts, states, and countries have used the CASEL 5 to establish preschool to high school learning standards and competencies that articulate what students should know and be able to do for academic success, school and civic engagement, health and wellness, and fulfilling careers.
A developmental perspective to SEL considers how the social and emotional competencies can be expressed and enhanced at different ages from preschool through adulthood. Students’ social, emotional, and cognitive developmental levels and age-appropriate tasks and challenges should inform the design of SEL standards, instruction, and assessment. Given that, stakeholders should decide how best to prioritize, teach, and assess the growth and development of the CASEL 5 in their local schools and communities.
Learn more about a developmental perspective.
Key Settings
Back to topWe take a systemic approach that emphasizes the importance of establishing equitable learning environments and coordinating practices across key settings of classrooms, schools, families, and communities to enhance all students’ social, emotional, and academic learning. Quality implementation of well-designed, evidence-based, classroom programs and practices is a foundational element of effective SEL. We believe it is most beneficial to integrate SEL throughout the school’s academic curricula and culture, across the broader contexts of schoolwide practices and policies, and through ongoing collaboration with families and community organizations. These coordinated efforts should foster youth voice, agency, and engagement; establish supportive classroom and school climates and approaches to discipline; enhance adult SEL competence; and establish authentic family and community partnerships.
Students, families, schools, and communities are all part of broader systems that shape learning, development, and experiences.
Inequities based on race, ethnicity, class, language, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other factors are deeply ingrained in the vast majority of these systems and impact student and adult social, emotional, and academic learning. While SEL alone will not solve longstanding and deep-seated inequities in the education system, it can create the conditions needed for individuals and schools to examine and interrupt inequitable policies and practices, create more inclusive learning environments, and reveal and nurture the interests and assets of all individuals.
Video: CASEL Framework
Back to topCASEL offers a presentation on the definition of SEL and CASEL framework for those seeking to learn more about the competencies and key settings.
Jump to section
- Interactive CASEL Wheel
- The CASEL 5
- Key Settings
- Video: CASEL Framework
Social-emotional learning.
New technology? — Didaktor
In recent years, the scientific and pedagogical community in Russia has increasingly attached importance to the technology of social-emotional learning (SEL). Scientific and practical conferences on this topic are held, foreign experts are invited to conduct seminars. master classes and trainings. Of course, even the name itself will arouse the interest of practicing teachers. And, of course, the features and relevance of this technology are of interest.
what does SOCIO-EMOTIONAL LEARNING mean?
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) refers to the acquisition by students of the skills to recognize and manage emotions, develop empathy and concern for others, make responsible decisions, establish positive relationships and effectively deal with difficult life situations that arise,
In short, it concerns formation of self-management skills, a positive attitude towards others and making responsible decisions.
KEY SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL SKILLS
SEL co-creator Davide Antognazza identifies five interrelated sets of cognitive, affective, and behavioral competencies, and they are combined into five key areas of social and emotional skills.
| Self-consciousness | Identification and recognition of emotions |
| Accurate self-perception | |
| Recognizing strengths, needs and values | |
| Self-efficacy | |
| Spirituality | |
| Public recognition | Perspective |
| empathy | |
| Diversity recognition | |
| Respect for others | |
| Municipality |
Basic PRINCIPLES of Social Emotional Learning
Four key principles are usually considered.
Principle 1: The Core Values of underpin this technology as they shape the student's behavior. The development of a set of actions without substantiating values will lead to inconsistency in purpose and behavior, actions.
Principle 2. Social and emotional skills must be taught to students so that they can use them adequately. These skills will help them meet future challenges. Five key skill areas :
- self-awareness,
- social awareness,
- local government,
- relationship management
- responsible decision making.
Teaching students social and emotional skills can be explicit, through special lessons and conversations, or hidden - through learning moments, modeling behavioral, moral and problematic situations.
Principle 3: Schools play an important role in teaching social and emotional skills because school leaders and teachers can and should be strong role models. In addition, the school environment is an important means of teaching students, a platform for the formation of social and emotional skills.
Principle 4: Children with social and emotional skills attached to sound values will be able to demonstrate good, formed character and strong citizenship.
expected RESULTS SEL
Through social-emotional learning technology, students acquire the skills, knowledge and behavior to effectively manage themselves . Pupils are ready to form adequate relationships with others and make responsible decisions necessary for personal and social well-being. Research shows strong links between SEL scores and students in the areas of intelligence, development, character building, school performance, career success, and civic responsibility.
SEL is an important part of education and training to prepare students for life and preparation for adulthood in the 21st century.
SEL And Learning Environment
SEL technology is more productive in the context of a safe, comfortable learning environment. A key factor in such an environment is a trusting relationship between teacher and student. Where such relationships exist with their teachers, students see and understand that they are respected, supported and valued as individuals.
Clearly, a positive teacher-student relationship contributes to the quality of learning, social and emotional development, and behavioral competence.
Building social and emotional competence, together with positive and supportive relationships in the school community, promotes teacher support and increases student motivation and school success.
Headings: To help the teacher, upbringing, Education, Problems of the modern school | Tags: pedagogical technique5 Social-Emotional Learning Skills Needed for Lagging Students
The Highly Emotional Adolescent Brain
Adolescents are notorious for being emotional and impulsive.
It turns out that the teenage brain is to blame.
Thanks to neuro-technologies that allow us to literally look into the brain, we now have a neurological explanation for the disproportionate impulsivity of adolescents, their desire for risk and hypersensitivity to peer pressure.
Simply put, the development of the adolescent "rational brain" or prefrontal cortex lags behind the development of the "emotional brain" or limbic system of the brain. This means that executive function skills such as impulse control and emotion regulation often lose out to strong desires for instant gratification and peer approval. And emotions like stress, frustration, or embarrassment cause a short circuit in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, making learning difficult.
Therefore, it is not surprising that students who are lagging behind in reading and learning are in such dire need of support for social-emotional learning (SEA). For such students, a specific reading teaching methodology that includes SEA skills is likely to be more effective than a traditional reading development program.
An example of such a technique is Fast ForWord with its latest programs Foundations and Elements (for high school students). This technique was developed by eminent US neuroscientists and is aimed at developing the areas of the brain responsible for speech, reading and cognitive functions - key elements for successful learning.
The social-emotional impact of reading retardation
When students lag behind in reading, their self-confidence drops as they become aware that they are lagging behind their peers. By the time they become teenagers, they may feel socially and emotionally isolated. Thus, a domino effect begins due to a lack of motivation to try to catch up, frustration in learning and, ultimately, low expectations from one's own prospects. Often students' negative emotions lead to their destructive behavior, which affects their relationship with peers and teachers, leading, among other things, to lesson disruptions, neglect or lack of participation in class work.
The best approach to overcome these socio-emotional barriers to student achievement is to develop social-emotional skills. As best-selling author and education expert Eric Jensen states in his book Teaching with the Brain in Mind, “Emotions and the mind do not exist separately; emotions, thinking and learning are interconnected.”
But social-emotional learning is a big topic. What priorities should secondary school teachers set in teaching? Here are five social-emotional learning skills that are especially important for students in adolescence, and how the Foundations and Elements programs develop SEA skills and reading/learning skills at the same time.
The Five Socio-Emotional Learning Skills for High School Students
1. Self-confidence
at school. A series of repeated failures often leads to self-doubt and even conviction of one's own stupidity.
The real problem is often not learning disabilities, but finding the right way to unleash the true, limitless potential of students.
And when students begin to achieve academic success, their confidence skyrockets, which in turn helps them to study even better, and this cycle continues endlessly.
The secret to success lies in the 80:20 ratio between success and difficulty. This proportion is provided by classes that are not too difficult, so as not to suppress the motivation to study, and at the same time, classes are not too easy, forcing the student to work hard.
Students who regularly fall behind their peers in class are not used to a consistent 80% success rate. But if you arrange classes in such a way that these students are successful 80% of the time, they experience a surge of confidence that they can achieve their goals, instead of feeling overwhelmed by the fact that they are wrong all the time. The dopamine rush that accompanies this success also fires up students' intrinsic motivation to keep learning and succeeding.
Foundations and Elements are the latest Fast ForWord programs for slow learners.
The exercises in these programs are constantly adapted to the student's abilities, the curriculum is designed to ensure that the student can consistently give at least 80% correct answers, with optimally timed rewards that keep students engaged and willing to learn. This system helps build self-confidence and ensures success in reading and learning.
2. Healthy self-esteem
Students' increased confidence in their ability to learn and succeed creates a new sense of self - healthy self-esteem. Instead of thinking "I can't do this" or "I'm stupid", they set themselves up for success by believing in themselves: "I'm smart!".
One of the components of healthy self-esteem is flexible thinking, the belief that education makes a person successful, and not some intangible, innate ability to learn. The validity of this belief is rooted in the ability of the human brain to change, called neuroplasticity (brain plasticity). Neuroplasticity is the state of the brain as a flexible, experiential organ that can be constantly reprogrammed throughout life.
Thanks to this, a person is never too late to learn new skills.
After early childhood, adolescence is the time when the brain is at its most plastic, with incredible potential for continued learning. Thus, teenagers who need to strengthen their learning ability and confidence will greatly benefit from the development of flexible thinking.
Educators and parents can instill flexible thinking in middle school students by thinking through their speech. When a student says, "I can't do it," the teacher can gently correct him, "You can't do it yet. But you can! When a child says, "I'm giving up," the parent can support, "I'll help you find another way to deal with this." Teachers and parents should avoid making statements like "it's easy" and instead make sure their students know that "it's okay to have trouble."
One of the leading neuroscientists who elucidated the role of human brain plasticity in learning was Michael Merzenich, often referred to as the "father of neuroplasticity.
" He is one of the founders of the Fast ForWord methodology, which uses neuroplasticity to effectively train the brain in speaking and writing, cognitive skills, and social-emotional skills at the same time. This is what flexible thinking means in action!
3. Self-government
Self-management is the ability to regulate one's actions, thoughts, and emotions for goal-directed behavior that leads to the achievement of goals. As evidenced by a recent EdSurge article, high school students are successful when their self-management skills are developed.
Teenagers strive for independence and self-reliance, and educators can help them develop the self-management skills they need to succeed. Self-management skills include the ability to focus on the current task, goal setting, planning, and time management.
Some of the Foundations and Elements exercises are specifically designed to develop attention skills, developing the cognitive ability to stay focused on a task.
For example, SonoLab is an exercise that requires students to listen carefully to a series of sounds and press a button as the sound changes. In essence, it trains the brain to concentrate and not act impulsively.
Students also develop self-management by reviewing the "Today's Report" at the end of each session, tracking their own progress. As students evaluate how well they achieved their goals during each session, being single-minded becomes a habit and they improve their self-management skills.
4. Self-defence
Closely related to self-management is self-defense, that is, the ability to constructively support one's own interests and security both independently and when seeking help or support when needed.
Some students find self-defence easy. These are the students who raise their hands during the lesson, ask questions, and even ask for an extension of the deadline for assignments when extenuating circumstances arise.
Other students—usually those who are not confident in their academic or speaking skills, who are afraid of embarrassing themselves in front of their peers, or who fall so often in school that they lose interest in it altogether—have not developed self-defence skills. Unfortunately, when these students encounter barriers to their academic progress, they don't seek the help they need. They don't ask for clarification when they don't understand the assignment. They miss deadlines.
Fortunately, today's technology offers a socially safe environment where students can access more information or practice more when challenging or confusing tasks come up, all without potentially embarrassing scenarios. And when students get used to seeking and receiving help on their own, with the help of a computer program, they can learn to seek help from a teacher or peers when they need it.
In Fast ForWord programs, such self-protection tools are implemented in the form of operational interventions.
For example, if a student is having difficulty in any of the exercises, they can click on the question mark button in the top navigation bar to practice in "help" mode without affecting their progress or accumulated points. This socially safe self-help mechanism allows the student to learn at their own pace and seek the help they need without risking peer judgement.
5. Self-control
Finally, self-management and self-protection combine to create self-control to control the execution of all items to achieve the goal. Essentially, self-control is the student's ability to take responsibility for their own learning. As students develop the skills needed to become responsible adults, self-control becomes an important social-emotional learning ability.
From the very beginning of every lesson in Fast ForWord, students practice self-control. In the "Today's Assignment" menu, the student chooses which exercise to start with. Within each exercise, the student is responsible for the quality and completeness of their work; whether the lesson was completed; whether it is necessary to use the built-in help for additional practice, and for which exercise to move on to.
At the end of each session, the student tracks their daily progress in the "Today's Report", enters the data into motivational tables and assesses whether the goals have been achieved.
What's more, because Fast ForWord Foundations and Elements are online programs, students can easily work with them at home, providing even more opportunities to practice self-organization and self-control.
Conclusions
Teenagers have special social-emotional learning needs due to their rapidly developing brains. Five social-emotional learning skills that can be especially useful for middle and high school students are self-confidence, healthy self-esteem, self-management, self-protection, and self-control.
Along with developing the language, writing, and cognitive skills needed for academic success, Fast ForWord Foundations and Elements help children develop the skills they need to self-manage and protect themselves.
