Social-Emotional Learning is gaining momentum in schools worldwide. This educational method is meant to be integrated into the curricula to provide teachers and parents with tools to support the mental health and well-being of students. Research on SEL shows telling evidence of improved academic performance and behaviors among students.

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), a leading organization dedicated to making Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) part of education, defines SEL as “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.”

The organization identifies five core competencies that comprise SEL, which are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. All five are critical for the success of students in and outside the classroom. While there are multiple ways to integrate SEL into the curricula in traditional ways, many apps, games, and web resources can make SEL more engaging and effective for students.

Here is a list of excellent tools and resources that will help you address the five core competencies of SEL.

Self-Awareness is one of the key components of SEL and is the ability to be aware of our emotions, needs, values, preferences, thoughts, attitudes, strengths, etc., and how these may impact our lives from small day-to-day activities to bigger life decisions.

An excellent way of cultivating self-awareness in the classroom is to start each day with an emotional check-in. This can be as simple as a journaling activity asking students questions such as “What are some of your feelings right now?” and “Where are they coming from?” or having them share their emotions through emojis on Google Jamboard.

Alternatively, you can introduce short meditations to your classes. There are lots of meditation tools such as Calm and Headspace. A full body scan meditation on Headspace can be a great warm-up for teaching students to pay attention to how their bodies store emotions. If you are looking for something designed specifically for children, check out DreamyKid. It is a meditation app designed for kids ages 3-17 and is used by hundreds of schools worldwide. The app aims to bring mindfulness to schools through meditations, affirmations, guided journeys, healing activities, and other tools. DreamyKid recently introduced a school program that costs $32-$47/month with a 10-month commitment and provides flexible pricing options depending on the number of teachers who integrate it into the classroom. 

Self-Management

Self-regulation and management of our emotions are essential for our mental and emotional well-being. This component of SEL implies learning to manage and regulate emotions, actions, and choices, manage stress, and set goals.

In teaching our students and kids to identify and process their feelings, we set them up for success in an increasingly stressful world. You can teach students to identify their emotions and those of others through games and interactive activities. Nearpod, a platform offering thousands of educational videos, ready-made lesson plans, and interactive material has excellent CASEL-aligned teaching resources that can assist you in bringing SEL to your classroom daily. Use this Nearpod video that explains how to identify anger and have students take the quiz afterward.

Social Awareness

Social Awareness is a competence rooted in empathy and concern for others. It is the ability to put ourselves in other people’s shoes and see things from another perspective. This can be easily modeled and practiced through games focusing on conflict resolution.

Cool School: Where Peace Rules may be the ultimate tool for this. The game helps cultivate empathy by engaging kids in various scenarios that ask them to put themselves in another person's shoes. Play this game to give students the opportunity to resolve conflicts in an empathetic way and in a safe environment.

Relationship Skills

SEL develops students’ relationship skills helping them to effectively manage their interactions in and outside school. To develop interpersonal skills, respect, and empathy for others.

If you are teaching middle school, consider incorporating Middle School Confidential, an award-winning graphic novel series by anti-bullying activist Annie Fox. This tool will engage students in interactive reading activities while helping them navigate middle school with increased emotional preparedness and empathy. For instance, by choosing the Middle School

Confidential 2: Real Friends vs. the Other Kind, you can teach students how to make friends and manage tough social interactions, resolve conflicts, and deal with gossip, bullying, and other issues.

Middle School Confidential 1: Be Confident in Who You Are will help strengthen students’ self-esteem and teach them empathy and other tools to manage situations involving teasing, bullying, or self-doubt.

Responsible Decision-Making

Responsible decision-making is SEL’s fifth competence. To address this aspect of SEL, introduce story ethical decision-making through games such as Quandry. Quandary, a free non-profit educational tool designed for students 8+ can help “develop critical thinking and perspective-taking, practice empathy, and learn to make ethical decisions through fun and engaging gameplay.”  Quandary helps develop critical thinking and responsible decision-making skills by asking students to identify and resolve real-life issues. The game claims research-based evidence for an increase in fact vs. opinion comprehension, self-reported perspective-taking, concern for others, and overall high student engagement.

A similar decision-making game that can be integrated into your classes is Life Choices, a life simulation game that requires students to make choices to help a fictional town with repairs and restoration. Rather than focus on right or wrong decisions, the game creates an opportunity for students to make ethical decisions through real-life situations.

Conclusion

Social-Emotional Learning becomes more and more necessary as we face constantly changing educational environments. Rather than allow digital tools and devices to consume our student’s attention and affect their mental and emotional health, we can instead use them to bring gamification and storytelling into the classroom to foster their social and emotional development. With so many helpful SEL resources available in our toolkits, we can prepare future generations that are well-equipped to tackle any challenge that shows up on their life path.