Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is becoming increasingly important to implement within the classroom and students are increasingly struggling with many areas of mental-wellbeing and are notably having difficulty overcoming these obstacles. SEL is related to my overall goal of better supporting students in my classroom as it is an important element of inclusion. In order for every student to be included, they also need to feel like they belong. The idea of building a community of learners who are able to learn to understand their feelings and emotions, as well as develop the ability to be empathetic and relate to others is crucial to their overall achievement.
When you travel you meet all different types of people from all over the world. People with different life experiences and different expectations about the exciting and nerve-racking experience that is travelling. By being socially and emotionally competent, it is easier to develop empathy and understanding for those around us. This also allows for us to be even more open to new experiences that we never would have thought imaginable.
Artifact #1: Case Study Part 1-SEL-EPSE565i
For this part of the large case study, I was required to develop a plan to address the social and emotional learning needs of the classroom. This project is important because I was able to develop an ideal learning environment with many different layers and ideas. This provides a great starting point and working document to planning for any classroom in the future. I can reflect on what I see as an ideal plan, what strategies I have tried and have been successful, as well as what I can try in the future.
Artifact #2:Implementing Social-Emotional Learning into K-1 Classroom- EPSE 585
For the final project in EPSE 585, we were given a free choice to carry out a project and demonstrate our learning in any way. As the course began in September, I decided that I would focus on implementing more SEL into my daily classroom routines in order to better support my students. This paper reflects on connecting theory to practice and what I implemented within my classroom and the changes I saw within my students. This paper serves as a reflection on strategies I tried during my first year of teaching and how successful I did or did not find these strategies. This will be helpful in planning future learning environments.
Artifact #3: Inquiry Project-Exploring Motivation & Engagement- EPSE565R
Elements of self-regulation, including motivation and engagement, go hand-in-hand with being social and emotionally competent. For this project, I explored elements of self-regulation in my K-1 classroom, specifically looking at students level of motivation and engagement in a task. In taking theory and implementing it into my practice, I address the areas in which the students in my class are struggling with their engagement and how this is connecting to their social and emotional learning. Once again, I find this piece of work to be reflective and a valuable learning opportunity for me as an educator. By being able to look at my own practice and the choices I have made in connection with my students’ motivation and engagement, I can better understand specific tasks that are or are not working for certain students and why. This will allow for me to better inform my inclusive practices and plan for learning environments in the future.