Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) (Emotional Intelligence)

BENEFITS

• Emotion management: Students with higher EI are better able to manage negative emotions such as anxiety, boredom, and disappointment, which can negatively affect academic performance.

• Social skills: Emotionally intelligent students form better relationships with teachers, peers, and family members, which contribute to academic success.

• Subject-specific advantages: Skills associated with emotional intelligence, such as understanding human motivation and emotion, may overlap with skills required for certain subjects like history and language.

• Positive psychological characteristics: EI is positively related to self-efficacy, motivation, and resilience, which in turn contribute to better academic achievement.

• Coping strategies: Students with higher EI are more adept at coping with academic and non-academic stressors.

• Academics: Students with higher emotional intelligence tend to perform better academically, as measured by grades and standardized test scores. This relationship holds true across different age groups, from elementary school to college.

• While cognitive intelligence (IQ) remains the strongest predictor of academic performance, emotional intelligence accounts for approximately 4% of the differences in students’ academic performance.

• Some aspects of EI, such as understanding emotions, can explain up to 12% of the variance in academic achievement.

• This suggests that investing in social-emotional learning (SEL) programs in schools can be an effective way to improve student achievement. McCann (2020)

HOW TO

• Vision:  Name 3–5 shared SEL values for your classroom (e.g., respect, care, responsibility, perseverance, voice) and co-create simple norms tied to them with students.

• Explicitly connect behavior, participation, and peer interactions back to those values in your language (“In this room, we practice care by…”).

• Actively listen to students “appraisals” of situations and feelings – reflect back and focus on reducing the negative and maximize the positive.

• Create a positive classroom environment – where students feel safe; can express opinions and feelings; regular routine.

• Start class with brief check-ins or morning meetings (feelings thermometer, “one word for today,” rose‑thorn‑bud).

• Greet students individually, use their names, and schedule brief 1:1 check‑ins over time so every student experiences authentic attention, not just corrective contact.

• Establish and model student-centered discipline: calm, respectful redirection, focus on repairing harm and problem-solving rather than public shaming or power struggles.

• Incorporate SEL into lesson plans: discuss self-awareness and empathy; use case studies and examples of real-life EI.

• Embed partner and group work with explicit roles (listener, encourager, timekeeper) so students practice communication, collaboration, and perspective-taking while doing content.

• Use frequent “turn and talk,” think‑pair‑share, and cooperative structures to build belonging and reduce social isolation.

• Model think‑alouds about your own emotions and self-talk (“I’m frustrated by this tech issue, so I’m taking a breath and breaking the problem into smaller steps.”).

• Teach SEL explicitly –  Schedule short, consistent SEL mini-lessons (emotional vocabulary, coping strategies, problem-solving steps, empathy) using stories, role plays, or real classroom scenarios.

• Teach and rehearse concrete self-regulation strategies (mindful breathing, movement breaks, grounding exercises).

• Use visual tools (feelings charts, problem-solving posters, “What can I do when…?”) students can reference independently.

• Implement Mindfulness Practice: daily; deep breathing; discuss stress and anxiety.

• Facilitate emotional expression: through art, writing, and discussions.

• Teach SEL vocabulary.

• Offer choices and build responsibility for decisions.

• Help children become “emotion scientists”

• Use Games to promote and regulate emotions.

• Create and use “choice boards”

• Focus and teach “active listening”

• Build social communication skills – assertiveness

• Emotion regulation: role playing and brainstorming.

• Empathy training: practicing considering other’s perspective.

• Gratitude practice.

• Self-awareness: practice mapping emotions. link

HOW TO MEASURE SUCCESS

• Attendance rates

• Behavioral disruptions

• Qualitative teacher observations

• Survey

• Self-assessments

• Turned in assignments

• Academic performance – grades

• School climate assessments

CHALLENGES

• Packed schedules and pressure to prioritize tested academic content leave little protected time for SEL lessons or routines, so SEL is often squeezed in or dropped.

• Large class sizes, heavy administrative demands, and competing initiatives make it hard to implement full curricula with fidelity rather than “picking and choosing” pieces.

• Limited funding and resources (materials, curricula, coaching) constrain both initial implementation and long‑term sustainability.

• Many teachers receive little formal preparation on SEL skills or on how to deliver SEL curricula, so they feel unprepared or anxious about “doing it right.”

• Programs can feel too long, scripted, or disconnected from teachers’ context, leading to low treatment acceptability and partial or inconsistent implementation.

• A lack of common understanding of what SEL is and how it looks in practice causes confusion, uneven expectations, and fragmentation across a staff.

• Weak administrative support, frequent program changes, and initiative fatigue undermine teacher buy‑in and the consistency needed for SEL to take hold.

• Limited structures for collaboration, coaching, and shared problem‑solving make SEL feel like an individual add‑on rather than a collective, school wide effort.

• Students’ varied readiness for SEL, trauma histories, and behavior needs can make lessons difficult to deliver and keep engaging without additional supports.

• Lack of parent/guardian understanding or buy‑in—sometimes fueled by misconceptions or politicization of SEL—can generate resistance or pressure to scale back programming. link

WHAT NOT TO DO

• Don’t do isolated “SEL days” or occasional feel‑good lessons with no ongoing routines, because they rarely change skills or climate.

• Don’t limit SEL to the early grades or a single advisory block while ignoring it in academic classes; this narrows its impact and signals it’s optional.​

• Don’t bolt SEL on top of everything else without integrating it into existing structures (morning meeting, group work norms, reflection in content lessons).

• Don’t roll out SEL when staff haven’t had time to build shared language, understand the why, and see links to academics; this is a primary reason for weak or haphazard implementation.

• Don’t assume a quick PD or a binder is enough support; lack of ongoing coaching and structural supports is a common roadblock.

• Don’t over‑lecture or moralize about SEL; when adults mainly talk at students, engagement drops and skills don’t transfer.

• Don’t rigidly follow a script if it kills authenticity; programs used as “read‑this‑card” activities often become compliance tasks rather than skill‑building.

• Don’t assume students already know how to collaborate or self‑regulate; these need explicit modeling, practice, feedback, and responsive scaffolds.

• Don’t impose a one‑size‑fits‑all SEL model that ignores local culture, community values, and student identity; this fuels pushback and reduces relevance.

• Don’t dismiss parent or community concerns as “silly” or political noise; listening and responding builds trust and can refine your messaging and design

• Don’t pair SEL with punitive, exclusionary discipline (e.g., using mindfulness only as a response to “bad behavior,” or removing recess and community time as consequences); this undermines the SEL message.

• Don’t reduce SEL to point systems and external rewards with no internal reflection; over‑emphasis on compliance can crowd out self‑awareness and genuine responsibility.  link