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SEL FORWARD

Social and Emotional Learning Towards Meaningful Social Contribution

A variety of learning experiences are offered to students through this curriculum. These experiences intend to increase engagement, develop critical thinking skills, and expose students to various perspectives, thereby preparing them to execute the social action project effectively. The manner in which students respond to and ask questions during all the experiences will allow teachers to creatively assess them by way of observation. As curriculum developers of a negotiated curriculum, we have merely outlined the use and impact of these experiences.

The negotiable nature will give children the “freedom of intelligence” to decide the end goals and intended outcomes of these experiences (Dewey, 1938, p.61). Additionally, they will also have a say in the methods that need to be employed to meet the goals. Thus, students will engage in thoughtful discussions with their teachers to decide where they should go on a field trip, who they should invite as speakers and what issue they should address through the social action project.

Collaborative Learning in Small Group Discussions

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This curriculum provides students with multiple opportunities to interact with each other in small groups to foster collaboration. Through a collaborative experience, both teachers and students are exposed to varied perspectives and can gain a deeper understanding of the topic. Further, this learning experience pushes children to think critically and creates a classroom space where children share responsibility and are held accountable for each others’ learning. This structure also gives students the opportunity to tap into the wealth of knowledge and expertise of their classmates.

Collaborative learning structures are woven across all the units of the curriculum with the intention of building teamwork and a sense of community within students, two imperative skills required by responsible and active citizens of the community.

Students form collaborative learning structures to discuss their emotions and values and also decide on the social issue that they collectively hope to solve. In our curriculum, collaborative learning structures also intend to increase students’ self-knowledge by giving them the opportunity to receive consistent and authentic feedback from their peers.

When children grow up in a culture and begin their schooling with support for thinking, feeling, and acting in groups, they are more likely to participate in and practice democracy as informed and caring citizens (Krechevsky, et. al., 2016, p. 13).

Ways to differentiate: Homogenous and heterogenous grouping system; varying level of teacher support for different groups; graphic organizers and guides for groups that require support; group leaders and student roles.

Field Trips

Field Trips provide students with the opportunity to explore and investigate something first-hand. Oyler (2012) argues that strong social action projects require teachers to help students situate problems and build socio-historical understandings (p. 149). Field trips will prove to be valuable and indispensable during the civic acts and social action unit, as students will get the opportunity to step out of their classrooms to conduct pre-action surveys and post action impact assessment surveys. As students map community assets and engage in a power analysis, they will be exposed to multiple perspectives (Anyon, 2009, p. 393) This will help them better understand the needs of the community. The impact assessment survey will allow students to gauge their impact as a group. Besides the last two units, field trips will also be beneficial during the senses and values unit as it will give students the opportunity to see how social-emotional skills and personal values play out in and impact individuals in a real-world setting.

Ways to differentiate: Students consolidate their learning from field trips in different formats (illustrations, mind-maps, short responses, reflections); students conduct surveys individually, in pairs or in small groups.

Guest Speakers

Guest Speakers bring in immense value and perspective in classrooms where teachers themselves have very little experience of social activism. Guest speakers may be invited to the classroom to give children insights and recommendations on how to deal with public opinion and keep people's sensitivities in mind while conducting social action projects. Additionally, they may also provide children with information on how to conduct surveys, collect qualitative and quantitative data, and use the information to build a more sustainable model for change. Besides inviting guest speakers during unit 3 and 4, they can also be called in during the first two units to provide students valuable information on working in groups, operating with a growth mindset, managing their emotions and stress, and regulating their behavior in social settings. Including guest speakers as a part of learning experiences broaden students' perspective by giving them access to technical information from industry experts.

Ways to differentiate: Roles during guest speakers: notetaker, challenger, question-master; students create minutes of the discussion for others to read.

Interdisciplinary Learning

Various tasks in this curriculum presents an interdisciplinary learning where students develop vocabularies, reading literacy, comprehension, communication skills as well as social skills through activities such as group discussion, research and team projects.

Ways to differentiate: Randomly assign groupings for debates: pro's and con's, agreeing and disagreeing; multimodal representations.

Authentic Tasks and Events

These are student-centered, activity-based, and product oriented learning experiences. In other words, students play an active role in creating something they are interested in that is useful and finite (Valle & Connor, 2011, p. 146). By incorporating current events and relevant issues within the community including real-life examples, students will be able to contextualize what they are learning. Through authentic and meaningful tasks, learners are able to apply their knowledge in a realistic scenario.

Ways to differentiate: Students consolidate their learning in different formats (illustrations, mind-maps, short responses, reflections) or through multimodal representations; students conduct surveys individually, in pairs, or in small groups.

Reflective Teaching Strategies

Teachers are also learners in this curriculum. By using pre-test surveys and observations, teachers have an opportunity to reflect on their teaching strategies in order to improve and revise instruction according to students' culture and needs. While this experience may be viewed as learning on the part of the teacher, ultimately this strategy benefits the students.

Ways to differentiate: Teachers jot down notes during group discussions and activities and look for misconceptions and understandings that can potentially be investigated and expanded during class discussions. Teachers can refer to the pre-instruction survey, observation sheet, reflection pieces as well as self and peer reviews to reflect on their teaching strategies and adapt improvements.

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