Social-Emotional Learning in Virtual Learning Setup

Social Emotional Learning

Social-Emotional Learning needs critical attention while raising a child. It is important to understand the importance of social, emotional learning and how it affects a person’s emotional intelligence. More than ever, the need to emphasize SEL has increased during the pandemic. It is easier to imbibe SEL in children during offline classes.

However, virtual setups make it challenging to induce SEL. As a result, several virtual online platforms are coming up with ideas to make virtual setups easier to use to induce socio-emotional skills in kids.

Self-awareness is regarded as a crucial part of child development. EduTech is the new-age classroom that teachers use to make the students work on their emotional intelligence by conducting various activities online. This blog discusses teachers’ and parents’ strategies to induce social-emotional learning in kids using EduTech platforms.

In addition, teachers and parents also benefit and improve their emotional intelligence while practicing the following strategies for the kids.

Strategies for Parents

Online/Distance learning is the new normal that people have adopted in the pandemic period. The school has started online classes; people have to stay inside; thus, children cannot meet their friends and share their feelings with them. However, the strategies that parents can use to channel social-emotional learning in their kids are not limited to the online learning period but can be used to raise kids.

1. A Good Listener: Research has shown that being a good listener is a core competency skill that a parent needs to have in order to raise a self-aware child. Your child will speak to you about his feelings, emotions, and what all happened with him on a daily basis, only when he feels heard. Parents do not necessarily need to give suggestions, but listening and letting the kids complete their sentences is a proven way to make them feel valued.

2. Model the Behaviour you Seek: Kids learn by watching us do things than telling it them verbally. Hence, Parents should model the Behaviour they seek from their kids. Be it apologizing or being empathetic; they need to see and experience the Behaviour in order to imitate it.

3. Create a Continuity: Talk to parents of other children in your kid’s class and try to maintain continuity. In the age of online learning, you should set up online meetings with the student’s closest peers. These online meetings can include virtual lunch, some art sessions, or even a movie together. This activity may be challenging but is necessary for developing social-emotional learning in kids.

Of course, they will have to communicate differently, but as long as they get to spend time and share their feelings with their friends, they will build strong emotional intelligence.

Strategies for Teachers to work on Their SEL

Teachers need to prioritize their SEL as it helps them understand the students better while also making it easier to plan the SEL activities.

1. Share your Experiences: As an educator, the best thing you can do is share your experiences with a trusted, positive group of people. Sharing your stories will help you relive the negative thoughts and validate your feelings. Gradually, you learn to manage your emotions. Hence, it will become easier for educators to participate in any SEL activities planned for the students.

2. Practice Meditation: Teachers need to understand that they are doing an amazing job. It is suggested that educators should practice some meditation, mindfulness, and such related activities to calm their minds whenever stress takes over. Trainers can also indulge in aroma therapy between their classes to be prepared for the next class with a fresh mindset.

Strategies to Support Social-emotional learning in Students

Online learning has changed the way for everyone. The offline mode of learning offered a natural environment for students to build their SEL. However, distance learning has left the students with no access to realistic situations. Therefore, teachers can use the following methods to integrate SEL virtually.

1. Indulge in Mindful Morning Practices: Starting the day with mindful practices is a great way to integrate SEL in students. Such activities take 5 minutes of your time. The students feel motivated and energized by participating in mindful practices. You can ask the kids to indulge in mindful breathing, speak positive affirmations, or practice general gratitude.

2. Adjust a Down-Time: The online learning model has taken away the downtime from kids where they could easily share about their own lives. As an educator, you can make space for a weekly or twice-a-week downtime for your students. In this down time activity, the students can share about their new learning, any activity they did, or whatever they feel like about their lives.

This downtime does not have to have any particular theme, rather allow the kids to speak about their happy-sad moments so they can use this platform to validate their feelings and embrace them.

3. Integrate Journal Writing: Journal writing is considered to be a healthy way of expressing emotions. You, as educators, have ample ways to use journaling for integrating SEL in students. Decide the journal topics based on what you want the students to learn about and be familiar with.

For example, one day, they can write about their feelings, and on the other day, they may write something about making positive choices.You need to create daily prompts and share them with the students and write their journals. Additionally, you can split the class into groups to integrate social learning.

Using Calimatic to Support SEL for your Students

Calimatic is an EdTech software program created to integrate completely with the virtual learning requirements and enhance the student learning experience. Here is how you can use Calimatic for supporting SEL in your students.

SEL Integrated Resources: You can find the best resources for integrating academics and co-curricular activities to enhance SEL in your students.
Blended Learning: You can use multiple tools like polls, whiteboard, gamification, etc., to blend SEL with academics, thus, fostering asynchronous learning.
Interactive/Collaboration tools: Use Calimatic to enhance your student’s online learning experience using collaborative tools. You can share humor during the class and send emojis to back it up. Students will feel more connected to virtual classes. As a result, they will enjoy the activities you conduct to integrate Social Emotional Learning.

Summing Up

Socio-emotional learning is a crucial part of child development. Children who do not gain socio-emotional learning grow up to be adults with no control over their emotions. As a result, it directly impacts their ability to make decisions and positive choices.

Hence, we mention that social-emotional learning is important for every individual. You can follow the approaches mentioned above to integrate SEL in your kids, students and even practice them for yourself too. Integrating emotional intelligence in online/distance learning is challenging but fruitful for everyone.

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