Theme: Importance of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) in a CS Environment
Quote:
“I'm in a good mood, even if I'm not I'm smiling and I appear to be in a good mood as the school period changes. Therefore, we set the tone for a happy day, calm day and excited day. We're ready to learn. Here we go. It also gives me a brief opportunity to kind of check in with each student as they're coming in the door. If I have a student that looks like they've been crying or a student that is visibly upset, or I have a student that might have just had an argument with a friend like I'm able to kind of check those things as they're coming in. Note to self check in with her. Notice that she wasn't here yesterday. Note to self, like I'm able to kind of do those things as they’re coming in. It also helps in the overall sense of culture of the school, and helps for students who don't have my class to see my face and recognize me as a friendly face. So that helps just kind of beyond even the scope of my own classroom, my own students. It helps to reinforce the positive school climate for students who don't have me as a teacher.”
Strategy 1: Use Mood Meter
Use a mood meter to check in with students at the beginning of the day, during transitions, before lunch, after lunch, or after a project. This helps students know someone is there for them and can talk about their feelings and emotions. It helps raise self-awareness and social awareness. The mood meter can be followed with the next 5 sets of questions using the acronym, RULER. R is recognizing emotions, where are you on the mood meter? U is understanding emotions, what caused you to feel this way? L is labeling emotions, what word best describes your feelings? E is expressing emotions, how are you expressing this feeling? Finally, the last R is for regulating emotions, what strategy will you use to feel more, less, or the same of what you are feeling?
Resources:
Introducing Staff to the Mood Meter
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Quote:
"When a student feels safe, cared for, trusted then they’re capable of caring for others. They will have a sense of confidence and an eagerness to reach out and lend a helping hand. They learn to empathize and be mindful with their peers. If we get them to feel comfortable or successful, and help them recognize the feelings of others, then they can design and build programs, collaborate in teams, and empathize with their users. "
Strategy 2: Build SEL Ambassadors
Build SEL ambassadors. SEL is a set of skills that need to be taught and incorporated into every aspect of life. When students are equipped with these skills, they improve lives in the classrooms, schools, families, and even communities.
Resources:
SEL Competencies
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Quote:
“I really believe in group work pair programming. So having one student in charge of the hardware can really work out well and in others. So like the keyboard and the mouse and another student who's in charge of their shared vision or their shared plan. I really like them to switch off a lot. So every 10, 15 minutes they switch roles. So that one person doesn't feel trapped. But it is really important, even in that scenario to watch students and make sure that one person's not dominating the conversation or dominating the direction, etc. And if that is happening most of the time, I think culturally, students maybe don't even realize it and they're extremely responsive to coaching. So you can stop and kind of help them to see what you saw and then and then again kind of invite them to join in. But now with this new understanding about themselves. So I think although you're letting them go, of course, run through the obstacle course, if you notice someone's running into a problem, you're going to scout for a second and, you know, regroup, make sure they understand what's the purpose of the course. What's the purpose of the program? And part of that is making sure that they get to know the person next to you, and they make sure that they're growing in their ability to work with others as much as they're growing in their abilities to solve problems.”
Strategy 3:
Have more group projects. Model for students how teams can work together on projects to build relationship skills. Create partnerships or teams. In partnerships, one can be a driver who handles the device and mouse and another a navigator who gives directions. In teams of 4, add a designer to do sketches or recording, and a debugger to look for and fix errors. Provide some prompts for how teammates can communicate with each other such as I agree with you but..., I disagree with you and think that..., How about we try this..., etc.
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Strategy 4:
Use the Design Thinking Model to plan out projects. Empathy is at the core of design thinking. Other parts of the model includes defining the problem, ideating, prototyping, testing, and iterating. Going through this process will have students and teachers dive deeper into ideas or issues that have more meaningful connections to real-life and their communities.
Resources:
What is Design Thinking?
5 Stages of Design Thinking Process
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Quote:
“ So the data in the data journal assignment was actually one of the things that I first started to change was because to allow students to notice their emotions throughout the day, both in school and out of school, so they could be able to basically be able to track their emotions during the day, during school hours, to be able to see, oh, I'm usually tired when I get to my first period class. And that's not an integral emotion that has nothing to do with where I am in the moment right now. That's an incidental emotion that has to do with the fact that I didn't get enough sleep last night...I'm feeling this way in this moment, but not because of anything that is happening in this moment, which creates context for their emotions and their emotional experiences...Express the emotion. The experience of the emotion is perfectly valid. But I also need for students to know when it's appropriate and how to express and regulate those emotions in the moment...Helping students to draw the connection of how their emotions are even relevant to a computer science classroom is completely fascinating because your emotions impact your ability to learn and your emotions impact your mood and your emotions affect your decision making and your emotions... are so important.”
Strategy 5:
Have students collect data using a data journal to track their emotions for a week. Students can find patterns and outliers. They can use this data to understand themselves more, help themselves regulate and identify their emotions, and understand aspects of being a computer scientist.
“I'm in a good mood, even if I'm not I'm smiling and I appear to be in a good mood as the school period changes. Therefore, we set the tone for a happy day, calm day and excited day. We're ready to learn. Here we go. It also gives me a brief opportunity to kind of check in with each student as they're coming in the door. If I have a student that looks like they've been crying or a student that is visibly upset, or I have a student that might have just had an argument with a friend like I'm able to kind of check those things as they're coming in. Note to self check in with her. Notice that she wasn't here yesterday. Note to self, like I'm able to kind of do those things as they’re coming in. It also helps in the overall sense of culture of the school, and helps for students who don't have my class to see my face and recognize me as a friendly face. So that helps just kind of beyond even the scope of my own classroom, my own students. It helps to reinforce the positive school climate for students who don't have me as a teacher.”
Strategy 1: Use Mood Meter
Use a mood meter to check in with students at the beginning of the day, during transitions, before lunch, after lunch, or after a project. This helps students know someone is there for them and can talk about their feelings and emotions. It helps raise self-awareness and social awareness. The mood meter can be followed with the next 5 sets of questions using the acronym, RULER. R is recognizing emotions, where are you on the mood meter? U is understanding emotions, what caused you to feel this way? L is labeling emotions, what word best describes your feelings? E is expressing emotions, how are you expressing this feeling? Finally, the last R is for regulating emotions, what strategy will you use to feel more, less, or the same of what you are feeling?
Resources:
Introducing Staff to the Mood Meter
----------------------------------
Quote:
"When a student feels safe, cared for, trusted then they’re capable of caring for others. They will have a sense of confidence and an eagerness to reach out and lend a helping hand. They learn to empathize and be mindful with their peers. If we get them to feel comfortable or successful, and help them recognize the feelings of others, then they can design and build programs, collaborate in teams, and empathize with their users. "
Strategy 2: Build SEL Ambassadors
Build SEL ambassadors. SEL is a set of skills that need to be taught and incorporated into every aspect of life. When students are equipped with these skills, they improve lives in the classrooms, schools, families, and even communities.
Resources:
SEL Competencies
----------------------------------
Quote:
“I really believe in group work pair programming. So having one student in charge of the hardware can really work out well and in others. So like the keyboard and the mouse and another student who's in charge of their shared vision or their shared plan. I really like them to switch off a lot. So every 10, 15 minutes they switch roles. So that one person doesn't feel trapped. But it is really important, even in that scenario to watch students and make sure that one person's not dominating the conversation or dominating the direction, etc. And if that is happening most of the time, I think culturally, students maybe don't even realize it and they're extremely responsive to coaching. So you can stop and kind of help them to see what you saw and then and then again kind of invite them to join in. But now with this new understanding about themselves. So I think although you're letting them go, of course, run through the obstacle course, if you notice someone's running into a problem, you're going to scout for a second and, you know, regroup, make sure they understand what's the purpose of the course. What's the purpose of the program? And part of that is making sure that they get to know the person next to you, and they make sure that they're growing in their ability to work with others as much as they're growing in their abilities to solve problems.”
Strategy 3:
Have more group projects. Model for students how teams can work together on projects to build relationship skills. Create partnerships or teams. In partnerships, one can be a driver who handles the device and mouse and another a navigator who gives directions. In teams of 4, add a designer to do sketches or recording, and a debugger to look for and fix errors. Provide some prompts for how teammates can communicate with each other such as I agree with you but..., I disagree with you and think that..., How about we try this..., etc.
----------------------------------
Strategy 4:
Use the Design Thinking Model to plan out projects. Empathy is at the core of design thinking. Other parts of the model includes defining the problem, ideating, prototyping, testing, and iterating. Going through this process will have students and teachers dive deeper into ideas or issues that have more meaningful connections to real-life and their communities.
Resources:
What is Design Thinking?
5 Stages of Design Thinking Process
----------------------------------
Quote:
“ So the data in the data journal assignment was actually one of the things that I first started to change was because to allow students to notice their emotions throughout the day, both in school and out of school, so they could be able to basically be able to track their emotions during the day, during school hours, to be able to see, oh, I'm usually tired when I get to my first period class. And that's not an integral emotion that has nothing to do with where I am in the moment right now. That's an incidental emotion that has to do with the fact that I didn't get enough sleep last night...I'm feeling this way in this moment, but not because of anything that is happening in this moment, which creates context for their emotions and their emotional experiences...Express the emotion. The experience of the emotion is perfectly valid. But I also need for students to know when it's appropriate and how to express and regulate those emotions in the moment...Helping students to draw the connection of how their emotions are even relevant to a computer science classroom is completely fascinating because your emotions impact your ability to learn and your emotions impact your mood and your emotions affect your decision making and your emotions... are so important.”
Strategy 5:
Have students collect data using a data journal to track their emotions for a week. Students can find patterns and outliers. They can use this data to understand themselves more, help themselves regulate and identify their emotions, and understand aspects of being a computer scientist.