SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING & HLP

D. Sue Vernon, Ph.D.

Jocelyn Washburn

2019 SIMposium Conference

• The Talking Together Program,
• The SCORE Skills: Social Skills for Cooperative Groups, and
• The Socially Wise Program

Advance Organizer

• Introductions
• High Leverage Practices
• Emotional safety in the classroom and school
• Learning communities
• Community-Building Series: Talking Together
• Social Skills (The SCORE Skills and the Socially Wise program)

Social/Emotional/Behavioral High Leverage Practices

• Establish a consistent, organized, and respectful learning environment.
• Provide positive and constructive feedback to guide students’ learning and behavior.
• Teach social behaviors.
• Conduct functional behavioral assessment to develop individual student behavior support plans.

*Resource for future use: https://highleveragepractices.org/701-2-4-2/

12 HLPs related to instruction

• Identify & prioritize long- and short-term learning goals.
• Systematically design instruction toward a specific learning goal.
• Adapt curriculum tasks and materials for specific learning goals
• Teach cognitive and metacognitive strategies to support learning and independence.
• Provide scaffolded supports.
• Use explicit instruction.
• Use flexible grouping.
• Use strategies to promote active student engagement.
• Use assistive and instructional technologies.
• Provide intensive instruction.
• Teach student to maintain and generalize new learning across time and settings.
• Provide positive and constructive feedback to guide students’ learning & behavior.

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High Leverage Practices

• What types of positive support strategies do you currently use with students who have social, emotional and/or behavioral challenges?

Benefits?

• Do you agree or disagree with the premise of the high-leverage practices that all students benefit from teachers using this practice?

How do teachers establish a consistent, respectful learning environment or community?

• They challenge discriminatory attitudes & behavior
• They educate students about how their actions affect their lives and others
• They explicitly teach respect, tolerance, support and social skills, monitor behavior, and provide feedback
• Use evidence-based programs and HLPs

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Evidence-based programs: The Community-Building Series

Purpose of the series

• To build learning communities in classrooms in which all members:
• Work together to facilitate every students’ learning
• Are encouraged to participate and do their best
• Feel valued and appreciated
• Feel safe and supported

TALKING TOGETHER

Only a very strong, constantly cultivated culture can prevent the weeds of mistrust, disrespect, and uncooperativeness from taking over the garden.

Champy, 1995

How do adults sometimes behave in discussions?

• Have you ever been in meetings or workshops where someone may have had a tendency to:
• Dominate the conversation
• Wander off-task
• Argue a point excessively
• Interrupt, disrupt
• Get a little testy
• Dismiss others’ ideas without thinking
• Have you ever wished there were discussion guidelines before starting a policy debate or a discussion of a meaningful topic in which everyone has a vested interest?

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How do students sometimes behave in discussions?

• Students often lack the skills to participate respectfully in class discussions.

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• They also often lack the skills to

work cooperatively and

productively in small groups.

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• Creating an emotionally safe learning community is not always easy.

A “walking tour” of The Talking Together program

• Structure: six lessons with two formats
• Lesson 1: Participation & the Discussion Skill
• Lesson 2: The Partner Skill
• Lesson 3: Respect
• Lesson 4: Tolerance
• Lesson 5: The Support Skill
• Lesson 6: Describing our Learning Community

Explicit Instruction

Why specific instruction is necessary…

CHARACTERISTICS OF A LEARNING COMMUNITY

ALWAYS PRESENT

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• Trust, tolerance shown
• Fairness, respect shown
• Everyone belongs
• Everyone is valued
• Everyone has a voice
• Support, help, and encouragement offered
• Everyone feels safe
• Everyone participates

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NEVER PRESENT

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• Putdowns, teasing
• Lying
• Not listening
• Arguing, interrupting
• Leaving people out
• Laughing AT others
• Cheating, meanness
• Rudeness, shaming
• Some not doing their share

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Lesson 6: Describing Our Learning Community

Research results

• Experimental-group students learned and retained concepts (such as respect and tolerance) and the skills necessary to create a learning community.
• More targeted students in the experimental classes participated in the class discussion.
• Participation by experimental students was more respectful (e.g., hands were lowered when others talked, there were fewer disruptions, and fewer answers were yelled out).
• Overall, experimental teachers complimented the students more, they provided more low-risk opportunities to keep all students actively involved (e.g., partner responses, group responses), and they called on more students.
• Satisfaction ratings by both students and teachers were high, students recommended the program for other students, and teachers strongly endorsed it.

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Research & age

• Think about the skills and concepts taught:
• Body language: voice tone, expression, eye contact
• Participate and share ideas – everyone one has a voice
• Compliment good ideas, support & expand on thoughts
• Respectfully listen and think
• Stay on task
• Do you think Talking Together could be adapted and used across age groups even though it was field-tested with elementary students?

Accountability

• Think about data collection
• For example,
• Office referrals, suspensions
• Absenteeism, truancy
• Satisfaction with the program (teachers and students)
• Recorder’s Log: Increase in respectful participation in discussions, increase in positive behavior, decrease in negative behavior

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• COMMUNITY BUILDING sets the stage for additional skill instruction and content learning.

• What are other “FOUNDATIONAL” skills that students need for success in the classroom and in life (think about cooperative learning groups)?

Not all students have appropriate social skills

Expectations of students

• SOCIALLY, students must follow rules and interact appropriately with peers and adults.

SOCIALLY, students with learning disabilities:

• Score the same as juvenile offenders on a test of social skills
• Do not participate in class discussions
• Often demonstrate rule-breaking behavior
• Are less active in school and out-of-school activities
• Do not recognize opportunities for social skill use

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Proactive teaching (evidence-based programs): The Cooperative Thinking Strategies Series

• The SCORE Skills
• The Teamwork Strategy
• The THINK Strategy
• The LEARN Strategy
• The BUILD Strategy

Purpose of the Cooperative Thinking Strategies

• To enable students to learn skills for working in groups

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• To enable students to learn simple structures for completing higher-order thinking tasks

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• To enable teachers and students to learn how to create a learning community

THE SCORE SKILLS �

Social Skills for Cooperative Groups

Professional Development Workshop

What are the SCORE Skills?

• Share Ideas
• Compliment Others
• Offer Help or Encouragement
• Recommend Changes Nicely
• Exercise Self-Control

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Social Skills Instruction in the General Ed Classroom

All students can receive instruction.

Expectations for socially appropriate behavior can be defined in a common language for all students.

Basic skills can be taught and can provide the foundation for more complex skills.

Instruction can address issues in the setting in which problems occur.

SCORE Adaptations for Older Students

• Frame skills as expectations for appropriate and successful team interactions:

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• Share, synthesize, keep an open mind, and ensure that everyone has a voice
• Compliment, commend teammates
• Offer Help, encourage others
• Give (and accept) constructive feedback
• Exercise self-control

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Set Goals and Celebrate Accomplishments

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THE SOCIALLY WISE PROGRAM

Interactive Social Skills Computer Instruction for Students

Purpose of the research project

• To design, pilot test, and field test an interactive multimedia computer program for teaching social skills to youth with social-adjustment problems.
• To provide instruction to prevent social isolation, address antisocial behavior, and provide youth with alternatives to behaviors that result in formal and informal reprimands from authority.

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• Turn to your neighbor and list one or two potential benefits of having a self-paced computer program for social skills instruction?

THE SOCIALLY WISE PROGRAM:

Ways to Increase Your Social Interaction Quotient

Overview of the CD program

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Structure

Body Language

Learn it

The narrator describes the new skill, provides rationales for learning the skill, and describes the skill steps and situations in which the skill can be used.

See it

Students see vignettes in which a skill is used or not used.

Save it

Students interactively review the information associated with skill using: flash cards and a step-recognition game, called “Step Blaster.”

Quiz it

Students take a quiz to demonstrate their mastery of the information. Both multiple choice and fill-in the blank questions are included in this section.

Practice it: Reflect & Choose Activity

Students watch a scene unfold and choose the best use of each skill step until the situation is over.

Practice it: Role-play Activities

Students first see a model of how to role-play. They then practice the skill in novel situations with a partner and provide performance feedback to one another.

THE SKILLS

Introduction to social skills (and body language)

Dealing with Critical Feedback

Coping with No

Accepting Advice

Negotiation

Apologizing

Responding to Peer Pressure

Involving Others

Giving Feedback to Peers

Design Your Own Skill

PROGRAM PREVIEW

Review

• How did the three programs discussed reflect and embody the high-leverage practice?
• Do you currently use this strategy or a variation of it? Describe what you do.
• Are there other approaches/guidance that teachers use that might reflect and/or embody the high-leverage practice reflected in the programs?

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Contact Information

Sue Vernon, Ph.D.

Social Perspective, LLC

Lawrence, KS 66046

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Phone: 785-371-6554

www.socialperspective.org

Email: svernon2@windstream.net

Jocelyn Washburn

Director of Professional Development

University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning

Lawrence, KS 66045

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Phone: 785-864-0622

https://sim.ku.edu

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