Meaningful Social-Emotional Instruction
My favorite area of teaching is social-emotional problem-solving skills for students. The reason is that I can provide instruction in real-time, while a situation is occurring. (Though this isn’t always realistic, pairing the instruction as close to the occurrence as possible is preferred.) Talk about rewarding and meaningful for the student! What better way to teach than in the moment, when feelings are raw and strategies are practical.
Before I developed some of my resources, I remember carrying around various colored sticky notes and an if/then diagram. I would use yellow sticky notes for the situation/scenario, green sticky notes for expected behaviors, and orange for unexpected behaviors. Then, as situations occurred, I would sketch out my observations on the sticky notes and place them on the if/then diagram. This was my lesson plan if you will. All this to teach meaningful lessons during my therapy. Does this sound familiar? Boy, the lengths we go to for our students’ best interests!
Social-Emotional Problem-Solving Issues
I find it incredibly important to provide problem-solving activities and social-emotional learning activities for my students. As a speech-language pathologist, I often observe needs in these areas. Not only are these needs present with students having autism spectrum disorder, pervasive developmental disorder, and executive functioning impairments, but also those with deficits in communication, learning ability, cognitive ability, and others.
Students with these deficits may not recognize that a problem exists or understand the perspective-taking required to adequately solve problems. They often struggle to understand that their feelings are due to a specific problem or situational outcome. It is important to let them know that often feelings don’t just passively happen to them. They may have control over creating different outcomes and subsequent feelings by amending their behavior. Providing students with the tools or strategies that support control over their emotions and problem-solving processes is so rewarding.
Practical Teaching Strategies for Social-Emotional Problem-Solving
Social-emotional development and problem-solving activities should be explicit and integrated into natural everyday contexts and situations. They must be purposeful and well thought out. Resources that support spontaneous or “in-the-moment” interventions that incorporate a mediated learning experience can be powerful and support generalization of skills.
Important strategies that should be incorporated into problem-solving activities and social-emotional development are widely documented. In an effort to narrow down information, the K-12 Teachers Alliance Graduate Programs for Teachers educator’s blog states problem-solving instruction should contain clear objectives, provide guidance not solutions, and encourage reflection, all within a supportive environment. I also appreciate this guidance from Everyday Speech. They state “activities should support common day-to-day challenges, develop reasoning, promote options thinking by looking at different perspectives, enhance creativity and adaptability, strengthen communication and collaboration, build real-world problem-solving abilities, and ultimately build confidence in independent decision-making”.
To address this area, I have created easily accessible, printable and digital Boom Learning resources that address social-emotional development and problem-solving. The printed products can also be used as a digital resource when downloaded onto an ipad or other digital device. The resources have been developed based on my own experience and what works for engaging my students. The materials walk students through the following processes:
- recognize a situation/want/plan
- generate possible consequences or cause/effect relationships
- determine expected or unexpected behaviors
- identify feelings
- perspective-taking
- thoughtful discussion of options to achieve desired behavior and outcomes
If you are looking for apps or complete programs, these are without a doubt my all-time favorite resources:
Everyday Speech (digital app)- PreK-high school
We Thinkers – (printed materials) for children ages 4-7 years
Of course, they have a much higher fee, but the variety, ease of use, and instructional content are worth the purchase. By the way, I receive no benefit for recommending these resources. They have just been that invaluable to my therapy:)
Resources
Engaging Problem-Solving Activities for Students: Educators Blog. https://www.graduateprogram.org/blog/engaging-problem-solving-activities-for-students/
Everyday Speech Website. https://everydayspeech.com/sel-implementation/developing-critical-thinking-problem-solving-scenarios-for-elementary-students