 15+ Ideas for Social Emotional Distance Learning l Miss Rae's Room Special Education Teaching Blog In recent years, Social Emotional Learning has moved from the counselor's office to the classroom. And now in light of recent events, COVID-19 has our classrooms in the homes of our students. Teachers are amazing! They have seamlessly moved from instructing in their classroom to instructing from a computer screen. There are beautiful examples of transforming lives to shape the lives of our future generations all over social media. Teachers are sharing curriculum to provide some consistent normalcy to student lives. They are opening up their homes and worlds to students from the other side of the screen. And this is all happening while the world, including teachers and students are under a great amount of stressed. We are all working to ensure that are students' learning is not impacted by this. But just a friendly reminder... Our curriculum teaches feelings, not just academic skills. I challenge teachers to not forget to... ...distance teach feelings! We all need some self care time right now. So here are some ways to promote Social Emotional Distance Learning:                    Happy and Healthy Teaching!
By Miss Rae
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3/6/2020 0 Comments Coronavirus in the Classroom Coronavirus in the Classroom l Miss Rae's Room l Free Flu Fighting Poster Okay, I don't know about you, but this whole coronavirus thing has me a bit freaked out! As I walk into school each morning, I open a door opened by at least 20 people before me. When I am escorting the students in from before school, I touch a buzzer touched by hundreds of people a day. I hold a railing that every little hand in school holds. I hold students hands when they need a friend. I help them open their milks. I borrow their pencils when we are engaged in learning. We sneeze and cough in the classroom. Sometimes we even get sick in the classroom. But... I'm a teacher, and that means my students will never know just how freaked out I really am. Schools are smart! They are taking extra precautions like... -extra cleanings -purchasing more cleaning products -keeping their families informed -monitoring student and staff illnesses -stocking classrooms up on tissues, sanitizer, and cleaning supplies -keeping school nurses on the top of their game So don't freak out - and don't let them see you freaking out! Instead, try some of these tips...  And if you don't feel well, stay home! Teachers are allowed to be absent too! Happy and healthy teaching! By Miss Rae  Student Flu Fighting Hygiene FREE Posters l Coronavirus Covid 19 l Coronavirus in the Classroom l Miss Rae's Room  Teach Reading Comprehension with Student-Driven SEL (Social Emotional Learning) Discussions l Miss Rae's Room Teacher pressure is real. We barely have enough time in the day to teach the academic content, never mind, teach those Social Emotional Learning skills that are students need. So the only way to do it is to integrate our academics to our SEL skills! And here is one strategy I use to foster collaborative student discussions that support comprehension AND build student relationships through conversation skills. First, provide students with a text to read independently. Before reading, ask them to come up with a focus question about the text that will guide their reading. Have students to use the heading of a text to create a "digging question" (i.e. a why or a how question). This will help students determine key ideas of a text. This also improves strategic use of a highlighter. But the main point is to highlight only answers to the question that the student came up with. This helps to prepare them for discussion times, and it allows it all to be student-driven. Partner Discussion (2 students) (5 minutes) With a partner, students should share the questions that they asked prior to reading, the answer to their questions, and discuss and attempt to resolve any confusions about the text. Group Discussion (4-6 students) (5-10 minutes) Partner groups should partner up with other partner groups for this step. In their small groups, each student should share the following: this was my focus question, here is what I found out, and here is what confused me. Some variations to this can include asking partners to think of one question that they will ask the larger group. After partner discussions, each student can find a passage to read aloud to the larger group, and then, each group member should respond to the selection with why it is important, connections, or with a question. Have groups share out with the whole class a summary of their discussion OR the teacher can lead a discussion about the text. Now, here is how you can link SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING to this reading comprehension strategy! As a class, build a list of discussion norms. By having the students take part in the building of the discussion norms, students are able to take ownership over their daily learning. Here is an example of a Discussion Norms chart...  After modeling and practicing a few discussions, students should be ready to reflect on their own participation during discussion. You can use a reflection page similar to this one...  Students should reflect on the skills that they are strong at during discussion and skills that they need to work on. Next, they should choose ONE skill to begin to focus on improving during discussion.  You can have students fill out a goal sheet with their discussion goal and they can include some success criteria - how will I know when I meet my goal?  After each discussion group, students can reflect on their progress toward their goals, making adjustments if necessary, or setting new goals after achieving the ones they set.  Discussion activities give students a chance to practice goal setting, failing, adjusting, achieving, and effectively communicating. Happy teaching! By Miss Rae  Social Emotional Learning Reading Activities & Discussion Prompts l Teachers Pay Teachers Miss Rae's Room  Reshape Behavior in 4 Simple Steps l Miss Rae's Room l Teaching Blog Start reshaping behavior in in 4 simple steps... 1. Write the expected behavior onto an index card. Some examples of expected behaviors include... -I did my work! -I did my homework! -I participated in the small group! -I participated in morning meeting! -I participated in the whole group! -I showed kindness! -I used kind words! -I showed perseverance! -I raised my hand! -I tried my best! -I raised my hand -without blurting out. -I showed self control! Be specific with your expected behaviors like... -I am prepared for class -with (fill in the blank) Expected behaviors can also increase in the demand... -I followed directions! -I followed directions -the first time -I used a cool down strategy. -I used a cool down strategy -independently 2. Choose an exciting reward for when the punch card is completed! You may want to involve the student in choosing. This will reinforce the power of the reinforcer! 3. Decide how many times a student needs to demonstrate the expected behavior to earn a reinforcer. You can involve the student in negotiating this as well. The more control the student has in a decision, the more the student buys in! 4. Draw stars, circles, checkmarks, etc. around the outside of the index card for the amount of earns that you negotiate with the student. For example, if you decide that the Kellie needs to do her homework ten times before earning a homework pass, then, you might draw 10 stars around the outside of the index card. Each time Kellie does her homework, punch a hole over one of the stars. Or SAVE TIME and grab my Positive Behavior Punch Cards...  Positive Behavior Punch Cards l Miss Rae's Room Teachers Pay Teachers And use these 4 simple steps instead... 1. Print on colored cardstock. 2. Cut. 3. Punch a hole on a smiley face each time you catch the student doing the desired behavior. 4. Don't forget to choose an exciting reward for when the punch card is completed! Either way - Positive Behavior Punch Cards reinforce behaviors! By Miss Rae Learn more...  3 Bite-Sized Social Emotional Learning Lessons l Miss Rae's Room Social Emotional Learning Teaching Blog We all know the importance of teaching Social Emotional skills, right? The research is clear - when schools embed SEL into their daily practices and curriculum with fidelity, there is academic progress, improved school culture, higher graduation rates, and a ton of more positives. And there are a few small ways we can support Social Emotional Learning in the classroom. So here are 3 Bite-Sized Social Emotional Learning Lessons!  3 Bite-Sized Social Emotional Learning Lessons l Miss Rae's Room 1. Cooperative Zen Learning Okay so cooperative learning is an obvious SEL strategy, right? But there's a twist to this one - students have to work together without speaking. Here's how it works:  3 Bite-Sized Social Emotional Learning Lessons l Miss Rae's Room  3 Bite-Sized Social Emotional Learning Lessons l Miss Rae's Room 2. Calming Counting So how often do you offer counting to ten as a calming strategy and a student tells you it doesn't work? So teach your students a different calming counting strategy. You can use this calming counting strategy to improve focus.  This strategy helps to bring you back to the present, and not overthink the past of the future (AKA anxiety). Use this strategy prior to a lesson. Teach it when students are regulated so they can independently use it when they are unregulated. 3. Social Emotional Read Alouds I've said it before and I'll say it again - story is a powerful framework for teaching Social Emotional Learning skills. So it does not matter what you are reading - the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, Sojourner Truth's role in the Underground Railroad, or the work of Albert Einstein - there is always a Social Emotional skill to be taught and learned. And the easiest way to do that is through questioning and discussion. Ask questions related to Social Emotional skills and use Think-Pair-Share, small group or whole class discussion, and learn away! Here are some question examples...  3 Bite-Sized Social Emotional Learning Lessons l Miss Rae's Room Developing and strengthening Social Emotional Learning skills is hard, lifelong work. By embedding these bite-sized SEL lessons, we can begin to build the foundation for our students! By Miss Rae
 Social Emotional Curriculum The Learning Tree Professional Development Network LLC l 6 Week Entirely Online Courses for Teachers  Classroom Conflict Resolution Activity l Miss Rae's Room Social Emotional Learning Teaching Blog Classroom conflicts happen. Right? No matter how hard we work to create a positive classroom community, there are bound to be conflicts. And that's okay. Not everyone is the same which is what makes this world so great. But differences in personality are going to lead to conflict at times - which is also okay - if we know how to handle these conflicts appropriately. So as teachers we can teach our students that conflict is natural. But there are ways to problem solve productively. And it's okay to not have the same opinion as someone else - or even your best friend. But trying to teach these skills in the moment is useless. So like most skills we need to give students a chance to practice them in isolation. Specifically when teaching skills that involve executive functioning, students should not be in a heightened state during this isolated practice. So to teach conflict resolution to students, here's what I do: I ask my students... WHAT WOULD YOU DO???Seriously. So I give students conflict scenarios to solve. My favorite way to do this is to break students up into small groups. I give each group the same scenario to discuss. I also give them guiding questions for discussion like...
Then, we come back together and debrief as a class. My goal is always to add to a growing list of strategies for how we can solve conflicts. You can also choose one scenario to discuss as a whole class. Or give small groups different scenarios to discuss and then share out to the whole class. By practicing conflict resolution, students improve their problem solving skills before the problems arise naturally - because they will :) Happy Teaching! Miss Rae You might also like...   WHAT WOULD YOU DO??? Conflict Resolution Scenarios Classroom Activity l Miss Rae's Room
 10 Teaching Practices that Promote Social Emotional Learning l Miss Rae's Room Education is paying more attention to the importance of Social Emotional Learning now. They are finally realizing that these skills matter. The goal of teaching social and emotional skills is to build students' mental health and resilience—so that as they grow, they can adapt and handle what comes at them. SEL targets essential life skills for students, provides a foundation for safe and positive learning, and enhances students' ability to succeed in school, careers, and life. Here are 10 teaching practices to promote SEL in your classroom: 1. Academic Rigor & High Expectations - Academic rigor promotes engagement while setting achievable but high expectations to establish that their teachers want them to succeed. The focus, there though, is on the teacher’s belief that ALL students can and will succeed to the HIGHEST AND ABOVE of each of their potential! 2. Student Centered Discipline - Teachers can use developmentally appropriate disciplinary strategies to motivate students to want to behave in the classroom. One way to do this is to give students a voice in the classroom through activities such as allowing the students to develop the classroom norms or rules.  10 Teaching Practices that Promote Social Emotional Learning l Classroom Management & Teaching Classroom Norms (AKA Rules) Point Sheets l Miss Rae's Room 3. Prosocial Teacher Language - Teachers can model appropriate communication skills for students! Teacher language can encourage and motivate students. 4. Classroom Discussions - Classroom discussions help develop communication skills and an ability to elaborate on student's own thinking.  10 Teaching Practices that Promote Social Emotional Learning l Social Emotional Learning Reading Activities & Discussion Prompts l Miss Rae's Room  10 Teaching Practices that Promote Social Emotional Learning l Reading Discussion Sentence Starter Posters l Miss Rae's Room 5. Self Assessment & Self Reflection - Students can learn to view their work through an assessment lens as well as a reflective lens, allowing them to actively think about their own work and then, think about how to improve upon it. This inevitably leads to goal setting.  10 Teaching Practices that Promote Social Emotional Learning l Student Feedback Protocols for Academics and Behavior l Miss Rae's Room 6. Promote Responsibility and Choice - By allowing students to have a voice in the classroom, teachers promote responsibility and choice. Explicitly teach students that they have choices, to take responsibility for their choices, and to learn from their choices. Some ways to promote responsibility and choice in the classroom are peer tutoring, cross age buddy reading, etc. 7. Balanced Instruction - Balanced Instruction occurs when there is an appropriate balance between active instruction and direct instruction and between individual and collaborative learning. 8. Cooperative Learning - Cooperative Learning requires students to actively work together around content in a meaningful way. Explicitly teach students the norms for working with a group. Then, give them opportunities to practice, apply, and adjust those skills. The jigsaw activity is one way to include cooperative learning in the classroom.  10 Teaching Practices that Promote Social Emotional Learning l Jigsaw Reading Cooperative Learning Strategy l Miss Rae's Room 9. Competence Building - Competence Building is when a teacher develops students' social-emotional competencies systematically through the typical instructional cycle (lesson goals/objectives, introduction to new material/modeling, group and individual practice, and summary/reflection). 10. Offer Support - There are tons of research studies that demonstrate the significant impact teachers have on students. Help students to grow from their learning, both academically and behaviorally. One way to do this is to develop a behavior intervention plan with the student and include opportunities for your support to help the student achieve!  10 Teaching Practices that Promote Social Emotional Learning l Behavior Data Tracking Forms and Points Sheets l Miss Rae's Room What are some other ways we can teach SEL to our students? By Miss Rae  Identifying Emotions for Academic Success l Miss Rae's Room Social Emotional Learning Teaching Blog Students have definitely changed! My first years of teaching were spent in a therapeutic classroom in a therapeutic school. The students who sat in front of me then are the profiles of the students who are sitting in general education classrooms today. These are the students who struggle to regulate their emotions. Their responses to problems do not match the problem. They are unmotivated to learn. They struggle to learn because they can't pay attention. They have been exposed to more trauma than most adults I know. They do not know how to socialize or communicate effectively. Research indicates that success for students with learning difficulties depends on both effective academic programming AND the development of positive social and emotional environments. So what this means for us is that we have to teach strategies for approaching difficult tasks and teach students to believe in their own capacity and ability to learn. effective academics + positive social emotional environments = student successBy teaching social emotional skills, we are preventing, modifying, and altering the effects of risks and outcomes associated with the typical trajectory of academic failure (Haft, et al., 2016). So how can we teach SEL skills in our classrooms?  Identifying Emotions for Academic Success l Miss Rae's Room *Have students write a story or write role play (or just role play without adding the writing) typical situations that happen when they are together. Then, discuss! “How would you feel if this happened to you?” "What are some strategies we can use if this does happen to us? *Make a Feeling Wheel with a spinner. Students can spin, label the feeling face that the spinner lands on, and share (or write) about a time they felt that way. *Make Feeling Dice (cover milk cartons with paper and drawing different feeling faces on each side). Students toss the dice, label the feeling that lands face up, and share (or write) about a time they felt that way. *Use read alouds to teach about an emotion. You can choose a picture book or a longer novel. No matter the choice, the discussion should focus on the SEL learning takeaways. *Show students a photograph of a child's face, showing a certain emotion. Prompt students to think of words to describe the emotion displayed. Write a list of all of the different words students come up with. Then, ask them to turn and talk to their neighbor about a time they have felt that way. Challenge students to use a word from the generated list while they are sharing. The next time you play, make sure the photograph represents a different sort of emotion. The goal is that over time, students will develop an active vocabulary of words that describe their feelings. By: Miss Rae Get an SEL-focused classroom management plan! Grab this resource! And find others here... Identifying Emotions for Academic Success l Miss Rae's Room 
10 Ways to End Chronic Student Absenteeism l Miss Rae's Room l Social Emotional Special Education Learning
Low income students are 4 times more likely to be chronically absent!
Research has found that students who qualified for free lunch or for reduced-price lunch and students on IEPs were much more likely than their more affluent or non-IEP peers to miss a lot of school. Research has also found that students who are chronically absent are at serious risk of falling behind in school, having lower grades and test scores, having behavioral issues, and, ultimately, dropping out. Here are a few ways schools can combat absenteeism for ALL students... 1 implement an early warning system to identify at-risk students 2 improve the use of data to identify students at risk of chronic absenteeism 3 individualize support for such students 4 provide interventions within a case management model, where school personnel or program staff work with students, and often their families, on a range of issues 5 student mentors 6 principal-led school partnership meetings 7 build connections to community resources 8 host an awareness campaign 9 increase attendance incentives 10 targeted conversations between a monitor and the student about topics such as progress in school and how to resolve conflicts and cope with challenges What are some ways your schools support your chronically absent students? By: Miss Rae Reference: U.S. Department of Education 2016; see summary in Gottfried and Ehrlich 2018  4 Ways to Teach Social Emotional Literacy l Miss Rae's Room l Social Emotional Special Education Literacy Learning About half of the students in the United States are presented with challenges when learning to read (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014). This statistic may seem staggering, and it should. But worse, let’s put it into an even more staggering perspective - literacy is an essential element of academic proficiency. It is the medium through which most learning in schools takes place. There are years of research behind the teaching of reading, and we learn from this research in our "How to Teach Reading" teacher training courses. There is one component often forgotten in our training though - reading also includes an emotional component. Struggling learners can be stigmatized by continual reminders of their reading challenges in classrooms, and what does this lead to? Learned failure. Struggling students are two times more likely to drop out of school, experience peer rejection, develop low self-esteem, battle anxiety, and suffer from depression (IDEA, 2002). If a student can’t read, a student can’t access our academic content. Naturally, academic failures, resulting from repeated reading challenges, can potentially lead to social emotional impacts on students (Haft, et al., 2016). Our goal as teachers, then, is to not only teach our students to read, but to also develop strong attributes of emotional literacy. We can do this by infusing social emotional resilience into our curriculum. Through the development of social emotional literacy, we can teach protective factors that positively modify or alter the effects of risks and outcomes associated with the typical trajectory of reading failures (Haft, et al., 2016). So how do we teach our students social emotional literacy? 4 Ways to Teach Social Emotional Literacy l Miss Rae's Room l Social Emotional Special Education Literacy Learning 1. Create and promote supportive classrooms! A supportive classroom climate protects against the detrimental impacts of reading challenges (Kiuru et al., 2012). Such climates build students’ confidence and optimism through the development of a positive and proactive system for classroom management and learning. Teachers should provide consistent praise for perseverance and effort. Through modeling of such feedback, peers will also begin to encourage each other to develop and meet learning conflicts. Strategies to meet these challenges can be taught by utilizing cognitive strengths in instruction and differentiation. Great teachers tailor instruction to meet every student’s needs. To support social emotional literacy, differentiation means that we accommodate, intervene, and modify students’ learning to challenge them to meet learning targets, strengthen lagging skills, and essentially, close the achievement gap. 2. Develop strong and positive interpersonal relationships! Close, positive interpersonal relationships have been identified as increasing the social emotional resilience of students with reading difficulties (Haft, et al., 2016). Specifically, close and constructive peer relationships help struggling learners with acceptance and support in the classroom, leading to positive engagement in school (Shany et al., 2012). Teachers can work to foster these meaningful and productive peer friendships in their classrooms. Prosocial skills should be taught and reinforced through explicit instruction. This begins by identifying the lagging skill (i.e. turn taking in conversation). Teachers should then explicitly define the skill, model the skill, allow students to role play the skill, and provide performance feedback. Furthermore, application of social skill learning can be trialed, generalized, and reinforced through teacher mentorship of struggling readers. Student-teacher mentorship can improve students’ social and interpersonal skills, while also providing a positive aspect to school (Ahrens, et al., 2010). 3. Instill a sense of control! Struggling learners experience a sense of loss of control as they hit continual roadblocks in learning and attempting to read. This, inevitably, increases stress which can lead to maladaptive behaviors, ranging from work and school avoidance to social isolation to acting out in the classroom. Believing that they exhibit a low academic self-efficacy, struggling readers often view their intelligence as fixed and unable to be changed. However, research has proven that the theory of growth mindset can influence academic growth and achievement (Baird et al., 2009). By teaching adaptive coping strategies, that involve confronting problems directly, students can improve their functioning and social emotional literacy skills. Teachers can do this by explicitly teaching growth mindset principles and strategies for approaching difficult tasks. When confronted with a problem, students should learn to assess it, identify a strategy for solution, and apply the strategy. They should also learn that if the strategy does not work, it is acceptable to go back to the drawing board and revise the plan of attack. 4. Build student confidence! Student confidence begins to increase through the successful application of learned coping strategies. Essentially, this teaches students to believe in their own capacity and ability to learn to read! Teachers can strengthen and reinforce improved student confidence by teaching social emotional learning to all students. Students should cultivate a strong sense of self awareness. Through self awareness, students have a keen sense of their strengths and lagging skills, which enables them to tackle learning goals in a more effective and efficient manner for academic advancement. Through a self aware goal setting process, students nurture the social emotional skill of self determination. Teachers should help students set realistic, short-term learning goals that utilize and further develop strengths. Short-term goals support more success for the development of both academic and social emotional skills due to immediate and on-going positive praise and reinforcement; thus, facilitating greater strides in academic progress. Reading is one of the most important gifts we can teach our students. By teaching our students to read, we give them the ability to achieve their life goals, but we cannot forget to target all components of teaching reading, including social emotional literacy! References: Ahrens, K., DuBois, DL., Lozano, P., & Richardson L.P. Naturally acquired mentoring relationships and young adult outcomes among adolescents with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice. 2010; 25:207-216. Baird, G. L., Scott, W. D., Dearing, E., & Hamill, S. K. (2009). Cognitive self regulation in youth with and without learning disabilities: Academic self efficacy, theories of intelligence, learning vs. performance goal preferences, and effort attributions. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 28, 881-908. Haft, S. L., Myers, C. A., & Hoeft, F. (2016). Socio-Emotional and Cognitive Resilience in Children with Reading Disabilities. Current opinion in behavioral sciences, 10, 133–141. IDEAdata.org. Exiting by Disability, Ages 14-21. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA); 2002. Kiuru, N., Poikkeus, A-M., Lerkkanen, M-K., Pakarinen, E., Siekkinen, M. Ahonen, T., & Nurmi, J-E., Teacher-perceived supportive classroom climate protects against detrimental impact of reading disability risk on peer rejection. Learn Instr. 2012; 22:331-339. National Center for Education Statistics. The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003495rev.pdf; ii. Colker, L. J. (2014). Shany, M., Wiener, J., & Assido, M., Friendship predictors of global self-worth and domain-specific self concepts in university students with and without learning disability. Journal of Learning Disabilities. 2012.   4 Ways to Teach Social Emotional Literacy l Miss Rae's Room l Social Emotional Special Education Literacy Learning  4 Ways to Teach Social Emotional Literacy l Miss Rae's Room l Social Emotional Special Education Literacy Learning |
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