By Kristen Stevenson

Social-and-Emotional Learning (SEL) uses Emotional Intelligence principles that can be incorporated into classrooms from kindergarten to graduate school. SEL focuses on students using their strengths to develop their academic and career skills rather than focusing on their faults.

Mays Imad, Ph.D., is a professor of Genetics, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Pima Community College and the founding coordinator of the Teaching and Learning Center. In addition to her research on stress, self-awareness, advocacy, and classroom community, she is an outspoken advocate for students suffering trauma during the pandemic. Imad has identified 13 actions that you can incorporate into your classroom to provide a student-centered, SEL-based approach to learning. In this post, we’ll focus on a handful of her recommendations to give you easy ways to jump into the semester while supporting your students holistically.

Before the semester begins, you may wish to consider the following while planning your courses:

  • How will you focus on your students’ assets? Consider your first communication with them and the impression that it will leave. Evaluate how you wish to incorporate student experiences, language, stories, and cultural practices into your classroom.
  • Are you emphasizing both the intellectual and emotional aspects of learning? Add a human dimension to your objectives, incorporating the content with how it is interdependent and interconnected to “the real world.”
  • Have you explicitly prioritized student well-being? Add a statement stating about mental and emotional health in your syllabus, schedule a mental health day, provide location and contact information about campus resources for students who need more assistance than you can provide with.

At the beginning of the semester, consider sharing your own story. Jessi Gold, a psychiatrist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, says “showing some level of vulnerability can go a long way.” Brené Brown’s research demonstrates the same value in every environment from the living room to the classroom to the boardroom. Sharing stories breaks down barriers and allows others to view commonalities between one another. Periodically reminding students that you are there for them helps to grow and strengthen those relationships. Let students know that they can come to you if they need help and even if you cannot personally help, you will find help for them.

SEL encourages the human element to be in the classroom, which is necessary with the current uncertainty and anxiety present in our lives. Small acknowledgments make a huge difference in students’ lives. For more information, see Mays Imad’s article Pedagogy of healing: Bearing witness to trauma and resilience.