1. “Plays Nice with Others”: How Educators Can Best
Support Social Emotional Learning in Young Children
Katherine (Kate) Zinsser, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois, Chicago
April 25, 2013
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3. Today’s Speaker
Early Learning Technology | www.HatchEarlyLearning.com #HatchExperts| Copyright 2012 Hatch Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Kate Zinsser
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois,
Chicago
5. Objectives
Review the latest research on the development of
social and emotional competence in young children
Discuss how SEL is related to school readiness and
early school success
Describe the role that teachers play in children’s
acquisition of SEL skills
4
6. Young children are hard at work
3 and 4 year olds are
mastering:
Early literacy skills
Gross & fine motor skills
Early mathematics
AND
Social-Emotional Skills
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
(2012)
5
7. • Emotional Expression
• Emotional Understanding / Knowledge
• Emotion Regulation
• Social Problem Solving & Peer Skills
6
8. Basic Emotions
Happy, sad, angry, afraid,
etc.
“Social” Emotions
Having a sense of self and
others
guilt, empathy, etc
Blends
Emotional expression
“You broke my
truck--I am not
your friend.”
Sad + guilty + mad
7
10. Emotion regulation
Defining regulation
Down Regulation
Minimize the expression or
experience of emotions
Up Regulation
Increase expression or
experience of an emotions
Relation of social success
9
11. Social problem solving & peer skills
Empathy & perspective taking
Maintaining friendships
Communication of needs and wants
Reacting positively to conflict
(Choosing prosocial responses over aggressive ones)
Making choices based on known social norms, safety,
and feelings of others.
10
12. With SEL, it all works together
11
Denham, S.A., Bassett, H.H., Zinsser, K., Wyatt, T.M. (under review). How Preschoolers' Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Predicts Their School
Readiness: Developing Theory-Promoting, Competency-Based Assessments. Manuscript submitted for publication to Infant and Child
Development.
SEL Skills
Skills for Handling
Challenging
Situations in the
Classroom
Emotion
Understanding
Problem
Solving
Skills
Classroom
Adjustment
Academic
Readiness
What a
Kindergarten
Teacher May See
Less Aggression
and Negativity
Pro-social and
Regulated
Behavior
Preschool
Classroom
Adjustment
What a Preschool
Teacher May See
13. SEL is critical for social and academic
success
Children without age appropriate emotional/social
skills:
Participate less in class
Less accepted by classmates/teachers
Get fewer instructions/positive feedback from teachers
Like school less and less
Social-emotional competence predicts academic
success in 1st grade, even after controlling intelligence
/ family background
12
14. This pattern persists into later
elementary years, too
Aggressive/antisocial children are more likely to:
Perform poorly on academic tasks
Be held back in later grades
Drop out later on
Continue antisocial behavior
It is necessary to pinpoint social-emotional strengths
and weaknesses early to ensure long-term well-being
and academic success (Raver & Knitzer, 2002)
13
15. To what extent do you agree with the following statement:
Parents expect teachers to teach children social-
emotional skills
A) Strongly Agree
B) Agree
C) Neither Agree nor Disagree
D) Disagree
E) Strongly Disagree
14
16. Center
Who’s teaching SEL?
Child Parent
Peers
TeacherChild
Child
Child
Child
Child
Traditionally the realm
of parents
More time with
teachers, less with
parents
Teachers are
increasingly being
held accountable for
SEL
How do we work
together to help
children?
15
17. Four ways early childhood education teachers can impact
children’s SEL
16
18. How do we help?
Teacher
Emotional
Competence
Classroom
Emotional
Climate
Modeling &
Reacting to
Emotions
Social
Emotional
Learning
SEL
Instruction
Social
Emotional
Teaching
17
19. SEL instruction
Teaching SEL through interactions
Labeling, Coaching, Scaffolding, etc.
Direct instruction through SEL Curriculum
Evidence-based, implemented with fidelity
18
20. SEL instruction – Through Interactions
Explicit Instruction
Modeling of Skills
Discussion of Relevant Situations
Opportunities for Practice with Recognition
Feedback and Reflection
19
21. Incredible Years Teacher Training
Carolyn Webster-Stratton
20
Teacher attention, encouragement, praise
Motivating children with incentives
Preventing behavior problems
Decreasing inappropriate behaviors
Building positive relations with students,
problem solving
SEL instruction – Interactions Training
22. The Preschool PATHSTM
Curriculum
Domitrovich, Greenberg, Kusche &
Cortes (2005)
Friendship skills
Emotion knowledge
21
Intentional self-control
Social problem-solving
SEL instruction - Curriculum
23. High Quality Implementation is Essential
How well a program adopts and utilizes a packaged
curriculum or training program will significantly impact its
effectiveness.
Previous research has show that oftentimes improper
implementation results in variation in children’s outcomes
(Derzon, Sale, Springer & Brounstein, 2005; Durlak & Weissberg, 2005; Durlak & Dupree, 2008)
22
SEL instruction – Evidence Based Curriculum and Training
24. It is important to chose a
program that will meet your
needs and that you can carry
out effectively and with high
fidelity.
Check out http://casel.org/guide
to access the Guide
SEL instruction – Evidence Based Curriculum and Training
25. Modeling emotional expression and
regulation
Display positive and negative emotions
appropriately
Utilize the same regulation techniques you
want children to use (e.g., go to the “turtle
corner”)
Reacting and responding to children’s
emotions
Encourage expression by responding
positively and/or validating
Help children cope with their emotions
either by focusing on the problem or the
emotion
Avoid minimizing/punishing/dismissing
children’s emotions
ChildTeacher
24
Modeling & Reacting to Emotions
(Bailey, Denham, & Curby, 2013; Denham,
Bassett, Bailey, Zinsser, Wantanabe,
& Fettig, 2013)
26. Modeling emotional expression and
regulation
25
Teacher
Positive
Affective
Balance
Child Positive
Affective
Balance
Children in classrooms with
more positive teachers
express more positive
emotions
Teacher
Tenderness
Child Positive
Affective
Balance
&
Child
Tenderness
Children in classrooms with
teachers who display
tenderness express more
positive emotions.
Teachers who are tender are
socializing children to be
tender with others.
27. Reacting and responding to children’s
emotions
26
Teacher Positive
Reactions
Child Positive
Reactions
Children in classrooms with
teachers who react positively to
emotional expression will also
react more positively
Teacher
Emotionally
Attentive
Reactions
Child Positive
Reactions
Teachers who focus on and
validate children’s emotions have
children react more positively to
others’ emotions.
Teacher
Dismissive
Reactions
Child Negative
Reactions
Teachers who minimize, ignore, or
punish emotional expressions
have children who react less
positively to others’ emotions.
29. Higher levels of emotional support by teachers is
associated with better child outcomes academically
and socially
This can partially be explained by the close
attachment-like relationships that children form
with early teachers
Children in classrooms with more supportive
teachers display more adaptive classroom behaviors
and better academic outcomes
(Rimm-Kaufman, Curby, Grimm, Nathanson, & Brock, 2009; Graziano, et al., 2007)
28
Classroom Emotional Climate
31. Teacher Emotional Competence
A teacher’s own emotional competence is a
building block of Social-Emotional Teaching
Classrooms are emotional places!
30
Picturesque Occasional Reality
Under-acknowledged Teacher
Emotions
… Not just for children,
but teachers too!
32. In order to teach about SEL, teachers have to be
emotionally competent too
Express and identify emotions accurately
Be aware of and sensitive to others’ emotions
Manage their own emotions
31
Teacher Emotional Competence
33. Knowledge
“if a teacher doesn't have the language [skills] that you need to talk
to children, [she’s] not being a competent teacher”
Expression
A good teacher is “one that is willing to show and use the full
spectrum of emotions”
Regulation
Teachers need to be “able to control [her] own emotions and to
model that for the children”
Teachers know emotional competence is important
32
Teacher Emotional Competence
34. -0.5
-0.4
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
Low (-1 SD) Average High (+1 SD)
ChildAggression
Mean Emotional Support
Inconsistent
Teachers
Consistent
Teachers
More stressed teachers
have students who are:
less regulated
less productive
less positive and
less prosocial
More stressed teachers
are less consistent in
their emotional
support (CLASS)
Inconsistency in emotional
supportiveness negatively impacts
children’s SEL, even if teachers are on
average very supportive
33
But knowledge alone is not
sufficient
Teacher Emotional Competence
36. To what extent do you agree with the following statement:
Teachers should always look happy and smiley
in their classroom, no matter how they really
feel.
A) Strongly Agree
B) Agree
C) Neither Agree nor Disagree
D) Disagree
E) Strongly Disagree
35
37. The combined effects of SET
Research has shown that parents who value emotions:
Engage in more positive socialization practices, invest
more time in children’s emotional experiences, and
encourage children’s expression of emotions
Have children who are more emotionally competent
Theoretically the same should hold true for teachers
too; those who value and believe in emotions should
Create more positive classroom environments
Engage more fully in SEL curriculum activities
Be more emotionally competent themselves
36
38. Method: Pair a popular assessment of classroom quality
(CLASS) and teachers’ discussions during focus groups.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
CLASSEmotionalSupport
Less Supportive
Average
More Supportive
(Zinsser, Shewark, Denham, & Curby, 2013; Zinsser, Denham & Shewark, 2013) 37
How do SET practices combine to
impact SEL in the classroom?
39. How do teachers’ beliefs relate to their
classroom practices?
Value of SEL
Use of SEL
Strategies
Teacher Role in
SEL
More
Emotionally
Supportive
View SEL as integral
and articulate
complex
understanding of
children’s emotions.
-
Go beyond SEL
curriculum and
purposefully
integrated lessons
into non SEL
learning
opportunities.
Emphasize their
continual
engagement in
socialization and
view SEL as a
collaboration
between parents and
teachers.
Less
Emotionally
Supportive
Are able to list several
SEL skills, but not
elaborate on them.
Rely heavily on
curriculum to
structure their SEL
interactions with
students.
Feel more
accountable for
children's emotion
socialization.
Did expect much
from parents.
40. “Practice What You Preach”
Overtly use the regulation
strategies they want the students
to use.
“‘Do I need turtle right now? I'm
getting a little upset and
frustrated. I'm going to take a
break.’ I have to be willing to do
that, otherwise it's just a bunch
of talk.”
The “Teacher Façade”
“No matter how you're
feeling, once you come into the
classroom you have to put your
face on.”
“You need to always have a
smile.”
More Emotionally
Supportive Teachers
Less Emotionally
Supportive Teachers
Teachers’ Beliefs about their own emotions
39
41. What the research says about SET:
Teachers successfully use a variety of SEL curriculum to
improve children’s SEL, but that’s not the only way.
Modeling of and reacting to emotions socializes children’s
emotions through daily interactions.
The classroom emotional climate impacts children and
teachers alike. Teachers who feel stressed in the classroom
struggle to maintain consistent/predictable climates.
Teachers’ own emotional competence, including their
understanding of and valuing of emotions is related to their
classroom practices, including integrating SEL
curriculum, parent engagement and expression and regulation
of emotions.
40
42. What teachers can do in the classroom:
Express mostly positive emotions, as well as limited but
purposeful expression of negative emotions
Model appropriate expressions and normalize the
experience of some emotions (“adults get frustrated too”)
Model use of regulation strategies teachers want to see
Explain the consequences of emotions and behavior
What can realistically be expected to happen after you
express emotions?
“Just because you say you’re sorry doesn’t mean Johnny has
to want to play with you”
41
43. What teachers can do in the classroom:
Reflect on your beliefs about emotions
Do you believe you’re a social-emotional teacher?
Why/Why not?
Are your classroom practices maximizing children’s SEL?
Are you a good model of SEL for your students?
Reflect on your SET practices
Take into account family and environmental influences on
individual SEL differences (e.g., siblings and sharing)
Empathize with children’s perspectives during interactions
(proximity and height)
Adjust pacing of activities to children’s needs
42
44. What teachers can do outside of the
classroom:
Take care of yourself
Be mindful of your experiences of stress both at work and at home
and be proactive
Take time for self-care (exercise, laughter, healthy diet, etc.)
Consider changing classroom organization to reduce the situations
that cause stress (e.g., transitions)
43
45. Administrators can reflect too:
Do you encourage teachers to teach social-emotional skills?
Do they know why?
How do you support teachers’ social-emotional teaching?
Adequate resources?
High fidelity implementation of curriculum and training?
Do they know that you value emotions?
What do you do to support teachers’ emotions?
Is your center a positive, emotionally supportive place to
work?
44
46. Additional Resources
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL.org)
Zinsser, K., Bailey, C., Curby, T.W., Denham, S.A., Bassett, H.H., &
Morris, C. (2013). Exploring the predictable classroom: Preschool teacher
stress, emotional supportiveness, and students’ social-emotional behavior in
private and Head Start classrooms. National Head Start Association
Dialog, 16(2).
Baily, C., Zinsser, K., Curby, T.W., Denham, S.A. Bassett, H.H. (2013).
Consistently emotionally supportive preschool teachers and children’s social-
emotional learning in the classroom: implications for center directors and
teachers. National Head Start Association Dialog, 16(2).
Denham, S.A., Bassett, H.H., Zinsser, K., Wyatt, T.M. (under review). How
Preschoolers' Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Predicts Their School
Readiness: Developing Theory-Promoting, Competency-Based Assessments.
Zinsser, K., Shewark, E., Denham, S.A., & Curby, T.W. (in revision). A mixed-
method examination of preschool teacher beliefs about emotion socialization
and relations observed emotional support. Manuscript in revision at Infant and
Child Development.
45
47. For more information, join the Social Emotional
Teacher & Learning Lab mailing list:
Click here
48. Questions
Early Learning Technology | www.HatchEarlyLearning.com #HatchExperts| Copyright 2012 Hatch Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Kate Zinsser
Assistant Professor
University of
Illinois, Chicago
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Notas del editor
Some Ground Rules:When I teach college students I remind them that they have control over how much they get out of my classes. I can stand up here and talk at you, but w/o any information from you all, I cannot adapt my content to meet your needs and answer your questions.I can also grade them on their participation in class. I do not have that power here, but would like to encourage you all to engage in this workshop. Ask questions, challenge me. You’re the ones in the classrooms with the children every day.
Perspective taking and empathize with othersestablish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help when needed.make constructive and respectful choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, social norms, the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and the well-being of self and others.
Some Ground Rules:When I teach college students I remind them that they have control over how much they get out of my classes. I can stand up here and talk at you, but w/o any information from you all, I cannot adapt my content to meet your needs and answer your questions.I can also grade them on their participation in class. I do not have that power here, but would like to encourage you all to engage in this workshop. Ask questions, challenge me. You’re the ones in the classrooms with the children every day.
Children develop SEL skills through interactions. And their social partners include not only their parents and peers, but also their teachers. As you will see throughout these webinars, teacher’s interactions with children do a great deal to impact children’s SEL.For teachers, these interactions are complicated by the fact that they are not only interacting with one or two children, often times they’re interacting with 10 or 20 of them. Regardless of who a child is interacting with, their emotional development will be additionally influenced their social partner’s own emotional competence. ParentsPeersTeachersCentersAt the center-level, the Head Start Performance Standards guide how SEL is supported. But translating that into the substance of individual teacher-child interactions is sometimes unclear.
So we’ve not talked about what SEL is and there is a general consensus that teachers are somehow at least partially responsible for it. But I want to break that down a bit more. In turn, I will describe 4 ways that teachers can promote children’s SEL. You’ll notice that each of these bubbles is overlapping with each other a little bit. This is to represent that all of these social emotional teaching components are somewhat related. It’s hard to engage in one without simultaneously doing another, but let’s go through them one a time before we talk about how they work together.
In a different approach, the Incredible Years program has been shown to be an effective training program for teachers. So instead of teaching children directly about the labels for emotions, programs like IY reshape the interactions between teachers and students. One of the primary goals of the intervention is to prevent escalating cycles of dysregulated behavior in children by enhancing teachers’ use of clear rules and routines, rewards for positive behavior, and redirection of negative behavior. In an evaluation of the program, Webster-Stratton and colleagues provided intervention teachers in Head Start classrooms with six monthly, 1-day workshops that used videotape vignettes and group discussion for training. Post-intervention observations indicated that compared to control teachers, intervention teachers used more praise and effective discipline techniques and fewer harsh and critical techniques. CSRP includes professional development training in behavior management based on the Incredible Years Teacher Training Program, stress-reduction workshops, and classroom-based mental health consultation regarding student behavior. One of the primary goals of the intervention is to prevent escalating cycles of dysregulated behavior in children by enhancing teachers’ use of clear rules and routines, rewards for positive behavior, and redirection of negative behavior. 5 training sessions each 6 hours. Teachers paired with MH consultant (master’s degree in Social Work) who were coaches to teachers supporting teachers as they applied the techniques and providing standardized, child-focused mental health consultation. The mental health consultants also conducted stress-reduction workshops for teachers that were designed to reduce burnout. RCT in 18 HS sites 94 teachers Higher levels of positive climate, teacher sensitivity, and behavior management in intervention classrooms Positive effects on child outcomes - fewer internalizing and externalizing behavior problems according to both independent observers and teacher ratings (Raver et al., 2009). Children who received the CSRP intervention also scored significantly better on pre-academic and self-regulatory skills by the end of preschool compared to children in the control group. Specifically, intervention participants outperformed control participants on vocabulary, letter naming, early math skills, and measures of executive functioning and attention / impulsivity.
Randomized trial in Journal or Primary Prevention 248 children in 20 classrooms:10 classrooms used PATHS10 comparison Head Start classroomsEffects of Receiving PATHSTeachers reported higher levels of social-emotional competence & lower levels of social withdrawalParents reported higher levels of social-emotional competenceChildren were better at identifying emotions, showed less anger bias Head Start REDI – used preschool PATHS356 4-year-old children across two cohorts (46% Male, 25% African-American, 17% Hispanic); 22 = I and 22 = C88 teachers in 44 classroomsOne year implementation of interventionPre (October), post (May) and follow-up assessments (K & 1st grade)Children in REDI classrooms scored higher on:Emotion recognition & understandingCompetent solutions to social problemsTeacher ratings of social-emotional competenceObserver ratings of social-emotional competenceChildren in REDI classrooms scored lower on:Aggressive solutions to challenging social problemsTeacher ratings of aggressionParent ratings of ADHD behaviors and aggression
Refer them to website for access to Guidewww.casel.org
Sympathetic parents help children cope effectively with their emotions when they are distressed. Accordingly, these children are less likely to become overaroused. Negative, overbearing parental reactions to children’s distress exacerbate child negativity, exemplifying punitive socialization of emotion
Research also shows that when classrooms were characterized by interactions that provided more effective Emotional Support, children’s social competence increased more over the course of the Pre-K year.
Just as children come to school each day with their own emotions, experiences, and backgrounds, teachers are also differ in their successful navigation of their own social and emotional lives. Some adults are more socially and emotionally skilled then others and these differences in competence have meaningful impacts on teachers’ effective SET. Teachers who are more knowledgeable about emotions will be better equipped to expand on lessons in SEL curriculum programs or may more easily empathize with a child’s complex emotional experienceTeachers who are successful at regulating their emotions may respond to challenging interactions with students in more emotionally effective ways than others. For example, a teacher may regulate their own frustration during a child’s temper-tantrum and instead choose to validate her expression and help her problem solve saying, “I see that you’re very upset because you can’t play in the block area right now, is there somewhere else you would like to play?” Similarly, teachers who are better able to manage their emotions and generally stay on an even keel in the classroom are creating a consistent emotional environment. Children learn what to expect from their teacher and can anticipate how she will respond to their emotional expressions. Teachers who experience intense negative emotions (such as stress or depression) at work are more likely to frequently express negative emotions and to react punitively to children’s expression of emotions (Ersay, 2007; Feldman et al., 1999). These expressions in the classroom serve as models for children and such modeling has been linked to lower levels of emotion regulation and increased aggressive behaviors in children (Ramsden & Hubbard, 2002).
Important to note that none of these groups would actually fall into the LOW category on the CLASS, just less supportive, actually around the average for the measure across the country.
More supportive teachers advocated for deliberately and overtly regulating certain emotions in front of children through the use of specific curriculum-based strategies. Less supportive teachers favored exhaustive regulation, reducing emotions across the board and adopting the Façade of a happy, positive teacher while in the classroom. There was some evidence of teachers also acknowledging that what emotions they regulate, and in which direction, directly influences the environment of their classrooms and their children’s experiences.
Teachers from both the more and less supportive groups discussed expressing mostly positive emotions as well as limited, but purposeful expression of negative emotions in some instances. Their intentional expression of emotions not only modeled for students how to appropriately express emotions, but also served to normalize the experience of some emotions for children and demonstrate for them what can realistically be expected to happen after you express emotions.
Teachers from both the more and less supportive groups discussed expressing mostly positive emotions as well as limited, but purposeful expression of negative emotions in some instances. Their intentional expression of emotions not only modeled for students how to appropriately express emotions, but also served to normalize the experience of some emotions for children and demonstrate for them what can realistically be expected to happen after you express emotions.