The Worst We Have Seen: Leveraging Social/Emotional Learning in K-12 Online & Blended Environments amid a Well-Being Crisis

Citation

Miller, K., Castañon, M. & Filiss, T. (2022). The worst we have seen: Leveraging social/emotional learning in K-12 online & blended environments amid a well-being Crisis. Journal of Online Learning Research, 8(1), 1-6. https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/220646/ 

Abstract

Amid the pandemic, schools worked to enhance students’ emotional or affective engagement with online learning through daily motivational videos posted by administrators, teacher-student interactions such as synchronous Zoom scavenger hunts, and regular personalized contact with students and families (Borup et al., 2020). Chambers (et al., 2020) finds that multiple superintendents emphasized SEL above academic expectations and encouraged teachers to provide at least one synchronous meeting per week along with weekly phone calls to parents. The authors conclude that regular synchronous sessions provide an opportunity for wellness checks and non- academic teacher-student and peer interaction (Chambers et al., 2020). Re- search also highlights the increasing need for teachers to be explicitly pre-pared for online and blended modalities (Rice & Deschaine, 2020) and for teacher educators to demonstrate strategies for infusing SEL into the K-12 curriculum. The purpose of this special issue is to contribute to this growing research and showcase studies about SEL in PK-12 online and blended learning environments.We address questions of teacher practice and preparation for supporting students’ SEL in online and blended learning environments. The first two articles fo- cus on teacher practice, specifically 1) how researchers and educators part- nered to adapt a school-based in-person SEL program for online delivery, and 2) how teachers viewed and engaged with families amid new instruc- tional role responsibilities. The latter two articles emphasize teacher prepa- ration for SEL delivery in online learning environments. They 1) introduce a novel professional learning model to prepare teachers to design effective social-emotional learning experiences in online contexts, and 2) provide in- sight into the social and emotional elements of teachers’ online professional development learning.

Authors

• Castañon, Mariana
• Filiss, Traci
• Miller, Karyn

Reference Type

Journal

Keywords

• Social-emotional learning