This SEL course introduces students to the concept and field of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in general, and also specializes in the childhood periods of preK – 8th grade.

We first define SEL and introduce the field at large. How and why did it get started? How is SEL different from various similar concepts and efforts that have come before it? What societal imperatives and challenges are SEL programs and research responding to? Next, an introduction to flagship SEL competencies at the various levels of “audience” or targets for SEL efforts is provided: children, teachers, schools/settings, and systems.

The last third of the course dives more deeply into specific initiatives and programs that have been employed in at least part of the PreK-8 range (e.g., emotion training, teacher responsiveness, mindfulness and yoga, character development, civic engagement, etc.), their aims, and what the existing research says about their success and promise.  

Having been introduced to the foundations of the field in the first course, students will now be exposed to a number of cutting-edge movements and research findings (e.g., neuroscience, sociology, public health, policy) related to the SEL space that suggest a more evolved and transformative SEL of the future.

Issues that intersect with SEL such as behavior challenges and discipline practices, trauma-informed frameworks, and culturally-sustaining pedagogies will be addressed as scientifically-validated approaches for eliciting the most rigorous “thinking and doing” for students and teachers. Various lenses of risk will also be used to uncover how positive social and emotional experiences have not been equitably available to all students in learning settings, and explore what we want our contribution to be to healing people, practices, and systems.

This course is an intentional community space for SEL students to focus on reflective group process, trusting relationships, peer consultation, community building, strategy planning and implementing and support. Students will incorporate, synthesize, and integrate content from their concurrent course as well as experiences from their unique professional contexts. Increasing research in the field points to the fact that adult SEL must be simultaneously supported in order to achieve effective implementation and maintain wellness.

Students will become more aware of the knowledge and skills that they have developed, identify strengths and areas for development, develop action plans for future learning, gain greater understandings of themselves and others, cultivate personal and workplace self and community care, and learn to skillfully and deeply listen. The certificate program culminates with a practical and reflective application project that represents how the student will synthesize and apply the knowledge from the courses as it intersects with their professional context.

The course spans both semesters and students meet every other week by Zoom.