Teachers’ Understanding of Evidence of Students’ Social Emotional Learning and Self-Reported Gains of Monitored Implementation of SEL Toolkit

Aim. The aim of this study was to highlight and analyse teachers’ responses to the evidence of their students’ social emotional growth and teachers’ own gains from the monitored implementation of social emotional learning in their classes. Methods. The research group was composed of 312 teachers from Latvia and Slovenia, who were involved in the implementation of indirect social emotional learning through classroom instruction and formative assessment. A thematic analysis of the teachers’ written responses was performed. Results. A thematic analysis of the teachers’ responses indicated that initially they had mentioned mostly (expressed) general statements and only some small part of their responses included observable and measurable indicators of students’ social emotional skills improvement. Therefore, four months after the beginning of the intervention, teachers reported rather on their personal and professional gains from the participation in this intervention than provided general statements. Conclusions. The teachers’ improved self-reflection is a premise for them to consider evidence of students’ social emotional skills development thus facilitating purposeful social emotional learning in schools

The Development of Teachers' and Their Students' Social and Emotional Learning During the "Learning to Be Project"-Training Course in Five European Countries

In recent years, the school curricula in many European countries have introduced social and emotional learning (SEL). This calls for the teachers to have SEL competencies. The present study evaluates teachers' and their students' readiness for SEL during an intervention in five European countries. The participants were teachers (n = 402) in five European countries; Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Spain. The pre- and post-measuring points for both the intervention and the comparison group were at approximately the same time before and after the intervention. Comparison data consisted of 159 teachers in the same countries. The training for the intervention group lasted 16 h for the teachers and a maximum of 16 h for the principles and headmasters. An additional 9 h of further monitoring took place. There were two student groups participating in the study: the age group of 8-11 years (pre puberty) and the age group of 12-15-years (adolescents). Students, whose teachers had participated in the intervention, formed the intervention group (n = 2,552). Those students, whose teachers did not participate in the intervention, formed the comparison group (n = 1,730). The questionnaire data were collected at the beginning and at the end of the school year for both age groups. The results indicated that there was a favorable development in the intervention group in some of the measured skills among students, but the effects were different for the two age groups. This study adds to both theoretical and practical development of continuing teacher training about SEL and its possible role in reducing problem behavior among the students.Peer reviewe