When students and educators were sent home in March 2020, they quickly had to figure out what to do without being in person. Our ways of teaching and learning were disrupted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and so we had to make do with what we had: online learning.
Around a year and a half later, online learning has turned the way we think about education on its head. Even today, as we are still slowly making our way out of the pandemic, virtual education is still implemented. Whether it be the virtual days due to inclement weather or the asynchronous classes that students are still taking this year, online learning is the way that we dealt with COVID-19 interrupting our education.
Students at Montclair State University have a lot to say about their experience with learning via Zoom. Although experiences differed in some ways, they left a lasting impression on most. Cam Martin, a junior sports media and journalism major, described how he handled the initial transition to learning online.
“Using Zoom for the first time was definitely unique to me partially because I’d never experienced an online school,” Martin said. “I can sleep in a little bit, but this is still kind of new to me. I’m good with technology, so I could find a way to successfully complete this, but it’s just really a matter of, ‘Can I really do this at the moment?’”
Cam Martin is one of many students who had to make the transition to online learning. Photo courtesy of Cam Martin
Mari Zuniga, a senior communication and media arts major, had a more difficult transition into what became the new normal for education.
“I find it hard to concentrate on the computer,” Zuniga said. “It’s really difficult for me because I’m looking at this and looking at that. I’m hearing them, but I’m not listening. I’m not paying attention.”
Mari Zuniga had her mental health affected by online learning. Sal DiMaggio | The Montclarion
Dr. Erik Jacobson, an associate professor in the teaching and learning department, noted how different students reacted in different ways to the initial switch over to virtual learning.
“[For students who prepared for online learning], it might’ve been slightly different than they were expecting, but I think classes still worked for them,” Jacobson said. “I think they got maybe not 100{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of what they would have gotten normally, but I think they got a good chunk of it. And the students who were not prepared for it, I think really suffered.”
Dr. Erik Jacobson had much to say about how online learning impacted our way of education. Sal DiMaggio | The Montclarion
Students weren’t the only ones impacted by the move to Zoom. Professors had to deal with this change as well. Dr. Michael Koch, an adjunct professor for the School of Communication and Media, was one of many.
“[Online teaching is] not my preferable way to teach, but I wasn’t completely against it either,” Koch said. “I wanted to be safe, and I wanted everybody to be safe, too. So it was challenging, but I made the best of it that I could and I tried to be as accommodating as [I] possibly could be.”
Dr. Michael Koch says online learning made it difficult for him to engage properly with his students. Sal DiMaggio | The Montclarion
Mental health was also something that online learning affected. Going to classes has a social aspect to it as well as an educational one, and being forced to learn from home took that away.
In addition to being a professor at Montclair State, Koch is also a therapist, and he saw students struggling with their mental health. But he also noted that sometimes it’s hard to know what students are going through.
“I think that it’s a bit of a cliché to say everybody is struggling, but there is a lot of cumulative impact of this,” Koch said. “Maybe six months ago, some people [would say], ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I’m doing alright.’ But as it drags on and on, it just gets tiring. I think there’s a lot of mental exhaustion. [Even] myself and [other educators] are not immune to that at all.”
Zuniga went on to discuss her struggles with mental health while learning over Zoom.
“Before COVID-19, [my mental health] was already on the rocks,” Zuniga said. “So when online learning happened, it slightly got worse. [I thought] ‘How am I going to get through this? Are we always going to be on Zoom?’”
According to Jacobson, the decline in mental health wasn’t quite invisible to professors, but it was hard for them to tell exactly what was going on.
“I had students who would straight up tell me how they were doing and how they were feeling and others who fell off the radar,” Jacobson said. “So I [would] email them, ‘How are you doing? Is everything okay?’ But then there were students who showed up, did their work, were engaged and their personality wouldn’t lend themselves to saying, ‘Actually I’m struggling right now.’”
Despite this, online learning may have its advantages going forward if used correctly, especially here at Montclair State where traffic and parking seem to always be cause for concern for students, according to Jacobson.
“It certainly provides flexibility, right?” Jacobson said. “In terms of time, schedule and physical location. Montclair State has a lot of students who work outside of school. We have a lot of students who are commuters, [and] we’ve got terrible traffic and parking problems on campus. So certainly Zoom and using online learning platforms may be a way to address some of those things.”
As the future unfolds, the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to shape our education systems. No one can predict the future and tell what it has in store for us, but at the end of the day, one thing is clear: online learning has changed the way we think about education forever.
The global serious games market was valued at USD 6.29 billion in 2020, and it is expected to reach a value of USD 25.54 billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 26.37{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} over the forecast period 2021 – 2026.
Companies Mentioned
Designing Digitally Inc.
Diginext (CS Group)
CCS Digital Education Ltd
Applied Research Associate Inc.
Grendel Games
Cisco Systems
Revelian
MPS Interactive Systems
Can Studios Ltd
L.I.B. Businessgames BV
Tygron BV
Triseum LLC
Key Market Trends
Learning and Education Application to Witness Significant Growth
In the recent past, digital games and simulations have gained popularity for being the most powerful and highly engaging learning environment. The production of these serious games requires complex and dynamic constructs with appropriate designs of multimodal context and engaging interactions and productive pedagogical strategies to preserve learning efficacy.
Moreover, in the education and learning ecosystem, the need for game concepts, such as challenges, rules, scores, competition, and levels, is encouraging vendors to develop solutions to address and accommodate the principal pedagogical functional variables, such as instructional support, feedback, guidance, self-regulation, attention, cognitive flow, and assessment.
Further, Grandel Games developed a serious game that achieves behavioral change. For instance, one of the games, ‘Garfield’s Count Me In,’ is designed for students in primary education and helps them do repetitive math exercises. It is based on the learning methodology ‘Het Rekenmuurtje’ (‘Math Wall’) and specially designed by educational advisers.
In April 2020, the Indiana Department of Education in the United States announced the Rose-Hulman’s PRISM program to provide school teachers across Indiana with valuable e-learning resources and summer professional development workshops. The program aims to create an online library with more than 6,000 free online teaching resources, which will enable teachers to share lesson plans with other school districts with the help of digital tools, such as serious gaming, among others.
Further, in May 2021, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) launched a new educational game known as CyberSprinters for teaching cyber security at primary schools, clubs, and youth organizations. The CyberSprinters is an interactive game aimed at 7 to 11-year-olds learners.
Asia Pacific to Hold Significant Market Share
The growing awareness regarding serious games or Game-based Learning (GBL) concept, increasing investment by big players into the segment, and growing demand for mobile-based serious gaming are some of the major factors driving the growth of serious games in the Asia-Pacific region. The recent COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdowns, along with governments boosting educational gaming in the country, are some of the opportunities that are expected to boost the adoption of serious games in the region over the forecast period.
Serious games are emerging as a powerful learning tool and are experiencing increasing popularity in recent times, owing to the cost-effective alternative to classroom-based learning for knowledge acquisition, as well as perceptual, behavioral, cognitive, affective, motivational, physiological, and social learning outcomes.
The healthcare industry had been one of the targeted industries for the increased usage of serious games. With the aid of simulation and visualization technologies, serious games now have the capability to teach multidisciplinary healthcare professionals key procedural and cognitive skills in an engaging manner.
To enable the development and implementation of serious games in healthcare, SIMS (SingHealth Institute of Medical Simulation) collaborated with the Serious Games Association (SGA), a non-profit serious games and game technology society in Singapore, to provide healthcare professionals with the ability to apply gamification in healthcare.
The previous collaborations with SGA include the SIMS Games Challenge 2019, a serious healthcare simulation game competition, which observed healthcare professionals submitting concepts and developing prototypes of simulation games. SIMS and SGA had also announced a collaboration to organize RICH Games 2022, a conference for the Southeast Asian region, which offers emerging solutions and innovations to advance healthcare education.
Key Topics Covered:
1 INTRODUCTION
2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
4 MARKET INSIGHTS
4.1 Market Overview
4.2 Industry Attractiveness – Porter’s Five Forces Analysis
4.3 Technology Snapshot
5 MARKET DYNAMICS
5.1 Market Drivers
5.1.1 Growing Usage of Mobile-based Educational Games
5.1.2 Improved Learning Outcomes are Expected to Increase the Adoption of Serious Game Among End Users
5.2 Market Restraints
5.2.1 Lack of Assessment Tools to Measure Serious Game Effectiveness
5.3 Assessment of Impact of COVID-19 on the Industry
It’s almost time for gym class, and my fifth grader can’t find her tennis ball.
“Adrienne, did you take it?” she demands of her younger sister, who swears she didn’t (though she probably did).
“How about a soccer ball?” I ask. They’re practicing dribbling skills.
“No, Mom,” she says firmly. “We’re indoors.” It has to be a tennis ball. She searches under the coffee table and behind the couch; scours her sister’s cluttered room. No tennis ball.
This is what remote phys ed looks like in our house.
And this is what it sounds like: Thundering footfalls from the bedroom above my office, as my third grader jumps over virtual dinner plates, dodges pixels of pumpkin pie and karate-chops cartoon carrots in a Thanksgiving-themed online fitness game that her PE teacher is using as a warmup.
The coronavirus pandemic and the resulting widespread shift to remote learning have brought major changes to phys ed in the United States. Gone are the team sports played in wide-open fields behind the school. In their place are Turkey Ninja Warrior and water-bottle bowling, solitary pursuits conducted couch-side, in spaces as small as a studio apartment. Rolled up socks and laundry baskets have replaced balls and nets, as schools seek everyday alternatives to stranded sports equipment.
The author’s daughter, Emma, 11, practices water-bottle bowling in her living room. Credit: Kelly Field for the Hechinger Report
The PE instructors I spoke with said the students seem to be having fun — the ones they can see on video, at least. Privacy policies in many districts bar teachers from requiring students to keep their cameras on, and some students don’t.
But it’s hard to gauge if they’re getting the same benefits from online PE as they did from in-person classes. Some students lack the equipment, space or parental support to participate fully. Instructors say it’s tough to teach and assess motor skills, like catching and kicking, online.
Meanwhile, public health experts say kids need exercise more than ever.
“PE is so important, because our kids are sitting from 8 to 3,” said Michelle Huff, a high school PE teacher in New Jersey.
In a majority of districts, students are spending some or all of their school days online. They’re missing out on recess and extracurricular sports, many of which have been cancelled for safety reasons. And they’re eating more junk food, according to research from Ireland and Italy. Public health experts here are worried about unhealthy eating too. Compounding these issues, many students around the country live in crowded apartments or in neighborhoods where it’s not safe to exercise outside. In some cities, parks are closed due to the pandemic.
If school closures continued through the end of this year, childhood obesity rates would climb by more than 2 percent.
If school closures continue through the end of this year, childhood obesity rates will climb by more than 2 percent, according to estimates in a recent study by a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis.
And though there’s little hard data on how much exercise kids are getting right now, the anecdotal evidence is that they are not moving as much as they should. In surveys Huff conducted this fall with 200 students at Metuchen High School, students said they had headaches from staring at the screen, that their backs hurt from sitting, and that they weren’t retaining anything.
Related:How a growing number of states are hoping to improve kids’ brains: exercise
School-age children should get an hour or more of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Students in elementary school should spend 150 minutes a week in PE while students in middle and high school should receive 225 minutes a week of PE instruction, according to recommendations from the Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE), which represents PE and health instructors.
The benefits of exercise for children are well-established. Children who are aerobically fit are not only physically healthier than their sedentary peers — their brains are more developed, too, said Charles Hillman, a psychology professor at Northeastern University. His research indicates that fit children appear to have more mature prefrontal cortices and hippocampi — the parts of the brain associated with attention, memory and self-regulation, and by extension, academic achievement.
Exercise can also alleviate depression and anxiety — conditions that have intensified in many students during the pandemic. And it’s critical to combatting childhood obesity, which affects one in seven kids between the ages of 10 and 17 nationally, with even higher rates among low-income children and children of color.
“You have to keep them moving, because if they aren’t focused, if they have too much energy, they aren’t going to learn anything.”
Leslie Monterrosa, a second-grade teacher in Concord, California
Yet, even before COVID-19 shut down schools, fewer than half the states set any minimum amount of time that students must participate in PE, according to SHAPE.
With much of PE now online, some kids are getting even less time in class than before. In March, California’s governor waived the state’s time requirement, prompting some districts to eliminate PE as a stand-alone class or make it an elective. At least two Massachusetts districts have eliminated elementary PE altogether this year, according to the president of the state’s SHAPE chapter.
Portland, Oregon nearly laid off all its elementary adaptive PE instructors, who work with children with disabilities, before teachers defeated the move. Neighboring Hillsboro, a diverse city, was less lucky: The district reassigned all but one of its 15 elementary PE instructors to classroom positions to meet Oregon’s pandemic class size guidelines. That left the lone remaining gym teacher to teach 11,000 students asynchronously by creating Google slides for them to use.
Advocates for phys ed fear more cuts could be coming, as districts grapple with looming budget cuts stemming from the current economic downturn. And if the Great Recession is any guide, those cuts could fall hardest on high-poverty districts, where students already have less access to afterschool sports than in wealthier ones.
“Not all students have the privilege of taking ballet classes or sports clubs,” said Julia Stevens, the president of Oregon’s SHAPE chapter.
Related: Immigrants find hope in soccer, but some states won’t let them play
For now, though, PE instructors are focused on finding creative ways to keep their kids engaged. They’re sending kindergarteners on scavenger hunts that have them running around their homes to collect items. They’re challenging high schoolers to “beat the teacher” by performing more push-ups in a minute than their instructor.
“We’re disguising fitness,” said Brett Fuller, the president of SHAPE’s national board of directors, and a curriculum specialist for health and physical ed within Milwaukee Public Schools. “You can’t just do a fitness class, because kids will say it’s no fun.”
Back in New Jersey, Huff is working hard to make her classes fun. She’s created Tik Tok dance and exercise challenges, some of them with her sister, a PE teacher in another school. (And she’s not the only gym teacher embracing Tik Tok.) She’s also teaching students movement and mindfulness exercises they can perform, even during Zoom classes.
Since most kids don’t have a whole lot of gym gear in their homes, SHAPE’s reopening guidance recommends that teachers ask students what they do have on hand and provide a checklist of common household items that could be repurposed as sports equipment.
Some substitutions are simple — cut plastic gallon milk cartons for catching, or unopened canned soup for weights. Others are trickier. Kyle Bragg, an elementary school PE instructor in Scottsdale, Arizona, said he’s yet to find an acceptable alternative to a jump rope; nothing rotates at the same speed. He’s told kids to ask their parents to buy one, but he can’t force them. So for now, he’s stuck with some students jumping over pillows.
“It’s kind of like taking a pencil away from a classroom teacher,” he said. “It’s nearly impossible to meet a jump rope standard without a jump rope.”
Some districts are purchasing take-home kits containing jump ropes, balls and bean bags. But the kits can be pricey, and not all districts can afford them. In normal times, the median budget for PE equipment and supplies is just $764 a year per school, according to a 2016 report by SHAPE.
So some teachers are soliciting supplies online, through sites like DonorsChoose.org. Between July 1 and Dec. 1, teachers submitted 860 requests (out of 181,000 total) that referenced virtual PE, according to Christopher Pearsall, the website’s vice president for brand and communications. The most sought-after items, by far, were jump ropes.
“It’s kind of like taking a pencil away from a classroom teacher. It’s nearly impossible to meet a jump rope standard without a jump rope.”
Kyle Bragg, an elementary school PE instructor in Scottsdale, Arizona
One of the requests came from Leslie Monterrosa, a second grade teacher in Concord, California. She knows her low-income, English language learners tend to live in small apartments and have busy working parents, so she asked for equipment they could use on their own, in small spaces — jump ropes and bean bags. A donor stepped up within days.
“You have to keep them moving, because if they aren’t focused, if they have too much energy, they aren’t going to learn anything,” she said.
Some instructors are offering students choices: If they don’t have the equipment they need for one activity — say soccer — they can try another, like running. The alternative might not target the same skills, but at least it gets them moving.
And in the midst of a pandemic that has upended nearly every aspect of education, some standards may simply need to be set aside for a bit, instructors say.
“You gotta be OK with OK,” David Daum, an assistant professor of kinesiology at San Jose State University in California, said he tells teachers. “If you are trying hard, your students will see it. Just do your best.”
The hardest things to teach and evaluate online, instructors say, are the skills, strategies and collaboration involved in team sports. There’s just no way to play soccer alone in your living room.
Related: Ed tech can transform physical education classes, too
That’s why online PE courses — which have existed at the high school and college levels since at least the late 1990s — have historically favored fitness-based instruction, like interval training and biking, over the development of gross motor skills like jumping and throwing. Covid-era classes seem to be following the same trend, said Daum, who researches online PE.
This neglect of motor skills in online PE courses has been one of the chief criticisms of the delivery of classes via the internet. In its guidelines for online PE, SHAPE argues that the development of motor skills competence is “the highest priority of physical education,” and should be a “central component of any online physical education course.”
During the pandemic, some teachers have been asking students to send short video clips of themselves performing individual skills, like jumping rope. (Cooperative skills, like passing a ball, are harder to measure, since not everyone has a partner.) But there are limitations and drawbacks to that approach: Some parents aren’t comfortable with their children sharing videos of themselves and some students send clips that are far too long. With dozens of students per grade, reviewing the submissions can take an instructor hours.
The alternative is to conduct assessments in livestream classes, but that can open students up to ridicule and cyber-bullying. Some districts have policies stating that students can’t be required to keep their cameras on.
In such districts, it can be hard to tell if students are participating at all. They might be doing jumping jacks, or they might be watching YouTube.
To gauge participation, many instructors are asking students to answer a question in a chat box or complete an exit ticket with questions about the lesson and their own performance. Some schools with fully asynchronous PE are relying on the honor system, with students using logs to report how much exercise they get each day.
It’s unclear how many students are actually doing the portions of PE that aren’t livestreamed. Are busy working parents enforcing it? Given the hassle involved — one lesson in our house required my daughter to collect no fewer than seven household items — should parents just send their kids out to play instead?
No, said Stephanie Morris, the CEO of SHAPE America. Outdoor play is great. But PE is about more than just being active, she said. It’s about “learning skills to be healthy.”
Related: Schedules for distance learning are all over the place (and it’s making parents crazy)
Despite the challenges involved in remote learning, Fuller, SHAPE’s president, sees the pandemic as an opportunity to show that PE is not only about team sports. Teachers are learning technological skills that “none of us ever dreamt they’d have,” he said. And students are discovering that fitness can be fun, even without group games.
“Sitting on a couch in front of a computer may be some people’s dream job, but it drives me crazy.”
Andrew VanDorick, an elementary PE teacher in Maryland
“I see this as an opportunity to do things differently, to really showcase what we should be about,” he said, “and that is developing physical literacy: the skills, knowledge and attitudes to be physically active for a lifetime.”
Still, many PE instructors said they’re eager to return to the gym and sports fields.
“I became a PE teacher because I needed to keep moving,” said Andrew VanDorick, an elementary PE teacher in Maryland. “Sitting on a couch in front of a computer may be some people’s dream job, but it drives me crazy. I can’t wait to be back in front of the kids.”
Oh, and that missing tennis ball? Turns out it isn’t essential after all. When it vanishes again, just in time for water-bottle bowling, my 11-year-old substitutes a lacrosse ball — and rolls a spare.
This story about phys ed was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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Keilani Lopez and Adele White spent this Giving Tuesday organizing food at Middletown’s Creekview Elementary School. Keilani and Adele are fourth graders who are helping to make a difference in their community.They know with each box of food that was donated and every can placed on a shelf, a Middletown family’s life gets a little easier.”I did not think that there’s going to be that much,” Keilani said as she looked at the donations.Adele said, “I didn’t know all that food was in there.” Even after handing out dozens of meals fr Thanksgiving, there was a lot left over from the school’s food drive, which was a little different this year.”We just wanted to not make anybody feel pressured to extend themselves in a way that would have been maybe hard,” said Brea Greer, an art teacher at Creekview. So, rather than asking families to donate, as they did in years past, teachers asked students to write letters to local businesses and churches.”We wrote letters saying what they can give to us and what we need, basically,” Keilani said. The response was overwhelming.”It was super exciting. It filled our office, our front office into the conference room, down the hallway,” said Allison Drake, a fourth-grade teacher. “I think it kind of helped lift our spirits during a crazy time of the holidays.””It just became clear that people in the community wanted to be connected and wanted to help out with the schools but didn’t know how,” Greer said. “We had so many donations, we were able to open it up to anybody in our school.” A counseling office has now turned into a mini food pantry that will help to feed families and souls.”It makes me feel happy,” Keilani said.Creekview is still accepting donations of food, hygiene items and gif cards. Anyone wishing to make a donation is asked to call the school directly.
MIDDLETOWN, Ohio —
Keilani Lopez and Adele White spent this Giving Tuesday organizing food at Middletown’s Creekview Elementary School. Keilani and Adele are fourth graders who are helping to make a difference in their community.
They know with each box of food that was donated and every can placed on a shelf, a Middletown family’s life gets a little easier.
“I did not think that there’s going to be that much,” Keilani said as she looked at the donations.
Adele said, “I didn’t know all that food was in there.”
Even after handing out dozens of meals fr Thanksgiving, there was a lot left over from the school’s food drive, which was a little different this year.
“We just wanted to not make anybody feel pressured to extend themselves in a way that would have been maybe hard,” said Brea Greer, an art teacher at Creekview.
So, rather than asking families to donate, as they did in years past, teachers asked students to write letters to local businesses and churches.
“We wrote letters saying what they can give to us and what we need, basically,” Keilani said.
The response was overwhelming.
“It was super exciting. It filled our office, our front office into the conference room, down the hallway,” said Allison Drake, a fourth-grade teacher. “I think it kind of helped lift our spirits during a crazy time of the holidays.”
“It just became clear that people in the community wanted to be connected and wanted to help out with the schools but didn’t know how,” Greer said. “We had so many donations, we were able to open it up to anybody in our school.”
A counseling office has now turned into a mini food pantry that will help to feed families and souls.
“It makes me feel happy,” Keilani said.
Creekview is still accepting donations of food, hygiene items and gif cards. Anyone wishing to make a donation is asked to call the school directly.
(This is the final post in a two-part series. You can see Part One here.)
The new question-of-the-week is:
What are the best ways you are incorporating social-emotional learning in your classroom and what are you doing to ensure that it is culturally responsive?
In Part One, Tairen McCollister, Mike Kaechele, and Libby Woodfin shared their responses to the question.
Today, Jennifer Mitchell, Meg Riordan, Ph.D., Amber Chandler, and Bill Adair wrap up this series.
Don’t Use SEL to ‘Increase Compliance’
Jennifer Mitchell teaches English-learners in Dublin, Ohio. Connect with her on Twitter: @readwritetech or on her blog:
Any student or teacher can give countless examples of how our educational system has not only ignored but exacerbated and even directly contributed to mental-health issues for ourselves or our friends, colleagues, and students. Social-emotional learning can literally save lives.
But too often, SEL is sold to teachers as a system to manage students’ behavior and increase their compliance, rather than an essential classroom lifestyle infused with tools they can use to be happier, healthier, and fuller versions of themselves. We must ask ourselves: Do we want our students to tone down who they are to perpetuate the status quo or do we want them to embrace their unique selves and harness their power to build a better world? Do we want them to prioritize work over health and joy or do we want them to build the self- and situational awareness to recognize who they are, what they want, and how to respond to the obstacles they encounter?
Initially, I felt that SEL flowed naturally in my English classroom through literacy and discussions that affirm and explore identity, culture, and empathy. And while that is still a cornerstone of our work together, I realized that my students needed more. After seeing the destructive impact of mental illness, trauma, and racism in so many of my students’ lives, I dug passionately into a variety of SEL approaches. Now, a variety of essential strategies permeate our class culture, pushing us to slow down amidst the pervasive urgency that is so common in schools, to remember that honoring and connecting with each other is essential:
A calming box for students to access fidgets, visual timers, coloring/brain puzzle books, and a small binder of grounding exercises and mental-health tips
Frequent goal-setting and reflection, including WOOP-style goal-setting for which we brainstorm how to overcome obstacles that might prevent us from reaching our goals
Tim Kight’s R-Factor system (E+R=O framework): can help students reflect on what they can and can’t control, the power of their thoughts and emotions, how their responses can influence the outcomes of situations, and how individual actions shape the larger culture of a community. (Caution: infused with grind culture! Supplement with discussions of the importance of rest and recovery to keep going in a healthy way.)
Marc Brackett’s RULER framework for identifying, articulating, and managing feelings with robust, specific vocabulary; very helpful to my ELs. (Caution: Its packaged curriculum and the Yale organization have decided to eschew cultural responsiveness in favor of an imagined ideal of neutrality, disregarding the systemic issues that impact so many students. As scholars such as Duane et. al (2021) point out, SEL practices (and school in general) can directly harm the students they purport to help, especially when they are not implemented in an environment of social justice that affirms students’ identities and lived experiences.)
Weekly restorative circles are a powerful space for community-building, processing and sharing emotions, and collective problem-solving.
Periodic Story Exchanges build empathy, connection, and perspective-taking
A daily organizer routine where we begin and end class by recognizing our feelings, pausing for gratitude, grounding ourselves in affirmations and shared goals, and reflecting on our learning
Frequent opportunities for students to give me feedback
No matter which tools and opportunities educators provide, it’s essential that we constantly reflect and continue learning, just as we ask our students to do. We must listen to the brilliant educators of color who are sharing their expertise and their voices about how white supremacy impacts all aspects of education, particularly SEL work. We must constantly ask ourselves if what we are doing embraces or constrains our students’ identities, emotions, and experiences. Above all, we must listen to our students and make it undoubtedly clear to them that their voices matter, that we are their partners, and that we care enough to keep doing better.
‘A Powerful Approach’
Meg Riordan, Ph.D., is the chief learning officer at The Possible Project, an out-of-school program that collaborates with youth to build entrepreneurial skills and mindsets and provides pathways to careers and long-term economic prosperity. She has been in the field of education for over 25 years as a middle and high school teacher, school coach, college professor, regional director of NYC Outward Bound Schools, and director of external research with EL Education:
Social-emotional learning is a difference-maker. Decades of research show benefits beyond increased academic performance, including: positive self-concept, improved capacity to manage stress, and greater economic mobility. But what does it look like to effectively incorporate social-emotional learning (SEL) into the classroom? And how does SEL work with culturally responsive teaching to support all learners?
First, let’s lay a shared foundation: The Collaborative for Social, Emotional, and Academic Learning (CASEL) defines SEL as the process through which people acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. Culturally responsive SEL must offer opportunities for students to reflect on identity, use relevant topics to foster social awareness, develop decisionmaking through authentic projects, build relationships, and explore society’s varied expectations for self-management—and how to navigate those.
Key to the definition above is that SEL is a process, meaning it must be ongoing and embedded throughout students’ learning experiences. Much like teacher professional learning that should be sustained to be effective, the same holds for SEL. It’s not a one-shot opening circle, occasional workshop, or SEL survey. Building culturally responsive SEL is a process—requiring deliberate design across grade levels and classrooms and inviting collaborative inquiry between youth, educators, and families. It means developing transparent competencies, creating lessons and instructional interactions that spark collaboration and reflection, and educators modeling competencies themselves.
To be implemented effectively, SEL relies on a blueprint at the district, school, and program level. With a blueprint and ongoing professional learning, educators can engage with students to reflect on growth and identify areas of continued opportunity.
Post-blueprint, what does it look like to incorporate SEL that gets to the heart of CASEL’s definition and ensures cultural responsiveness? Below are snapshots that illustrate culturally responsive SEL in action:
Build Relationships and Create Relevance
At The Possible Project (TPP), a youth entrepreneurship and work-based learning program with a mission to advance economic equity, relationships are foundational for SEL and culturally responsive teaching. Building relationships means creating learning experiences that provide opportunities to learn about each other and share our identities. For instance, a virtual learning “opening chat box question” might ask: “What is your favorite comfort food—why?” or “What are you listening to on repeat?” Beginning with inquiry about who we are engages learners, illustrating curiosity and care; it invites a feeling of being seen and valued to bring our whole selves (virtually or otherwise) into a brave and safe space.
But caring about who students are doesn’t stop after an opening question. Learning experiences ignite connections to foster authentic relationships. At TPP, we ground our approach in The Search Institute’s Developmental Relationships Framework, which identifies five elements that promote powerful relationships: Express Care, Challenge Growth, Provide Support, Share Power, and Expand Possibilities. Before students build their businesses individually or collaboratively, they reflect on their passions and interests, practice problem-finding, consider authentic needs, and propose solutions. Our learning process relies on students’ sharing imaginative ideas, showing empathy for others, being willing to take creative risks, and envisioning possibilities that don’t yet exist. Designing real projects that involve students as active drivers signals that we take them seriously, trust them as decisionmakers, and create opportunities to achieve goals and lead their learning. Beyond an opening activity, sustained relationships emerge by doing real work together—helping one another iterate on ideas and giving feedback as draft business plans develop. Rooting learning in topics relevant to students’ lives and identities, such as building their own businesses, creates spaces where culturally responsive SEL helps young people thrive.
Connect to Community and Manage Emotions
While relationships and relevance to students’ lives are essential, other important opportunities to practice culturally responsive SEL include expanding students’ networks and developing awareness of what it feels, looks, and sounds like to manage emotions. We know recognizing, expressing, and managing emotions can be a challenge; we also know that these skills help us interact with others in and out of classrooms and are paramount in the workplace. That’s why at TPP we design learning experiences that bridge our community to the classroom and engage students in reflection to develop awareness of their feelings and behaviors and the connection between the two. An illustration: to promote entrepreneurial mindsets and skills, students interview local entrepreneurs to learn what sparked their business idea, what challenges they’ve overcome, and what they’ve learned running a business. Research indicates that role models motivate us, give us someone to emulate, and teach us how to overcome obstacles. When students see an entrepreneur who looks like them or represents a shared background, they’re better equipped to imagine themselves in that role.
TPP students also connect to community as consultants to local businesses, charged with developing an approach for a social-media campaign or creating materials for an internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion resource site. Community-based experiences offer higher stakes—though supported—-opportunities for students to express themselves in professional settings, listen to others, receive feedback, and manage emotions. Conversations about identity and code-switching in the workplace are particularly salient for students of color as research shows they are likely to experience a range of adversities in professional settings. Learning to effectively navigate spaces and manage varied emotions, while maintaining one’s identity, takes place through guided readings and discussion, skills practice, and written reflections. Connecting to community and bridging to workplaces ignites real-world SEL and culturally responsive experiences and offers applied opportunities to transfer skills.
SEL combined with culturally responsive teaching offers a powerful approach for learners to engage in experiences that provide opportunities to reflect on identity and develop skills that apply to career and life. This potent duo—implemented consistently across schools and programs—can equip young people with a strong compass to navigate and persist in shaping their futures.
‘Google Form Questionnaires’
Amber Chandler is the author of The Flexible SEL Classroom and a contributor to many education blogs. She teaches 8th grade ELA in Hamburg, N.Y. Amber is the president of her union of 400 teachers. Follow her @MsAmberChandler and check out her website:
The best approach to social emotional learning in the classroom community is always to take a wide-lens view to make sure that the practices we are attempting to employ are actually beneficial for all students. Some of the beliefs underpinning SEL can lead to a belief that all success is self-determined, especially when we spend lots of time on the concept of self-management and themes like grit and determination. To be culturally responsive, we must also recognize that institutionalized racism, sexism, poverty, and the like prevent success, despite our students’ best efforts.
I take a constructivist approach to social and emotional learning in the classroom. Making meaning together is the only way that we can be assured that we are being culturally responsive. In all the classes I teach to future teachers, I ask the question, “What is the most important data?” and after listening to lots of important facts, I let everyone off the hook. The most important piece of data isn’t something that a standardized test can measure, but rather it is who are the people in front of us? Who are the people in the room? What matters to them? Where are their hearts? Where are their minds? Instead of competing with all their distractions, how can we help them with them?
As simplistic as it sounds, simply asking students to share about themselves is the quickest route to gain the information that will allow you to be culturally responsive. Each fall I send a Google Form questionnaire to students that asks them to classify themselves in a variety of ways (shy or outgoing, talkative or quiet, orderly or disorganized, laid back or stressed). The questionnaire also asks, “What do I need to know to be a good teacher for you?” and “Is there anything I need to know that will help me understand you?” I have started to include the following question as well: “Are there any social issues that are especially important to you? If so, why?” These data points are the most important every year, and students enjoy the attention that I am giving them by letting them know that I care about who is in the room more than I do about the curriculum. Of course the curriculum is important, and armed with these crucial details about my students, I can choose to deliver it in a variety of ways that are best for those particular kiddos.
I also give them the link to share with an adult who knows them well—-I don’t qualify who the adult must be. I’ve gotten results back from former teachers, aunts, coaches, grandparents, and, of course, parents. Taken together, I can get a pretty good picture of the students in my room and I can avoid common pitfalls. For example, one year I learned that I had a student who had lost his brother over the summer. Thankfully, I was able to change what I was planning to teach—My Brother Sam is Dead—to still cover the required information but to also respect the individuals in the room.
As simplistic as these surveys are, they have proved to be one of the best ways to meet the social and emotional needs of students while being culturally responsive to their needs. Students learn quickly that you are constructing the class with them, and they are then more likely to fully participate in their own learning.
A View From Canada
Bill Adair is an educational consultant and practicing high school teacher. He also instructs postgrad classes at Douglas College in Canada specializing in the socioemotional/motivational component of physical literacy. He is the author of “The Emotionally Connected Classroom: Wellness and the Learning Experience” (Corwin Press):
As Canadians, we are currently experiencing a particularly shameful exposure of our past. Throughout much of Canadian history, Indigenous children were forcibly ripped from their families and placed in residential schools designed for the specific purpose of cultural genocide of First Nations peoples. The “lie” of assimilation for the greater good has resulted in profound intergenerational trauma. Much work has been done in the name of reconciliation, but the recent discovery of 215 children in a mass grave at one of these schools has retraumatized Indigenous communities and resulted in painful self-reflection for all Canadians. From the pained heart of survivors, the message is clear. “The education system was the cause of the trauma; it must be the beginning for healing”.
First Peoples Principles of Learning
Promoting First Peoples Principles of Learning is one positive step the government has taken. Indigenous learning is grounded in connection to the well-being of the self, community, and land. It is reflective, experiential, embedded in reciprocally rewarding relationships, and requires the exploration of one’s personal identity. For Indigenous students, this instills a sense of cultural pride in a traditionally marginalized community.
For those pursuing the most progressive SEL practices, Indigenous learning principles serve as a practical action plan. The principles transcend cultural boundaries because they are grounded in the universal human need for connectedness. First Peoples Principles of Learning can be used as a foundational piece to help all children pursue a more connected path to self-awareness while bringing us all closer together. For our small part, our physical education department has embraced and celebrated the concepts that parallel our best practice.
Physical education, and in fact all learning, is a highly charged emotional experience where children may experience profoundly different outcomes. It is easy is for student attention to drift toward performance expectations that fall short or social interactions buried in emotional pain. However, when we wrap daily curricular objectives in cooperation, purposeful objectives, playful mindsets, self-reflection or healthy perspectives of challenge, the socioemotional brain responds accordingly, and learning feels amazing. Where our emotional attention goes, our destiny will follow. In a world where children struggle to cope with anxiety, one would hope pursuing the tools to own their emotional experience would be the most important lesson at school.
An authentic connection playbook that guides thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in a healthier intentional manner becomes a valuable tool. Intentional lesson design and assessment are two ways we elevate the importance of healthy emotions and connections. If is worth teaching, it is worth assessing. If it is worth doing, it is worth owning the outcome.
In our physical education classrooms:
· We teach the simple neuroscience and attachment-theory recipe. “What you put in is what you get out.” Even young children can grasp and own this.
o Happy in, Happy out …
o Challenge and support in … Resiliency out
o Anger, shame, fear, isolation in … Anxiety out
· Daily assessable intentions help students guide their attention toward authentic experiences and emotions. A few examples of “emotionally rewarding” intentions might be
Today I will:
o Be a great peer coach
o Be an amazing cheerleader
o Be passionately playful and fun
o Value challenge, discomfort, and best effort
o Value yourself, value others
o Embrace nature
· Assessments are guided but always self reflective. If we want children to own their emotional experience, the process includes learning to assess in authentic ways.
o If a healthy emotional experience is the most important objective, we allow it to be the most important assessment.
o We never assess skill or performance as a primary objective. Only the commitment and feelings associated with the daily connection intention.
o We target intentions that nurture the capacity of children to freely share and graciously accept healthy emotional energy
· We frequently reference First Peoples Principles of Learning as an inspiration for our learning process.
Talking about SEL objectives is just talk. The human brain is designed to respond to actual emotional experiences. Daily connection intentions support authentic attachment and arm students with their own connection-intention playbook for health, learning, and life.
Thanks to Jennifer, Meg, Amber, and Bill for contributing their thoughts.
Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected]. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.
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It’s a sound that can make a parent’s chest clench with anxiety: a new cough coming from a toddler’s room in the middle of the night. One small cough can portend another round of COVID testing, and days, possibly weeks, spent at home helping the child recover from whatever virus it turns out to be. Routines once again disrupted, work distractions constant, anxieties compounded after nearly two years of living this way.
In a report published in August by the American Staffing Association, 62{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of U.S. adults with children polled said their additional child care and virtual schooling responsibilities during the pandemic hurt their ability to get ahead at work. And although lockdowns are mostly a thing of the past, schools and day care centers have much more stringent rules than pre-pandemic times; many do not allow children to attend if they are displaying any symptom of illness. As common ailments such as rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, and ear infections have spread among children this summer and fall, parents find themselves back where they were in 2020 – trying to balance work and parenting, with no clear end in sight.
“Working parents have been so overtaxed with work, child care/home-schooling and a lack of social support these past two years that they have been sacrificing their own self-care,” said Claudia Allen, director of the Family Stress Clinic and director of behavioral science in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Virginia.
These stressors can lead to parental burnout – an “overwhelming exhaustion related to one’s parental role, an emotional distancing from one’s children, and a sense of parental ineffectiveness,” according to Belgian researchers Moïra Mikolajczak and Isabelle Roskam, who first identified the syndrome in the 1980s – well before the pandemic. Research published last month by U.K. children’s charity Action for Children found that more than 80{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of parents there are struggling with at least one symptom of burnout due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
So what can parents do to help themselves through this difficult time? UVA Today reached out to Allen, as well as pediatrician Dr. Heather Quillian, an associate professor in UVA’s Department of Pediatrics, for answers.
Q. What are some signs/symptoms of burnout you’ve seen among working parents during the pandemic?
Allen: For many working parents, routines were completely disrupted and any free time for themselves that they did have (already scarce) was lost. Time for exercise, seeing friends, personal development, date night, etc., went right out the window. Downstream effects are negative on physical and mental health, for sure, and on marital/partner relationships.
One of the stresses of the pandemic for parents has been the pressure to create a whole new life for your kids. Some families with resources and a knack were able to do this, and they provided farm school, trips, etc. for their kids. And all of this was on Instagram, of course. The average parent not only was not able to do this, but also felt that they should. There was a lot of social comparison of how families handled the pandemic, and this left many parents feeling inadequate, even like bad parents.
Q. Are small children getting more illnesses from child care settings this year, or getting any illnesses that usually don’t show up normally in their age group?
Quillian: It may seem like kids in child care settings are getting more illnesses this year, and I do think that’s true compared to last year, but on the whole I think that the number is fairly typical in terms of what we saw pre-COVID. I think it just seems worse because last year there were relatively fewer illnesses in this age group.
I wouldn’t say that the kids are getting unusual illnesses. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) did come early this year – we saw cases over the summer which is unusual – but RSV itself is a common player during the typical cold and flu season.
In general pediatricians do not think there are harmful long-term effects for young children to get these viral infections, and in fact getting viral infections builds immunity over time, and possibly even creates some crossover protection when new infections arise. That is one reason the flu vaccine can be beneficial over the years, even when in an individual year the vaccine is not a good match for what is circulating.
Q. How can parents who need to send their children to day care help them stay healthy?
Quillian: For kids who are in child care settings, the best ways to stay healthy are to encourage good handwashing practices and, if kids are old enough, mask wearing. It is important to remember though that masks will help prevent illnesses that spread through sneezing and coughing – like COVID-19 – but they don’t help as much with illnesses spread via fomites. Fomites are objects or materials which are likely to carry infection, such as clothes, utensils and furniture. Viruses that have more spread this way, say like the virus that causes hand-foot-and-mouth disease, will not necessarily be lessened by mask-wearing – perhaps only to the extent that masks keep kids from putting their fingers in their mouths.
Q. What are some tips you can suggest to parents suffering from burnout, in terms of coping with stress and improving their mental health?
Quillian: We as pediatricians certainly understand the burden that these repeated viral infections place on parents, especially working parents who are struggling with the demands of their jobs and have a difficult time finding a contingency plan when their child is ill. These past almost two years have been really tough logistically for many families.
I do think things will get better; we will hopefully, by early to mid-2022, have a COVID-19 vaccine available for kids under 5. While this vaccine will not prevent the other viruses kids get, I do think it will eventually help reduce the burden of getting children tested for COVID-19 – which will make us all happy, especially the kids!
Pediatricians do understand that testing is a big burden on families, but as long as COVID is still at high transmission in the community, and cases are predominantly in the unvaccinated (with young children making up a larger portion than previously), it is still necessary to test children for COVID with each illness unless there is a very clear explanation for symptoms. And the upside is – it is working! There hasn’t been widespread COVID in our local child care centers – so the diligence is paying off. We are almost there; it’s just not time to take our foot off the gas quite yet.
Allen: One of the ways that the hard work of parenting is typically balanced is by the FUN of it. Some families have been able to capture fun during the pandemic if they had the ability to take a road trip, decamp to the countryside, or create some kind of well-supported home school. But for many families, the pandemic meant the end of neighborhood socializing, chatting with other parents at the bus stop, taking kids to a basketball game, even dinners with grandparents. Those fairly small but regular and sometimes fun interactions with other families are what help keep parents of young kids SANE. Many parents totally or largely lost this during the pandemic. While it is coming back slowly, we are certainly not there yet, and some damage has been done by this isolation.
My tips: Reclaim your self-care as soon as you reasonably can! Go back to the gym, see your friends, etc. It’s not selfish; it’s important.
If you are partnered, prioritize that relationship. Restart date night, get a sitter, go away for a day or two. Both you and your children need that relationship to be as healthy as possible.
Q. A great number of women have left the workforce during the pandemic; many more are considering it. What are your thoughts about this massive shift, and any advice for women going through it?
Allen: Regarding women leaving the workforce, I certainly get it. For many families, that may make temporary or permanent sense. But a caution: If you are considering leaving your job that you otherwise reasonably like and/or need, be careful not to be the only family member who is absorbing the extra child care. Even if your partner makes more than you, there are costs to leaving the workforce. You lose income; you lose experience; you lose social interaction. Make sure to consider both partners cutting back, for example, instead of one person entirely leaving their job. Or consider changing your job to something more flexible rather than leaving entirely. Or consider moving closer to family who could help with child care, or joining forces with another family. For women, having some work outside the home can be a buffer when things at home are hard.
Q. Are there policy changes you would suggest to help improve life for working families in this country?
Allen: Policy wise, we certainly need a national parental leave policy that can be used not only at birth, but when a child is ill, or when their school closes, etc. And universal child care before kindergarten has been shown to benefit children, families and employers. Finally, wages for child care workers need to come up considerably, as these workers are crucial to both our economy and our children’s development.
