Reinventing Teacher Education With Social and Emotional Learning at the Forefront

• In Event: Reinventing (University) Teacher Education: Connections, Contexts, and Consequences

Abstract

Contexts: Objectives and Significance to the Field

Attention to the social and emotional dimensions of learning (SEL) in schools is critical to academic achievement and foundational to the development of crucial life skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, adaptability, and collaboration. Moreover, SEL promotes ethical civic engagement (Cohen, 2006). Recent advances in the field of neuroscience show why and how emotions and cognition are interrelated dimensions of human social functioning. As Immordino-Yang and Damasio (2007) assert, “the aspects of cognition that are recruited most heavily in education, including learning, attention, memory, decision making, motivation, and social functioning, are both profoundly affected by emotion and in fact subsumed within the processes of emotion.”

Socially and emotionally competent educators are key to the promotion of positive social-emotional learning among K-12 students. As Hargreaves (1998) asserts, teaching is “an emotional practice”, that involves “emotional labour.” Yet, in general, university-based teacher education programs are “sorely lacking in their abilities to help prospective teachers learn how to communicate effectively, resolve conflict, deal with differences, and manage strong emotions” (Patti, 2006).

Connections: Perspectives and Analyses

Although some states have adopted SEL guidelines, there is commonly a gulf between these standards and what happens in residing teacher education programs (Cohen, 2006). The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) in Massachusetts recently published guidelines for the implementation of SEL curricula in K-12 schools. Concurrently, a coalition of educators has formed to advocate for more substantive integration of SEL research/practice into university/college-based teacher education programs. The goal of this Social, Emotional and Academic Learning and Teaching (SEALT) Coalition is to promote development of social and emotional competencies among pre-service teachers, through substantive SEL-focused coursework and practicum experiences. This paper examines the rationale for, significance of, and implications for this coalition’s pioneering efforts.

Consequences: Findings and Implications

Massachusetts SEL coalition efforts are encouraged by Schonert-Reichl and Hymel’s current research project, “Social and emotional learning (SEL) and pre-service teacher education: A scan of SEL content in programs across North America.” This research is funded by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) to further efforts to recognize the crucial role of teachers (along with school leaders and support staff) in promoting the development of SEL in K-12 schools.

For this paper, Schonert-Reichl and Hymel’s collected data on Massachusetts’ university/college-based teacher education programs is juxtaposed with scan data on other programs in Canada and/or other states, which intentionally and transparently promote the development of pre-service teachers’ social-emotional competencies, through coursework/fieldwork, with reflective self-awareness as “the threshold skill” (Goleman, 1998). This paper details how analysis of these data along with analysis of follow-up interviews with teacher education program directors and DESE staff inform SEALT coalition efforts.
Massachusetts is positioned to lead efforts to transform university/college-based teacher education programs, with SEL at the forefront. The SEALT Coalition aims to leverage the state’s new SEL guidelines to influence the anticipated over-haul of teacher licensure regulations in 2012, and to thereby influence the reinvention of university/college-based teacher education programs.

Author

• Deborah Ann Donahue-Keegan, Tufts University