“Practice What You Preach”: Connecting Teachers’ Emotional Competence to Their Support of Children’s Emotional Development

• In Event: Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: A Is for Adult Social and Emotional Learning: Supporting Educator Practices

Abstract

The present study aims to identify how preschool teachers’ understanding of their own emotional competence is related to the quality of their emotionally supportive interactions with children using a mixed-methods approach. Private preschool and Head Start teachers’ (N = 32) teaching practices were observed via the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). Comparison groups were created based on their observed emotional support and then compared on their qualitative responses in focus group discussions about teachers’ own emotional competence in the classroom. Comparison groups differed with regards to their discussions of emotion regulation and emotion knowledge. By understanding such differences, intervention programs and in-service training can be developed to help teachers better meet the SEL needs of students.

Authors

• Katherine M. Zinsser, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Susanne Denham, George Mason University

• Timothy W Curby, George Mason University