Who Am I? Development of the Best Self for Students With Learning Differences

• In Event: Take a STAND: Advancing Student Agency, Inclusion, and Diversity in Social and Emotional Learning

Abstract

Objectives. There exists an abundance of evidence showing how social and emotional learning (SEL) improves academic performance, relationships, well-being, decision-making, and outcomes across all areas of life (Durlak et. al., 2011). One widely used SEL tool, the Meta-Moment (rulerapproach.org), supports individuals to pause when experiencing a challenging emotion to identify and change their behavior productively for the situation. The Meta-Moment promotes healthy identity development by helping students regulate and manage emotions as they imagine their best self. This presentation examines the idea of the best self for students with learning differences by discussing the common words and themes students use to define their best self. Perspectives. The concept of best self is developed by considering our personal ideal (i.e., what’s important to us in terms of who we want to be—feelings, ideas, and personal characteristics) and desired reputation (i.e., how we want to be seen and talked about). Finally, we consider what is most important across the two ideas to support achieving our personal goals (Brackett, 2019). Using the Meta Moment, students identify the qualities about themselves of which they are most proud and draw upon their best self to brainstorm strategies that will be most effective for responding to challenging emotional situations. Methods. This study employed a grounded theory qualitative design. Artifacts and worksheets were coded for common words students used to express their best self and thematic analysis was conducted to identify emerging patterns and themes. Data. We conducted grade-level focus groups with a sample of 24 elementary students. Each of these 20-25-minute focus groups included a hands-on activity and/or worksheet completed by students (see Artifact 1). Researchers further conducted 30-minute passive observations of 5 educators during RULER instruction. Results. Although “happy” and “confident” were used by students across all grades, “helpful” was commonly used only by fifth grade students to describe their best self. One fifth grade student used “inclusive” to describe their best self. Additional common words used by the same group of students included “creative,” “helpful,” “kind,” and “funny.” Similarly, students in third grade used “smart,” “energetic,” and “loving,” while students in second grade used “excited” to describe their best self. Significance. For young students, especially those at higher risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties, it is vital to learn healthy coping skills as part of a healthy identity development. One way to accomplish this is to help them discover the core of who they are, what interests them, and how they fit in and interact with the world around them. This study highlights the importance of promoting discovery of diverse learners’ best self in the early years toward the end of encouraging educators and stakeholders to include this SEL tool in their classrooms to better meet the developmental needs of all their students.

Authors

• Kaveri Sehgal, Northeastern University
  Presenting Author

• Miranda Wood, Yale University
  Presenting Author

• Christina Cipriano, Yale University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lauren Hunter Naples, Yale University
  Presenting Author