Taking Fun Seriously: Kid-Centric Perspectives on Social-Emotional Learning

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 5:10 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: SEL Across Content Areas: Art, STEM, Civic Education, and Literacy (Table 8)

Abstract

This paper explores how elementary school children describe their own social-emotional (SEL) experiences around participation in artist-in-residence programs. We coded student interviews for talk about SEL in and through their arts programs and found that students used the word “fun” in three ways: 1) to describe the qualities of engaging learning experiences, 2) as connected to their emotional state, and 3) in their descriptions of learning in and through the arts. These findings resonate with the study of children’s emotions in educational environments, specifically to the role of joy in learning in and through the arts. We propose that taking fun seriously is an important turn in how we both measure and design for SEL experiences in the classroom.

Authors

• Tracey Bullington, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Erica Rosenfeld Halverson, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Lindsey Kourafas, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Yorel Lashley, University of Wisconsin - Madison