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Embedding social and emotional learning in textbooks and other educational materials: Addressing inclusive identities and SDG 4.7

Sun, March 25, 8:30am to 2:45pm, Hilton Reforma, Floor: 4th Floor, Don Emiliano

Group Submission Type: Pre-conference Workshop

Description of Session

Education has two faces, as noted by Bush and Salterelli in 2000: it can increase social tensions and conflict and/or ameliorate divisions in society. Today many education systems aim to build social cohesion amidst diversity, despite limited resources.

A new generation of textbooks and other education materials, guides and assessment tools are needed to support teachers in promoting social and emotional learning (SEL) including development of inclusive student identities; and applying SEL to globally endorsed societal goals listed in Sustainable Development Goal Target 4.7. Producing more effective, motivational and contextualized materials requires North-South and South-South collaboration of academics and practitioners.

Drawing on an analysis of relevant SEL skills by a cross-cultural team of graduate students, the workshop will ask how to empower Southern writers of national textbooks and educational materials to support respect for diversity, social cohesion and sustainable development in line with national aspirations and to protect youth against extremism.

Proposal

• NAMES OF THE WORKSHOP LEADERS/ORGANIZERS
James Williams
Aaron Benavot
Elizabeth Anderson Worden
Mary Wanjiru Kangethe
Susan Ayari
Wendy Wheaton 
Kakali (Koli) Banik
Margaret Sinclair
Jisun Jeong
Sabrina J. Curtis

• ABSTRACT/WORKSHOP RATIONALE
Education has two faces, as noted by Bush and Salterelli in 2000: it can increase social tensions and conflict and/or ameliorate divisions in society. Today many education systems aim to build social cohesion amidst diversity, despite limited resources. The workshop will examine how more contextualized and motivational learning materials can help school students achieve an inclusive identity and commit to responsible citizenship. Preparation and testing of such materials requires insights from national education actors, youth and the wider society.

>>The workshop concept has been developed by James Williams and Margaret Sinclair in consultation with Wendy Wheaton and Kakali Banik, of USAID Africa Bureau, supported by several GWU graduate students. Fazle Rabbani (GPE) has been invited to contribute likewise, drawing on his wide experience of education reform in South Asia and Eastern Africa.

>>Ongoing support has been received from Colette Chabbott (GWU), and from Maleiha Malik and Mubarak Al Thani, of Education Above All.

>>Rena Deitz, Senior Education Specialist, International Rescue Committee, has agreed to assist with the planning of the workshop, and will participate if available. She suggests that the workshop described here might take place in sessions 1 and 2 of the Pre-Conference Workshop day and lead into a separately organized session on measurement of social and emotional learning, proposed by the SEL Community of Practice, in session 3: ‘Ideally, the workshop you are proposing in the first two sessions could focus on implementation and learning material development, followed by the SEL measurement workshop’ (email from Rena Deitz, 10/10/2017).

Karen Mundy (GPE; OISE) will be invited as keynote speaker.

• Learning objectives

Participants will:
-Understand different taxonomies of social and emotional learning (SEL) and of how SEL skills may help build the skills of respect for diversity and critical thinking as applied to development of inclusive identities as local, national and global citizens.
-Understand how SEL skills relate to globally endorsed goals listed under SDG Target 4.7, if contextualized by national actors.
-Learn how these skills are approached at different stages of the conflict spectrum, from prevention to crisis response to post-conflict reconstruction.
-Understand the strengths and limitations of textbooks and other education materials as well as national examinations and teacher training as means to influence students’ identity formation and internalisation of SEL and Target 4.7 goals.
-Evaluate their personal commitment to supporting academic-practitioner collaboration on a North-South or South-South basis in this regard.

• Organisation

The CIES session will bring academics and practitioners together, to jointly address the task of achieving SEL and Target 4.7 goals in low resource and/or fragile settings. In preparation, a cross-cultural group of graduate students will undertake SEL skills analysis, beginning October 2017. This will be presented at a face-to-face academic-practitioner meeting in January 2018, which will further identify good practice examples and principles to bring to the CIES workshop for wider consideration.

The CIES Pre-Conference Workshop will be organized and implemented by a cross-cultural team of university staff and students, together with practitioners and donor staff experienced in the constraints of many countries in the global South.

• Delivery plan to achieve outcomes

The Workshop will begin with self-introductions, learning goals and a keynote address, and will then cover the questions below:

1.What skills are needed to achieve an inclusive personal identity aligned to SEL and its application to SDG Target 4.7 themes?
(a) Which skills contribute to an inclusive and responsible identity? Findings of a cross-cultural team of graduate students.
(b) How should SEL skills feature in education programming across the crisis spectrum: prevention, trauma response, chronic situations, post-conflict renewal and sustainable development? (Practitioner viewpoints including INEE, SEL CoP, education for development experts)

2. How can North-South and South-South collaboration help contextualise these elements and build the capacity of national writers to incorporate them in textbooks and other education materials as well as assessment procedures and teacher professional development in pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis settings? (Academic and practitioner overviews; thumbnail sketches of relevant field projects, one summary slide per presenter)

3.Working groups (WGs)
Each WG will include a practitioner, an academic and a student rapporteur; including at least one person from North and from South. Each WG will produce a text output and two flip chart pages, for walk-around presentation to plenary.
- Groups A and B will focus on content: they will sketch out a set of lesson units explicitly introducing SEL ‘respect for diversity’ and related ‘critical thinking’ skills, in line with Target 4.7: aiming to motivate grade 3, 6 and 9 students as part of textbooks for social studies, history/geography, and/or languages. They will be encouraged to offer suggestions on teacher guidance materials and learning assessment, on use with trauma-affected students, on impact assessment including views of youth, and on how the materials might mitigate messages of extremism.
- Groups C and D will work from examples presented and personal experience to extract guiding principles for a tool to empower national education writers to create and pilot materials that develop SEL/Target 4.7 skills and values; with suggestions also for teacher guidance, and learning and impact assessment including views of youth.
- Group E will cover similar group for early grade reading and/or accelerated or non-formal education.

4. Lessons learned and recommendations. The workshop will conclude with a discussion of lessons learned, guiding principles, and recommendations for development and piloting of tool(s). The workshop will show the need for expanded academic-practitioner cooperation and networking on these themes across North and South. Participants will be asked to recommend practical measures in this regard, supportive of sustainable development, social cohesion, peace and security in the many countries where these are absent or threatened.

• Duration and Size
To enable participants to achieve the intended outcomes, a 6 hour workshop session is envisaged. Expected participant numbers: up to 40.

• Special Requests
Normal projection facilities and flip charts are requested.

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