Integrating social and emotional (SEL) learning into pre-service mathematics teacher education: lessons from a formative study in Guatemala

• In Event: Integrating SEL, UDL in Math During Changing Contexts: Cases from Lebanon, Ghana, and Guatemala

Proposal

The USAID Advance Program works to strengthen the quality, relevance, and access to 2- and 3-year technical post-secondary degree programs in higher education institutions in order to increase employment opportunities for disadvantaged youth ages in Honduras, Guatemala, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic. Advance provides institutional strengthening support to technical education institutions to align secondary and higher education. To work towards this alignment, the Program collaborates with pre-service higher education teacher preparation programs to infuse SEL, positive youth development (PYD) and career readiness into pre-service education providing soon to be teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, and skills that they need to ensure learning spaces are safe and address the social-emotional needs of their soon-to-be students.

The Program started to pilot the approach in Guatemala by working directly with a higher education institution and its school of education, the School of Secondary Teachers at the University of San Carlos. Advance designed the curriculum adopting the CASEL framework and its corresponding SEL competencies. It also designed it around key pillars such as building teachers’ own SEL competencies and wellbeing; creating safe learning environments for students; and implementing low intensity SEL activities for children and adolescents. Through this strategy, teachers explored how to integrate SEL in mathematics instruction through diverse approaches including general teaching practices, free-standing short SEL activities, and weaving SEL into the teaching of math core academic content.

To capture key learnings from the pilot program and inform any scale-ups in the future, Advance conducted a mixed-methods formative study. To guide the audience to reflect on how programs can integrate SEL more effectively in the classroom, the presenters will explore a learning from the study which revelated the need to shift from teacher-directed models of instruction to student-centered methods to better integrate SEL into pre-service education. Presenters will also discuss resistances faced during the pilot and challenges of not integrating a whole-school approach from the very beginning, as well as findings around the importance of ongoing contextualization of SEL approaches to school and classroom realities.
Overall, this presentation will elaborate on Advance’s approach to infusing SEL into pre-service education for mathematics teachers in Guatemala. Presenters will also highlight key findings from the formative study as well as lessons learned on integrating SEL into previously established pre-service education curriculum structures.

Authors

• Fernanda Soares, FHI360

• Alejandra De Freitas, FHI 360