Building the Foundation of Social-Emotional Learning Through Relationships

• In Event: 3-244 - Social-Emotional Learning in the Context of Mathematical Engagement in Preschool Classrooms

Integrative Statement

Encouraging the social and emotional development of children is a primary focus of early childhood education. The development of skills such as self-regulation, self-awareness, positive relationships, and persistence is related to later achievement in math and literacy and has been found to have positive implications on children’s behavior (Blair & Razza, 2007; Jones & Bouffard, 2012; McClelland, Cameron, Connor, Farris, Jewkes, & Morrison, 2007). However, for early childhood educators to promote the development of social-emotional learning (SEL) skills, they must recognize and promote them in practice. Existing professional learning methods for addressing early childhood education vary in effectiveness, practicality, and cost efficiency—and nearly all rely on a top-down method of encouraging educators to carry out “expert”-chosen practices. Our professional development (PD) provides an approach to observing adult-child interactions which allows us to capture and build on what professionals already do well as the basis for their learning. The PD affirms the importance of positive, responsive, and supportive human interactions in children's development. This approach is based on the understanding that the "active ingredient" in a child's growth is the developmental relationship between the child and another human being (Li & Julian, 2012; National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2004).

By focusing on the relationships and interactions that children have with adults, the PD seeks to build the foundation of the development of SEL. The major tasks of its evidence-based process are to capture on video developmental interactions and their relation to SEL and emphasize them in training sessions. The goal is to promote these practices by using small peer groups who can discuss, understand, and disseminate the critical elements of developmental interactions. By focusing on moments from their own and their peers’ classrooms, educators can view real practice that promotes SEL across contexts, including mathematical engagement. Recent research focuses on how productive adult-child interactions contribute to a learning environment based upon warm and authentic relationships with others, developmentally appropriate scaffolding, and validated learning experiences, as well as opportunities to take risks and make mistakes without fear (Akiva, Li, Martin, Galletta Horner, & McNamara, 2016). This may be especially pertinent to SEL for math engagement at the preschool level, where studies suggest that scaffolding SEL skills, such as executive functioning, may be helpful to children experiencing difficulties learning mathematical skills and concepts (Bull, Espy, & Wiebe, 2008; Clark, Pritchard, & Woodward, 2010).

In this project, our PD addresses SEL in the context of mathematical engagement in preschool classrooms. Educators identified practices that supported the development of SEL in everyday interactions between children and adults. Educators discovered that these practices were not different whether the content area was math, literacy, or any other part of their day. After gaining a general understanding of these interactive moments as the foundation of SEL, educators were easily able to identify how they could transfer the practices they observed into all of their instructional time, as well as the emergent learning throughout the preschool day.

Authors

• Dana M Winters, Fred Rogers Center
  Presenting Author

• Emma Swift Lee, Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College
  Non-Presenting Author