Positive Impacts of a Digital Social-Emotional Learning Platform and Successful Implementation Amid COVID-19 School Closures

• In Event: Social Emotional Learning Impacts in Various School Contexts

Abstract

School closures because of natural phenomena, such as COVID-19, have underlined the importance of effective distance learning strategies when there are no in-school alternatives. Although social-emotional skill building is often less-mentioned amidst discussions around student performance, it came to the forefront of conversations due to the isolation and stresses created by shelter-in-place protocols. Our study describes the implementation of a game-based online social skills training program during in-school learning and how we adapted implementation to distance learning due to COVID-19 based on schools’ infrastructure, preparations, and resource availability. In addition to the successful implementation, the preliminary results have indicated that the program was significantly and positively associated with gains in students’ social emotional skills.

Authors

• Linlin Li, WestEd

• Kylie Flynn, WestEd

• Gary Weiser, WestEd