What is Social-Emotional Learning?
Social-Emotional Learning became a popularized educational movement during the early 1990s through the Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), an organization which was founded to bring together educators, psychologists, child well-being advocates and researchers with the purpose of helping integrate social and emotional development into school curriculums.
CASEL defines Social-Emotional Learning as “the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions” (Casel.org).
Benefits of Social-Emotional Learning
Schools and educators worldwide are implementing SEL into their lessons. As SEL becomes a rising priority in education, many are curious as to exactly what the benefits are. Let’s review some of the impacts and outcomes that have been identified to stem from SEL.
✓ Better Socialization
SEL competencies include developing social awareness and relationship skills. Because of this, SEL outcomes include students developing and maintaining positive, productive relationships with their peers, family and teachers. One study notes that students taking part in SEL programs also have long-term improvement in areas of aggression and outbursts.
✓ Better Classroom Behavior
An analysis of 213 studies that surveyed more than 270,000 learners found that students who received lessons with SEL, on average, modeled better positive classroom behavior than students that did not receive SEL-based curriculums.
✓ Better Academic Outcomes
When observing academic impacts, one study found students who participated in SEL programs have an 11 percent increase in their overall grades, paired with a higher average in their school attendance and classroom participation!
✓ Better Lifelong Outcomes
A study by the American Journal of Public Health found students involved in social-emotional learning curricula from the kindergarten level, were connected to favorable outcomes in their adulthood, such as engaging in less criminal activity, receiving higher academic and professional achievements, and reporting better mental health.
✓ Fostering SEL
Breakout EDU games are a great way to incorporate SEL into your lessons and have fun at the same time.
Conclusion
Breakout EDU games are designed to foster SEL skills by challenging all 5 SEL competencies (self-awareness, self-management, decision-making, social awareness and relationship building) through fun, educational puzzles. Get started on adding SEL into your lessons by exploring our great starter games!
