Social distancing is affecting your students’ social and emotional needs:
You're not alone if you're worried about your students keeping up academically and catching up on all the work they have missed. But for students to make progress at school, it's essential to tend to their social and emotional needs too. Not all students have positive experiences at home and school is often their escape; not being able to have that space or the security of being near you and their peers, is challenging for them. Thus it's more important than ever that you support their social-emotional needs and help them build character in their personal development during these unprecedented times. Keep reading to learn how you can support your students' social-emotional learning, even from a distance.
You can integrate social-emotional teaching within your remote lessons:
Ideas for integrating SEL and student well being into distance learning:
Of course, sometimes one-to-one calls might not be possible. In this case, the use of check-in forms such as these, is very beneficial. You can share a Google Form with your students, and they can express themselves and their needs through this form and feel heard. It is straightforward for you to analyse the information and see where particular students might be struggling; that will enable you to support them individually based on their own needs.
Another effective way to support your students SEL is by helping themfocus on their goals or their purpose. This is especially important at this time where routines are very different; being home all day can make anyone feel like their purpose is lacking, and thus it can be harder to set and stick to goals. One way you help your students through this is via a Goal-Setting Journal. This journal will guide them through setting goals for various areas of their life, and it will help them structure their goals so that they are more likely to achieve them. By sharing these journals with you, you can help keep them accountable by checking up on them and seeing how they are making progress.
To conclude:
Try using some of these ideas to integrate social-emotional learning into your remote teaching. As you can see, they do not have to be complicated or take much time away from academics. But by showing your students that you care and are helping them through these challenging times, will make all the difference in their lives.
|