Why “Do” SEL If It Doesn’t Improve Student Behavior in the Classroom and Across the School?

Focusing on Individual and Group Skills to Enhance Student Engagement and Cooperative Group Outcomes

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   I am not a big “label” or “program” guy when it comes to school discipline programs.

   In general, the all-purpose, one-size-fits-all “programs” marketed to schools and districts are often poorly researched, they pull “magical data” out of a hat to allegedly “prove” the program’s “success,” and they over-sell and under-deliver.

   Moreover, many programs’ “successful” outcomes usually are NOT due to the program as a whole, or to the program at all. That is, the successes are either due (a) to some (usually unidentified) small part of the program; or (b) to the fact that school faculty have committed to clear student outcomes and, as such, they are interacting with students in more consistent, goal-directed, and observable ways, respectively.

   Finally, even when positive outcomes occur, most programs rarely work dependably in schools that vary significantly across different and diverse historical, demographic, and other background characteristics and conditions relative to their students, staff, neighborhoods, and communities.

   Most programs also have difficulty attaining and sustaining the needed buy-in and involvement of a critical mass of staff, the fidelity of their implementation, and the resources, training, and coaching needed for success.

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   Relative to labels: The name of a program typically is chosen to enhance its marketability. . . to demonstrate that “We are different from the others who came before us”. . . “We are better than those before us”. . . and “If you join our movement, we can lead you to the Promised Land.”

   Early in my career, schools simply talked about school safety and discipline, classroom management and engagement, and student behavior and self-control.

   Then—starting in 1997, and still to this day—the U.S. Department of Education began its multi-million dollar investment in “Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports” (PBIS).

   Rather than calling PBIS a “program,” it marketed itself as “new and different” by organizing its strategies in a “framework.”

   But that didn’t work, because districts and schools used the strategies in the framework as a “fruits to nuts” framework menu—simply choosing the strategies that they wanted to do (rather than what they needed to do), and ending up with initiatives that did not produce real, observable, and sustainable student outcomes—especially with challenging or very challenging students.

   Indeed, over the years, objective program evaluations of PBIS—some funded (and then hidden) by the U.S. Department of Education—have shown that most PBIS schools:

·       Implement only at the Tier I level—never getting to Tier II or Tier III levels where the challenging students “live;” 

·       Rarely sustain their implementation for more than three years—at which time, the faculty kick the framework “to the curb,” and search for something “new;” and

·       Eventually realize that they could have produced real student outcomes with fewer resources, less time, and without the need for unnecessary rituals (like having to quiz students and staff about “our three primary PBIS “pillars”).

   For the past decade or more, the U.S. Department of Education has tried to maintain PBIS’s relevance by creating “PBIS apps” to “fix” many of the most pressing social, emotional, or behavioral challenges in our homes and families, neighborhoods and communities, and in our society at-large.

   This includes school climate and safety, teasing and bullying, multi-tiered services and mental health, disproportionality and racial equity, poverty and parenting, and school shootings and pandemic relief.

   It has not worked. . . largely because PBIS comes historically from a special education—and not a multi-dimensional psychological—foundation, and because it focuses more on eliminating student deficits, rather than teaching and motivating student strengths.

   Indeed, the PBIS National Technical Assistance Center has always been funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs.

   And, PBIS’s “benchmark” outcome has consistently been to decrease students’ office discipline referrals. . . rather than the development of preschool through high school students’ social, emotional, and behavioral skills, self-management, and competence.

   Said a different way: The school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management goal for all districts and schools should be the developmentally-sensitive and differentiated teaching of students’ behaviorally-observable interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills. . . across the multi-tiered continuum of student needs and challenges.
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Social-Emotional Learning: The “Next Kid” on the Block

   Not long after PBIS began its U.S. Department of Education-marketed push into schools across the country, a group of psychologists used Emotional Intelligence as a foundation to establish the “Social-Emotional Learning” framework (Yes. . . yet another framework and menu).

   At this point, virtually everyone in education “knows” the term SEL—even though, according to Harvard University’s Ecological Approaches to Social Emotional Learning (EASEL) Laboratory and Education Week, no one really knows what SEL is.

   Indeed, Harvard’s EASEL Lab identified more than 40 different SEL frameworks a few years ago, concluding that “SEL is in a state of confusion.”

   And this state of confusion has not changed as Education Week recently noted (December 19, 2022):

Immerse yourself in the world of social-emotional learning, and one thing quickly becomes clear: What, exactly, social-emotional learning is can be hard to pin down, and people often resort to analogies and examples to explain it.

 

And. . .

(While) educators say they recognize the importance of developing students’ social and emotional skills, such as managing emotions and setting goals. . . they feel that in order to teach academic subjects effectively, there is little time for social-emotional learning lessons.

 

A recent EdWeek Research Center survey polled teachers, principals, and district leaders nationally and found . . . (that) the biggest (SEL) barriers remain educators’ usual foes: time is too short, students’ needs are too big, and there are not enough resources.

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   Attempting to clarify the confusion over “what SEL is,” Education Week asked seven national SEL experts to define social-emotional learning (December 22, 2022).

   From the President and CEO of CASEL, to district directors of SEL and MTSS, to (again) the Director of Harvard’s EASEL Lab, the answers were confusing, sometimes contradictory, laden with jargon, classroom and teacher un-friendly, and all across the galaxy.

   Quite honestly, Education Week’s attempt to “clarify the confusion,” only escalated the confusion.

   But one of the root causes of this confusion is that so many organizations, companies, consultants, and others are trying to “carve out” their piece of the “SEL pie.”

   And while the U.S. Department of Education created the PBIS pie, the SEL pie was largely baked by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that launched its movement using power and politics, and foundations and their funds. Critically, one of CASEL’s primary “services” is to lobby at both the state and federal levels to influence different state’s educational strategic planning processes in the areas of social-emotional learning.

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   Indeed. . . what many educators don’t know is that SEL’s popularity evolved because its founders courted wealthy foundations, powerful movers and shakers, influential members of the U.S. Congress, and state politicians . . . and that many of the large districts working with CASEL have paid for its consultative services (some as much as $150,000 per year).

   Again, historically: Knowing that the leaders of PBIS had the U.S. Department of Education in their pocket, the SEL leaders went a different route by targeting individual states. One of CASEL’s goals was to successfully codify SEL “standards” in state education or related laws, regulations, or in benchmark White Papers.

   And the primary foundation to the SEL leaders’ argument—initially—were three meta-analytic studies that appeared to demonstrate how a wide variety of different “social and emotional programs” had a positive impact on students’ “social-emotional outcomes” (which were similarly diverse and wide-ranging) and academic achievement, respectively.

   But there were (and are) significant methodological problems with these three studies which we have previously discussed.

See:  

Social-Emotional Learning is Education’s Newest Bandwagon: The History of How We Got There and Why Most Schools are Wasting Time and Resources by Implementing Scientifically-UnSound SEL Practices

[CLICK HERE for this Past BLOG]

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   Briefly, among a number of concerns, these three meta-analytic studies:

·       Are correlational—not causal—in nature.

They only demonstrate that some schools that implemented social-emotional programs—among a wide variety of other school discipline, classroom management, and student behavior approaches—had a higher probability of showing social, emotional, behavioral, and academic student outcomes (versus schools without these programs).

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·       Only one of the three studies was objectively reviewed by an independent panel of peer-experts (and was subsequently published), while the earliest paper “published” by CASEL co-mingled the three studies.

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·       The only formally published study had significant methodological flaws that call its results into question.

The most critical flaw—relative to generalizing the study’s results to U.S. schools—was that 46% (38 of 82) of the studies used in the meta-analysis were in non-American schools. 

Beyond this, the authors reported that an unspecified number of the 82 studies were taken from books and were not published in refereed journals. 

Finally, the authors also reported that (a) 34% of the studies did not use a randomly-selected sample; (b) 18% of the studies reported “significant implementation problems;” (c) 27% and 45% of the studies either did not have (or did not report) reliable or valid outcome measures at follow-up; and (d) 28% of the studies collected their outcome data only from the students and not also from teachers and/or administrators.

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   While CASEL continues to highlight research that demonstrates that SEL “works” (I recently received a CASEL Newsletter headline “New Research”), here is the bottom line:

·       As noted above, NONE of the meta-analytic or single-focused research studies can validate “SEL” when there are 40 or more different SEL frameworks, and there is confusion as to what SEL “is.”

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·       None of the studies collectively validates a specific SEL program or SEL implementation process; and none validates an approach on how to effectively select, resource, prepare for, implement, or evaluate a specific SEL program.

(Indeed, CASEL publishes a resource of “effective” SEL programs that are selected based on CASEL’s own criteria, and that often identify programs that have only one study demonstrating a specific program’s efficacy.)

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·       CASEL is using the research to its own self-serving benefit.

CASEL promotes its own framework (which it recently modified without showing any research to support the modification), and it often highlights research that appears to “validate SEL” in a way to suggest that its framework is valid.

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   Please understand: I fully believe, from a research-to-practice perspective, that teaching students to apply learned and mastered social, emotional, and behavioral skills to school and classroom interactions does contribute to academic engagement and achievement, and social-emotional self-management and proficiency.

   But this occurs, as noted earlier, because districts and schools are teaching students, in a developmentally-sensitive and differentiated way, behaviorally-observable interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills. . . across the multi-tiered continuum of student needs and challenges.
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 What Should Districts and Schools Do?

   Summarizing psychological and behavioral science, sprinkled with forty-plus years of working successfully with students and staff in thousands of schools across the country, the “goal statement” in the paragraph immediately above can only be accomplished by the following:

·       Schools need to identify the observable, teachable, and measurable behavioral skills—including thoughts—that students need to demonstrate to be socially successful.

The skills need to be practical and school-specific. . . the individual, small group, and large group skills that students need to be successful in the classroom and across the school. 

The thoughts related to students’ attributions. . . the attitudes, beliefs, expectations, and interpretations. . . that positively support students’ efforts and successes, as well as to how they respond to challenging situations, disappointments, or even “failures.”

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·       Schools need to teach students how to demonstrate their skills under conditions of emotionality. 

At times, academically, students have mastered the content and skills needed to “pass the (proficiency) test,” but they are not confident (they don’t “believe they can succeed”) and/or they are unable to handle the pressure. And thus, they underperform or even “fail.” 

One of our scientific principles is that “Mastery is attained when students can demonstrate their skills under conditions of emotionality.”

Hence—just like an athlete, a doctor in an Emergency room, a performer on stage—students need to learn how to demonstrate their social and interpersonal skills under adverse or stressful circumstances.

This is a learned skill that needs to be practiced by preschool through high school students.

That is, just like the basketball coach who has the team run different plays for the “last seconds of a game” during practice, students need to roleplay their social skills under simulated levels of stress.

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·       The skills, attributions, and ability to perform “under pressure” need to be taught in consistently positive and supportive settings by staff who are consistent and teaching with fidelity.

Here, the instruction should include strategies to “transfer the training” so that students can demonstrate their skills more and more independently in real-life situations.

They also include motivational (especially, self-motivational) approaches that complement the instruction. These systems employ the positive responses and periodic incentives (that are faded out over time) that reinforce appropriate or progressively appropriate behavior.

They also include consequences paired with re-teaching, restitutional, and/or restorative practices when students make “bad choices,” and consistent administrative responses (by school principals) when inappropriate behavior is persistently disruptive, physically harmful, or dangerous.

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·       Finally, supported by related services/mental health professionals (in the district or out in the community), schools need to have an accessible multi-tiered continuum of services, supports, and interventions for students with mild to significant social, emotional, behavioral, and/or mental health challenges.

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   I know that this appears to be a lot.

   But this is the science-to-practice that works.

   And we have demonstrated that the actions and strategies within each of the bullets above can be reasonably implemented and sustained with commitment, planning, and the right training and resources in one to three-year school-wide effort.

[Link HERE to Three Free Resources from the Project ACHIEVE Store with will the information you need to succeed:

Evaluating School-wide Discipline/Positive Behavioral Support Systems: Three Years of Sequenced Implementation Activities

The Stop & Think Social Skills Program: Exploring its Research Base and Rationale

A Multi-Tiered Service & Support Implementation Blueprint for Schools & Districts: Revisiting the Science to Improve the Practice

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   Bottom Line: Schools do not have the time, the staff, or the resources to waste on approaches that will not work, that might delay needed services and supports to students, and/or that could make existing problems worse or more resistant to change.

   Indeed, as in the title of this Blog, why would districts and schools implement “SEL programs” that don’t improve students’ collaboration and interactions in classrooms and across other settings in their schools?

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Drilling Down with a Few More Specifics

   Let’s take two of the “bullet areas” above, and provide more specific research and practice examples.

Examples of Practical Individual and Group Social Skills

   Below are some of the practical and school-based social skills taught in our evidence-based Stop & Think Social Skills Program.

·       Listening

·       Following Directions

·       Using Nice Talk

·       Contributing to Discussions

·       Asking and Answering Teacher Questions

·       How to Interrupt

·       Asking for Help

·       Asking for Permission

·       Waiting for an Adult’s Attention

·       Waiting for Your Turn

·       Joining an Activity

·       Beginning and Ending a Conversation

·       Ignoring Distractions

·       Apologizing/Excusing Yourself

·       Accepting Consequences

·       Asking and Answering Questions

·       Setting and Evaluating Goals

·       Avoiding Trouble/Conflict Situations

·       Deciding Whether to Follow the Group

·       Dealing with Peer Pressure

·       Being Honest/Acknowledging your Mistakes

·       Dealing with Teasing

·       Dealing with Being Rejected or Left Out

·       Dealing with Losing or Not Attaining Desired Goals

·       Showing Understanding of Another’s Feelings/Empathy

·       Dealing with and Responding to Another Person’s Anger or Emotionality

·       Walking Away from a Fight/Conflict

·       Negotiating to Resolve Conflicts Peacefully and Productively

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   Examples of (additional) skills that students in small cooperative or project-based groups need to learn and demonstrate include:

·       Listening to Peers with an Open Mind

·       Remaining On-Task

·       Doing Your Share

·       Taking Turns

·       Interacting Positively with Each Other

·       Ensuring that All Group Members Contribute

·       Problem-Solving and Compromising when needed

·       Setting goals

·       Asking Clear Questions

·       Identifying Roles for Group Members

·       Being a Good Leader/Follower

·       Checking  with Others for Consensus

·       Communicating Clearly/Asking for Clarification when needed

·       Awareness of Other Group Members’ Emotions

·       Verbalizing One’s own Challenges/Emotions

·       Knowing When and How to “Check Out” Others’ Emotions

·       Managing Time Effectively

·       Giving/Accepting Compliments

·       Standing Up for Your Position/Rights

·       Knowing When/How to Agree, Disagree, and Agree to Disagree

·       Dealing with Disappointment or Failure

[See MORE Skills in our Previous Blog:

What Social, Emotional, Attributional, and Behavioral Skills Do ALL Students Need from an SEL Initiative?

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What is the Science-to-Practice for Teaching Social Skills?

   As validated in research beginning with Bandura’s Social Learning Theory in 1977 and continuing through analyses by Harvard University’s Ecological Approaches to Social Emotional Learning (EASEL) Laboratory, there are five essential steps when successfully teaching students social skills.

   They are:

·       Teaching the steps and related behaviors/interactions of a desired social skill. 

·       Modeling the steps and the social skills language (or script). 

·       Roleplaying the steps and the script with students in a classroom- or school-related scene or scenario.

·       Providing Performance Feedback to the students relative to how accurately they are verbalizing the skill script and how successfully they are behaviorally demonstrating the new skill.

·       Transferring and Applying the skill and its steps as much as possible during the day to reinforce the teaching over time, in different settings, with different people, and in different situations.

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   When Teaching and Modeling, teachers need to make sure that students:

·       Have the prerequisite skills to be successful

·       Are taught using language that they can understand

·       Are taught in simple steps that ensure success

·       Hear the social skills script as the social skills behavior is demonstrated

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   When Practicing or Roleplaying, teachers need to make sure that students:

·       Verbalize (or repeat or hear) the steps to a particular social skill as they demonstrate its appropriate behavior

·       Practice only the positive or appropriate social skill behavior

·       Receive ongoing and consistent practice opportunities

·       Use relevant practice situations that simulate the “emotional” intensity of the real situations so that they can fully master the social skill and be able to demonstrate them under conditions of emotionality

·       Practice the skills at a developmental level that they can handle

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   When Giving Performance Feedback, teachers need to make sure that the feedback is:

·       Specific and descriptive

·       Focused on reinforcing students’ successful use of the social skill, or on correcting an inaccurate or incomplete social skills demonstration

·       Positive—emphasizing what was done well and what can be done well (or better) next time

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   When Transferring or Applying Social Skills after Instruction, teachers need to make sure that they reinforce students’ prosocial skills steps and behavior when they:

·       Have successfully demonstrated an appropriate social skill

·       Have made a “bad” choice, demonstrating an inappropriate social skill

·       Are faced with a problem or situation but have not committed to, nor demonstrated, a prosocial skill

·       Must use the skill in situations that are somewhat different from those used when the skill was originally taught and practiced

[See RELATIVE INFORMATION in our Previous Blog:

The SEL Secret to Success: You Need to “Stop & Think” and “Make Good Choices” - Project ACHIEVE

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What Conditions Help Schools to Effectively Implement a Social Skills Program?

   Harvard University’s EASEL Laboratory, among a select group of other researchers and practitioners have identified some critical school conditions that facilitate the implementation of a school-wide social skills initiative.

   They include:

·       Facilitate ownership and buy-in 

·       Ensure sufficient staff support, training, and coaching

·       Allocate the time needed to implement the program effectively and with fidelity

·       Extend social skills learning and application beyond the classroom into the common areas of the school

·       Provide opportunities for students and staff to apply and transfer social skills and strategies to real-life situations

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   Some additional “common characteristics” noted are that the school-wide initiative:

·       Establishes and maintains safe and positive settings and interactions for children and adults

·       Supports the development of high-quality relationships between children and adults

·       Is developmentally, demographically, and culturally sensitive, relevant, and engaging for children

·       Provides opportunities for direct skill building, feedback, mastery, and application

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Summary

   This Blog began by encouraging districts and schools to address their school safety and discipline, classroom management and engagement, and student behavior and self-control needs by focusing on observable and measurable student outcomes. . . rather than pre-packaged and marketed programs that change their labels to appear “new and improved.”

   We specifically provided the history, research, and questionable (if not, poor and unsustained) outcomes from the PBIS and SEL frameworks.

   From a psychological research-to-practice perspective, we emphasized that schools anchor themselves on the following goal:

   The developmentally-sensitive and differentiated teaching of students’ behaviorally-observable interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills. . . across the multi-tiered continuum of student needs and challenges.

   To accomplish this, we detailed the needed science-to-practice components, social skills, instructional approach, and school and staff implementation characteristics needed for school success.

   Schools do not have the time, the staff, or the resources to waste on approaches that will not work, that delay needed services and supports to students, and/or that could exacerbate existing problems.

   As in the title of this Blog, why would districts and schools implement “SEL programs” that don’t improve students’ collaboration and interactions in classrooms and across other settings in their schools?

   Why are we hanging onto frameworks that have never objectively demonstrated consistent (across 90 or more percent of the implementing schools), sustained (more than three years), and multi-tiered success (i.e., PBIS).

   And why are schools “doing SEL” based on meta-analytic research that does not causally validate specific universal SEL practices, that is being used to advance the interests of an independent—even if non-profit—company (i.e., CASEL), and that reflects over 40 different frameworks with leaders who have widely different definitions of “SEL”?

   We can and must “get back to the psychological basics.” We can and must do better in this important area supporting education.

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   As we begin this “next stretch” of the school year, I hope that the thoughts above, and the resources provided (both our FREE Monograph or Papers, and our past Blogs) are helpful to you.

   Significantly, we are only half-way through the school year. There is plenty of time to make the mid-course corrections needed to make this an incredibly successful school year.

   If I can help you in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me—especially in the areas discussed above.

   I am currently the “National Consultant” on three five-year federal School Climate Transformation Grants—which have me in the participating school districts approximately 40 days per year. So. . . I am partnering in these school discipline areas all of the time.

   If you are already thinking about next year, know that I help many schools and districts to map out their futures—for example, in the areas of (a) school improvement, (b) multi-tiered (including, special education) services and supports, and (c) interventions for challenging students.

   Feel free to contact me to begin this process.

Best,

Howie

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Fitting Social Skills Instruction into the School Day: Necessity, Priority, Fidelity, and the Secondary School Advisory Period

Effective Planning, Execution, and Accountability are Essential to SEL Success

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   I’m going to begin this Blog discussion with a mixed message.

·       We will start by discussing the importance of teaching students—from preschool through high school—the interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills that they need for school, peer, graduation, and post-graduation success. 

·       We will then address the importance that these skills be taught as part of the general education curriculum and by classroom teachers, and the difficulty in “finding time” to do this during the school day and across the school year. 

·       Next, we will next focus our “Blog time” on Middle and High Schools that often carve out an Advisory Period where social skills are taught. 

·       And then—and here’s the mixed message—we will discuss how Advisory Periods “solve” the “time dilemma,” but are not working due to limitations that need to be considered, prevented, or resolved.

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The Importance of Teaching Social Skills and the Dilemma of When to Teach Them

   As districts and schools scramble around to “do” social-emotional learning, it sometimes seems that “doing anything” takes precedence over implementing effectively planned systemic and systematic strategies that result in demonstrable student outcomes.

   To “begin with the end in mind”:

   The primary preschool through high school SEL goal should be (as in any academic area) to consistently teach and help students master and demonstrate—at an independent or self-management level—their interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills.

   While this should occur along a multi-tiered continuum of services, supports, strategies, and interventions, the instructional process begins as social skills are taught to all students in their general education classrooms by their classroom teachers.

[CLICK HERE to re-read our last Blog—February 19, 2022:

The SEL Secret to Success: You Need to “Stop & Think” and “Make Good Choices.” Helping Students Learn and Demonstrate Emotional Control, Communication, and Coping]

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   As the author of the best-selling, evidence-based preschool through high school Stop & Think Social Skills Program [through SAMHSA, and on the National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP) since 2000], it is still always difficult to convince classroom teachers to implement this SEL necessity with fidelity.

   This is even after providing professional development with teachers that:

·       Discusses research that shows how students who demonstrate good prosocial skills in kindergarten have (correlationally) better social, emotional, health, and income outcomes as adults;

·       Share studies showing that the schools who teach students interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional control, communication, and coping skills have (correlationally) fewer discipline problems and better student academic engagement and outcomes;

·       Emphasizes how students with more proficient social skills contribute to more positive classroom climates, effective classroom management strategies, and successful cooperative or project-based learning groups; and

·       Recognizes that, during the past two Pandemic years, many students have returned to school with significant social, emotional, and behavioral needs that can potentially impact their academic and social-emotional success.

   Relative to this latter point, in an Education Week article last week (February 24, 2022) titled, “Educators See Gaps in Kids’ Emotional Growth Due to Pandemic,”

   Reporter Evie Blad noted:

The challenges of returning from remote learning combined with responding to the stress of adults during a national crisis have led some children to struggle with their emotions and with social routines, school and district administrators told Education Week. In some cases, that leads students to withdraw, they said. In others, it may lead them to act out or seek attention.

 

In a national survey of educators administered by the EdWeek Research Center in January, 39% of respondents said that “compared to prior to the pandemic in 2019, the social skills and emotional maturity levels” of their current students are “much less advanced.” 41% said their students were “somewhat less advanced” in those areas, and 16% said they were “about the same” as their pre-pandemic peers.

 

The data come as states and school districts continue to design and adapt recovery plans, many of which place a heavy emphasis on helping students with mental health, emotional stability, and regaining a sense of normalcy. But they face hurdles: schools have struggled to attract and retain staff in all areas, including counselors and social workers; the evolving nature of the pandemic has stressed employees, too; and children respond to the stress of adults around them.

 

Administrators who spoke to Education Week said they expect their heightened concerns about students’ social-emotional well-being will continue into future school years.

   While counselors and school psychologists are essential to the multi-tiered continuum here, we have been training general (and special) education teachers to provide the initial, core (Tier 1) instruction of social skills in their classrooms since 1990.

   This is one reason why (once again) our work—in both social skills and school-wide SEL/PBIS systems—was designated as evidence-based by SAMHSA, CASEL, and included in the NREPP Registry over 20 years ago.

   The Point here is that: While we need our counselors and school psychologists, we can have a significant, immediate impact on the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of many students—who do not need Tier 2 or 3 services—by implementing effective SEL initiatives that are anchored by an evidence-based social skills program taught effectively by well-trained, coached, and supported classroom teachers.

   But the “Teaching Time Dilemma” must be factored into this process.

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The Teaching Time Dilemma

   As with any classroom-based strategy, the issue of how to fit it into an already-packed instructional day is always present.

   This issue is compounded by the fact that social skills—like academic skills—need to be taught with pedagogical integrity. Otherwise, the student outcomes desired will not be attained, and the time invested will be wasted.

   But. . . this issue is even further compounded, in our current Pandemic-impacted world, because students are both academically behind and they have concurrent social-emotional needs.

   This means—as with the dosage amount of a COVID-19 vaccination—that enough time (and the “right” time during the school day) needs to be devoted to social skills instruction.

   And this means that school administrators, classroom teachers, and related services professionals need to:

·       Consciously commit—prior to training and implementation—to social skills instruction that consistently occurs across the entire school; 

·       Determine, in the context of strategic planning and prioritization, what classroom activities need to be eliminated or de-emphasized—so that the social skills instruction consistently occurs for the “right” amount of time each week; and 

·       Protect—at all costs—the time blocked for social skills instruction.

   Relative to the first point above: The simple fact is that—when students are experiencing social, emotional, or behavioral challenges in the classroom—they will be less able to engage and learn in the academic program. You can have the greatest teachers and most wonderful instruction in the world, but if the students are not engaged, motivated, and focused, all of that goes for naught.

   Thus, social-emotional skills are essential to helping students to benefit from their academic programs— making the rationale for including social skills training a logical necessity.

   For students who already have “good” social skills, we want to enhance and enrich these skills—nurturing these students, perhaps, into leadership roles.

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   Relative to the second point above: Yes—some academic work will need to be “re-prioritized” in order to “make room” for the recommended social skills instruction.

   But let’s be honest. Most schools are already reassessing, revamping, renovating, and recalibrating (downsizing) their academic programs to focus— as they should—on “power standards” (or pivotal foundation skills), student mastery, and teaching students at their skill—and not grade or chronological— levels.

   With so many students academically behind already, we need to stop talking about “double-booking” instruction so that students can “catch up” to some unrealistic proficiency or norm-referenced skill level. We need to establish a balance between academics and social-emotional learning.

   Indeed, the current obsession on academic acceleration is adding even more social-emotional pressure and stress on our students, which is making it even more difficult (as above) for them to academically focus, which is increasing their already-existing academic gaps.

   When are we going to stop this vicious cycle?

   Clearly, now is the time to stop this cycle, because now is the time when schools are reprioritizing their academic expectations. Now is the time to integrate social skills instruction into the general education curriculum, and to schedule the instruction so it can be implemented with fidelity.

   (Remember the correlational research cited above about the potential academic pay-off when schools are teaching and students are using their social skills.)

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   Relative to the third point above: A strategically reprioritized curriculum—that includes social skills instruction—gives teachers permission (and protection) to devote the time needed to focus on teaching students essential interpersonal and social-emotional skills.

   But beyond this, administrators still need to consistently reinforce the importance of the social skills instruction—formally and informally.

   Examples of formal reinforcement include principals (a) requiring that teachers put their weekly social skills instruction into their class schedules and lesson plans; (b) observing at least one social skills class per year as part of the coaching and evaluation process for each teacher; and (c) providing teachers feedback and data on students’ social skill interactions in both classroom and common school areas.

   Examples of informal reinforcement include principals (a) celebrating teachers’ effective social skills instruction (and their student outcomes) at faculty meetings; (b) emphasizing their schools’ social skills program in parent and community communications; and (c) ensuring that the social skills program has a prominent place on their school’s website and in their School Office.

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Easier at the Elementary than Secondary Level: The Advisory Period

   From a scheduling perspective, elementary schools have a much easier job relative to ongoing, year-long social skills instruction. This is because classes are more self-contained, students have one (or fewer) teachers (than at the secondary levels), scheduling specific blocks of time is more flexible, and students typically stay in more stable cohorts, clusters, bubbles, or groups.

   Thus, scheduling for social skills instruction at the secondary level is more challenging—especially if all of the students in a school are expected to be involved on an ongoing basis.

   While some districts (and states—through their state standards) integrate social skills into the Social Studies curriculum, districts are often reluctant to ask other subject-area teachers to take time away from their academic program to devote to social skills instruction. Nonetheless, when this is done, schools attempt to equally distribute the academic time-loss by teaching social skills during a specific period each day (e.g., 1^st Period, 3^rd Period, 7^th Period) or on selected days (e.g., once or twice per week during the designated period).

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   Some middle and high schools avoid the dilemma above altogether by teaching their social skills curriculum to all students during a 20- to 30-minute Advisory Period each day or on selected days each week.

   I have consulted with many middle and high schools across the country that do this and, quite honestly, very few schools are able to sustain high-quality social skills instruction across all of their teachers and Advisory Periods for even two years—if that at all.

   Indeed, in most cases, despite training and administrative oversight, the quality of the social skills instruction by many teachers—even in Year 1 of the initiative—is spotty at best. . . and, for some teachers, there is no social skills instruction at all, and the Advisory Period has become a glorified “homeroom.”

   Some schools try to compensate for less skilled or unmotivated social skills teachers by having the social skills lessons “taught” over the school’s closed-circuit TV or broadband system—expecting every teacher to effectively prompt their students’ attention and then reinforce and practice the skills presented during the second half of the Advisory Period. But this, too, has been largely unsuccessful.

   Other schools buy a “packaged” social skills media-driven program that teachers “cue up” during the Advisory Period. Once again, teacher-led discussions regarding the skills or issues presented and student roleplay practices are expected, but this does not consistently occur—or with high, mastery-level quality.

   Indeed, without the live instruction, followed by guided roleplays—where students must “dramatically” act out their social skills scripts and “good choice” behavioral interactions to mastery, most students (at best) will leave the Advisory Period instruction being aware of different social skills and the importance of controlling and effectively channeling emotions, but not being independently skilled in demonstrating them under different real-life circumstances.

   Moreover, if students are not held accountable, in other school settings and at different times during the school day, for demonstrating the social skills taught in the Advisory Periods, the Advisory instruction—even when of high quality—will not provide its promised “return on investment.”

   Indeed, every school should systematically develop a multi-year social skills “scope and sequence” so that the most essential skills are taught. . . and periodically prompted, used, evaluated, and reinforced in every classroom by every teacher in the school. Without this planning and execution, the probability that students will transfer the Advisory Period training such that they learn how to apply the skills automatically and independently in real-life situations is low.

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Advisory Period Effective Practices

   A review of the current literature discussing and evaluating Advisory Periods returned very few good quality citations. From a research perspective, there is virtually nothing. From an “effective practice” perspective, a few articles are useful.

   Below—based both on the articles reviewed, and my own 30+ years of experience in training schools to implement school-wide social skills instruction at the middle and high school levels—is a summary of the most notable effective Advisory Period practices.

   The first step in the process involves the need for planning before implementation. This planning should be done by a duly-constituted committee or subcommittee (for example, of the School Climate and Discipline Committee) that has representation from all of the critical constituencies in the school—from administrators to teachers to mental health and related services professionals to support and ancillary staff to students.

   Initially, this Committee should meet—on a regular basis beginning six to eight months prior to the Advisory Period “roll-out”—to plan all of the important functional elements of the initiative. After roll-out, this Committee will continue to meet so that (a) formative evaluations and mid-course corrections are completed; (b) staff and student participation and feedback are monitored and addressed (as needed); and (c) the quality and outcomes of the curriculum and instruction is validated and revised (as needed).

   The Committee, then, needs consistency, regularity, and stability. After the first two years (where Committee membership does not change), members should receive staggered three-year “terms,” so that the Committee never loses more than one-third of its members (and its “institutional history”) at the end of any school year.

   As alluded to immediately above, some of the critical elements that the Committee needs to strategically plan include the following:

·       The goals and expected outcomes of the social skills program, its instruction during the Advisory Period, and its transfer into classroom and common areas across the school

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·       How the goals and expected outcomes—including the fidelity of instruction and implementation— will be formatively and summatively evaluated

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·       The selection and/or development of the social skills curriculum, in addition to its multi-year (e.g., Grades 6 through 8, or Grades 9 through 12) scope and sequence, and its grade-specific lessons or lesson plans (including built-in accommodations or supports for different students in need)

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·       Staff training, coaching, supervision, support, and evaluation; along with decisions regarding staff pairing (if, for example, Advisory Periods will be co-taught/co-led) and staff logistics (for example, when and where will Advisory Periods occur, and will staff stay or loop with the same Advisory cohort of students during their time in the school)

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·       Student involvement, contribution, feedback, and voice; along with decisions regarding what students will be organized into what Advisory Periods (single-grade or multi-grade? gender-specific or random?), how they will be paired with teachers (by academic interest? by race or gender?), whether student mentors will be used (and how they will be trained and supervised), how students with multi-tiered needs will be supported

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·       How the initiative will be shared with the School Board, parents, and other community members; how it will be (as relevant) integrated into community-centered discussions and programs; and how community assets and resources can be identified and used to strengthen the school’s planned Advisory program

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   At a more molecular level, the Committee should integrate the following “effective practices” into the planning discussions and outcomes:

·       As organized in the multi-year scope and sequence (see immediately above), the Advisory Period should teach specific interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills 

For example, as discussed in our last February 19, 2022 Blog and in the context of a focus on interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills, some essential skills might be:

Ø  Avoiding Trouble/Conflict Situations

Ø  Deciding Whether to Follow the Group

Ø  Dealing with Peer Pressure

Ø  Being Honest/Acknowledging your Mistakes

Ø  Apologizing/Excusing Yourself

Ø  Dealing with Teasing

Ø  Dealing with Being Rejected or Left Out

Ø  Dealing with Losing or Not Attaining Desired Goals

Ø  Showing Understanding of Another’s Feelings/Empathy

Ø  Dealing with and Responding to Another Person’s Anger or Emotionality

Ø  Walking Away from a Fight/Conflict

Ø  Negotiating to Resolve Conflicts Peacefully and Productively

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·       All of the social skills should be taught from a cognitive-behavioral and social learning theory perspective by (a) teaching students the skill scripts/steps and their related behaviors; (b) behaviorally modeling or demonstrating the skill; (c) providing every student multiple roleplay opportunities across different relevant scenarios with feedback on their “performances”; and (d) practicing specific situations “under conditions of emotionality” so that students learn how to demonstrate the skill under those real-life circumstances.

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·       Integrated into the social skills instruction and roleplay opportunities should be, for example and on a skill-by-skill basis: (a) guided group discussions on the use and importance of the skills; (b) surveys and/or self-evaluations of students’ current and emerging (after instruction) proficiency with how effectively they are using specific skills; (c) literary or historical readings that provide examples of the appropriate and inappropriate use of specific skills (and their differential outcomes); (d) discussions of skill-relevant current events or social, moral, or ethical dilemmas; (e) relevant YouTube or other videos; (f) opportunities for students to prepare, discuss, and debrief their roleplays; and (b) student discussions on how and where new social skills will be needed and used in the classroom, with peers, or across common areas of the school.

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·       Built-in times in the Advisory Period calendar to students and teachers to debrief the current status of the group and the social skills instruction so that group-specific improvements or enhancements can be planned and implemented

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·       Formally scheduled whole-group and/or grade-level-specific opportunities for teachers (and others) to debrief the current status of their groups and the social skills instruction, and to share successes, failures, issues, and challenges so that group-specific improvements or enhancements can be planned and implemented

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·       The development of on-line/on-demand Advisory Period/social skills instruction training modules—perhaps developed during the initial round of live trainings, so that each year’s group of new faculty have an immediate training and content resource, and the school does not have to continually do new live training each year with a small number of new staff

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Summary

   Teachers, administrators, and related services professionals are intimately aware of the social, emotional, and behavioral skill gaps that many students are exhibiting in their classrooms—along with the academic gaps created or exacerbated by the Pandemic.

   Indeed, we quoted a recent Education Week Research Center national survey of educators that revealed that:

·       39% of respondents said that “compared to prior to the pandemic in 2019, the social skills and emotional maturity levels” of their current students are “much less advanced;” 

·       41% said their students were “somewhat less advanced” in those areas; and 

·       16% said they were “about the same” as their pre-pandemic peers.

   To address these gaps, this Blog discussed the importance of teaching students—from preschool through high school—the interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills that they need to be both behaviorally successful, as well as academically successful.

   We then described some the characteristics of an effective social skills program—a critical anchor to any school’s SEL/Positive Behavioral Support system, and addressed the dilemma of who and when to teach the social skills and why.

   Part of the dilemma rests with the fact that teachers and administrators are so focused on “catching students up academically,” that they do not believe that any time can be devoted to social skills instruction.

   This dilemma was directly addressed by noting a series of interdependent psychoeducational realities that result in the conclusion that the absence of social skills instruction will actually undermine students’ academic recovery.

   The remainder of the Blog outlined critical details on where to schedule a social skills program at the elementary and secondary levels, with special emphasis on the secondary Advisory Period. Here, the essential components needed to strategically plan, implement, evaluate, and sustain a successful schoolwide Middle or High School social skills process—using the Advisory Period as a “home base”—were presented.

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More Resources: A New On-Line/On-Demand Course on Implementing Effective SEL/Positive Behavioral Support Systems in a School

   If you are thinking about implementing an SEL/Positive Behavioral Support system in your District or School. . . .

   Or if you are currently implementing SEL or PBIS framework activities, but are not getting the results that your students and staff need. . .

   We want you to know that we are in the process of publishing a new On-Line/On-Demand Course based on our evidence-based blueprint and 30+ years of implementing our evidence-based SEL/PBS model in thousands of schools across the country.

   The Course is titled:

Teaching Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills to Improve Student Engagement, Self-Control, and Achievement

   The course has 15 sessions (and one Bonus Session), and it provides over 15 hours of presentations that provide the multi-tiered components and implementation steps—at the school, staff, and student levels—to teach students the interpersonal, social problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional awareness, control, communication, and coping skills that they need to be academically and behaviorally successful.

   With all due respect to my colleagues, the psychoeducational information in this course is different than the SEL (from CASEL) and PBIS (from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs) frameworks that have significant gaps and flaws and that are not working for many schools, staffs, and students.

   A free Introductory Webinar will be available, and more information on the Course can be found at the Link below:

[CLICK HERE for More Information on this New On-Line SEL/PBSS Course]

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   As always, I appreciate everyone who reads this bi-monthly Blog and thinks about the issues or recommendations that we share.

   If I can help you in any of the SEL/Positive Behavioral Support System areas discussed in this message, know that I am always happy to provide a free one-hour consultation conference call to help clarify your needs and directions on behalf of your students and colleagues.

   You, too, can be one of the many districts, schools, or psychoeducational settings to take advantage of this post-Blog opportunity. I hope to hear from you soon.

Best,

Howie

[CLICK HERE to read this Blog on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]