I recently presented a short session titled “Infusing Social Emotional Learning in Your Math Class” at the Jumpstart your Math Class Summit and decided to write about the strategies shared as well. These 5 ways to incorporate SEL into your math classroom, or any classroom, can be used with already existing resources and some minor adjustments to them. These strategies incorporate all of the 5 core competencies of social emotional learning from CASEL including social awareness, self-awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision making, and self-management. It is important to note, that teaching social emotional learning is about being explicit with students the competency or skill you are focusing on and having students reflect upon them. In each of these activities you should share the competency focus with students and how the activity connects with that competency.
1. Check ins
Check ins are a way to feel out the room and see how your students are doing that day before any content work begins. You can find a variety of check ins searching the internet, and here is a collection of them as well. Check ins are a great way to let students know you care about them and their well being. Keep in mind students responses when you are working within the content, for example if a student check in they were having a rough day and wanted to remain quiet you may want to avoid calling on them in front of their peers. It should be noted to respond to check ins, whether positively or if a student needs further assistance.
Check ins connect with the competencies of self awareness, being able to identify how you feel, and social awareness, ability to understand and empathize with others perspectives and recognize strengths in others.
2. Four Corners
Four corners can be done in both a virtual and in person setting and either with content specific questions or overall behavior/confidence levels. Each corner represents an answer choice or response. When you provide a question or prompt students choose their answer and go to the corner of their choice. In person this means moving to a select corner of the classroom and virtually it means adding a sticky note to that corner on the Jamboard(see below)
There are a few variations to four corners that you adapt based on your students. The first way would be once students have chosen their corner have that group discuss their reasoning behind their choice. You can have the group identify a spokesperson to share the groups reasoning or you can choose one. This can be done virtually through breakout rooms as well. The second variation is to use the strategy “favorite not” in combination with four corners. Have students select their favorite wrong answer from the multiple choice selection and go to that corner. They then determine and share amongst their group the reason they selected that corner. As the teacher this gives you time to individually give feedback to the group of students that actually chose the correct answer.
Four corners connects with the Social Emotional learning competencies of responsible decision making, and social awareness. Students are selecting their corner based on a decision or reasoning they are making and social awareness is incorporated as they see and hear others responses and react to them.
3. Gallery Walk
A gallery walk is another strategy that can be done both virtually and in person. In person, you can use anchor charts or posters where students complete their work and hang on the wall around the classroom for others to view. Virtually you can use a platform such as google Jamboard or Padlet(shown below) This strategy connect with the competency of social awareness where students can view others perspectives as well as relationship skills since students are responding to one another and working collaboratively.
The above example comes from Terri David, an algebra 2 teacher, who uses Padlet to build classroom culture as well as connecting with students from a distance. You can also have students screenshot their work after solving a problem or post a video explaining their steps to solve.
4. Chat Blasts
A chat blast is done virtually through a platform such as zoom or google meets where you ask students to respond in the chat but hold their response. Then countdown 3-2-1 and have all students hit enter(send) at the same time. This helps to increase engagement of students as well as their confidence. You can ask them a content specific question, use a confidence meter check(1-10), or a sel based question. When students all respond at once you can view responses as more authentic since they are not reading others responses first. It also gives students more confidence since they do not have to be the first to respond. In the image below I asked students to respond on a scale of 1-10 how confident they felt about todays lesson. You can then ask students who responded 7 or higher to share a tip to their classmates.
Chat Blasts connect to the Social Emotional Learning competencies of self awareness and responsible decision making.
5. Reflections/ summaries
Using reflections or summarizing strategies at the end of a lesson or class helps students to think about their learning. There are many summarizing strategies you can use including content or skill specific ones as well as behavior or competency based ones. Two of my favorites are 3-2-1 summary and One Word Whip Around. This 3-2-1 summary was adapted from Lead4ward and the One Word Whip Around comes from casel.org.
This strategy can connect to all 5 competencies depending on how students are using this activity and can be done both virtually and in person. Virtually I would have students respond in the chat but split each section up and respond to the 3 first, then the 2, and then the one question last.
One word whip around asks students to respond to a prompt or summarize their learning with one word. You go around the room sharing each persons one word and notice any themes or commonalities. You can vary this by asking one next step or one takeaway from today. One Word Whip Around connects with self management.
These 5 strategies can all be incorporated into already existing resources and be adapted to virtual learning. As you are using one of these be sure to state which SEL competency is being addressed so students can recognize the 5 competencies and reflect upon them.
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