Socio-Emotional Learning in the Classroom: What Competencies Teachers Need

Savina, EA (Elena)
James Madison University, 70 Alumnae Dr. MSC 7401, 22801, Harrisonburg, USA

 

Submission type

Poster only

Scheduled

Hallway, 10-07-2019, 15:30 - 17:00

Keywords

Socio-emotional learning, teacher emotional competence

Summary

Teachers’ emotional competence is essential for implementing SEL in the classroom. Furthermore, equipping teachers with emotional skills can promote teachers’ well-being and decrease emotional exhaustion and burnout (Yilmaz, 2015). Knowledge about teacher emotional competence is essential for school psychologists to design in-service teacher training and make SEL programs more effective.    

Teachers’ emotional competence involves the awareness and regulation of their own emotions as well the ability to express emotions in a healthy way (Jiang et al., 2016). It involves knowledge on how emotions impact learning and relationships and the ability to deliberately use emotions to foster positive learning and interpersonal classroom environment. Further, teacher emotional competence entails knowledge of emotion-eliciting situations, understanding students’ emotions, and skills to manage emotional incidents in the classroom (Waajid et al., 2013; Jiang et al., 2016). In addition, teachers need a capacity for empathic involvement with students’ emotional experiences and, at the same time, the ability to manage their own emotional distress associated with experiencing distress of others. It is important for teachers to understand how their own emotional-expressive behavior affects students and to have skills to foster emotional competencies in students.

Auteurs