When I was a first-year elementary school teacher, I didn’t have an organized process for bringing SEL into my classroom. I had no formal curriculum or a library of exercises to try with my students. To be quite honest, I didn’t have any substantive exposure to conversations about SEL at all. However, I still recognized the significance of supporting students with social and emotional skills as a daily part of our time together.

Now, years later, I find that a formal SEL curriculum feels too rigid for me. I like to think about modeling the SEL skills required of us as educators and the responsive adaptations we individually make to bring SEL skills and principles to life in our classrooms. But that’s not to say there isn’t already a framework to help educators integrate SEL into their work right now in clear and manageable ways – because there is! And it works for any grade level and subject area for teachers at any stage of their career. 

In my own SEL journey, I’ve adapted a wonderful framework from CASEL called the SEL 3 Signature Practices: Inclusive Welcome, Engaging Strategies, and Intentional Close (more on each of these in just a moment!). Since I’ve embraced these three strategies in this framework, I haven’t taught a day without them. And I can’t. But the key for me was not simply inserting these practices into my day-to-day. It was interpreting them through my unique experiences with the students I’ve worked with over the years in my classroom. That’s something I’ve found that every educator is in a position of real strength to do. So I want to share how I bring these practices to life in my classroom and encourage you to let your insights shape what they look like for you. You can cultivate, grow and own your own powerful SEL practice. It’s time to “do you” with this work!

Inclusive Welcome

Inclusive welcomes are for community building and fostering connection to the day’s learning. In elementary classrooms like mine, many typically start the day with some sort of morning meeting. That ritual fosters classroom community-building. But we can sharpen morning meetings into a truly inclusive welcome by clarifying the opportunities for connection and activating a sense of purpose for the learning ahead. Here’s how I do that. 

In my classroom, I include several specific elements in our morning meeting ritual that support SEL growth and development. First, I always use a talking piece. The purpose of the talking piece is to indicate that we listen to the one who holds it. We practice focusing on that person and everyone is given a turn to share, passing the talking piece around the circle. I use a stone that says “believe” on it that I purchased at the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. The message is intentional. 

Using the talking piece means that whoever is holding it is the speaker while the rest are listeners. This helps us see each other very intentionally to start our day. The first words we utter are “good morning,” and everyone is greeted and greets others. It’s a small but powerful moment that is essential to our community coming together every day. We then answer a connection question or respond to a prompt such as “What’s the news?” or “What’s on your mind today?” This opens up our space so that students may share about their lives and we can make connections to them as they are. The next step is to make a positive affirmation with a mirror such as “I am smart,” “I can do hard things” or “I can treat others with kindness.” Some kids look into the mirror and make an “I” statement with the message while others say “You are smart” into the mirror as though they are talking to themselves. I love this little variation, and allowing students to choose how they make that affirmation is a small moment that supports agency. Finally, students share how they are feeling by naming an emotion they have and putting on a colored bracelet that matches. That activates our empathy muscles and sets us up to support each other during the day. We have posters in our classroom as a reference point, and kids often turn to read them before they share their emotions to pick just the right one. 

Inclusive welcomes and the opportunities they provide are critical at all grade levels – and I’ve taught elementary kids and college students. Older students may respond better to the term “Round Up,” which sounds less elementary. Consider a few specific elements to try at the top of your next learning session. 

Engaging Strategies

You might be thinking, “Inclusive welcomes are great, Wendy. But how do SEL skills work with my actual content?” Let me reassure you that, yes, you can do SEL at any level and in any area, from algebra and chemistry to history and sociology. You might already be doing it – and you can use these four questions to bring your SEL strategies to light or build them up even more in your very next learning session. 

Here they are: 

1. Do students get to move? 

I think about movement opportunities in a few different ways: moving to work, moving to share and moving to lead. Walking up to a whiteboard, choosing a spot in the room to work with a partner, gathering with a discussion group or gathering supplies are moving to work. Gathering in a circle as a whole group to share a thought or idea or passing the “mic” (anything can be a mic) to a peer all count as moving to share. Coming up to the front of the room to share the steps for solving a math problem, standing to read instructions, kicking off reading as a group, leading counting by multiples or modeling an exercise all count as moving to lead. 

“Micro-moves” count too. I think about micro-moves when giving out or collecting supplies and student work. Just the other day, I did a 5-minute journal exercise with my third-graders and after a moment of optional sharing time, I asked everyone to come to the front of the room to place their journals in the bin instead of collecting them while they sat. I could have easily collected them myself, but instead, I gave them the opportunity to move as we got ready for our next activity. 

2. Do students get to express a thought or opinion? 

When we think about our classrooms, we can take it for granted that kids always get to share their thoughts and opinions. We ask them questions all the time! But it’s important to notice when we’re asking for an answer or asking students to demonstrate their problem-solving process, and when we are actually opening up the space for their thoughts and opinions. Kids need the kind of sharing opportunities where there’s really no right or wrong answer and all they have to do is get in touch with what they notice, connections they make or curiosities they have. 

“Which one doesn’t belong” is an activity I truly love to use to create those opportunities for my third-graders. Ideas start flowing, patterns start forming and kids quickly move to an engaged learning state in which they need to tackle the skills and concepts of the day. Any number of open-ended activities could work for your students, whether it’s a visual association game, collaborative storytelling, a round of 4 Corners or sharing a takeaway during a closing circle. 

3. Do students get to collaborate with a peer? 

When it comes to most activities, I generally have students work with at least one partner. They can take turns reading together and compare their understanding of the text selection. They can work on solving math tasks together and share their thinking and challenges along the way. They can discuss data from our science activities and parse out what the data means or co-design an infographic to share with the class. 

The point is that while I want every student to come to their own understanding, our brains fire when we connect with others. Students need collaboration to support their own learning, in addition to practicing respectful and curious communication. This is all steeped in SEL, particularly relationship skills and self-management. 

4. Do students have a choice? 

We know that actively making choices builds students’ sense of agency overall, boosts meaningful engagement with the content and helps students feel like they’re in the driver’s seat of their own learning. That’s the big picture. But as educators, we can still overlook the impact of small choices throughout the day. Here’s a list I keep handy to remind myself that micro-choices can add up to a deeply engaged classroom: 

These small choices may seem small and barely perceptible to an adult, but they matter a great deal to students! And when we consistently build in these opportunities – along with any larger choices like topics for a final project – we’re emphasizing to our students that their preferences and participation are welcome, essential and powerful parts of our classroom community. 

Take a quick look at your lesson plans for tomorrow. If you can answer “yes” to any of these four questions, chances are high that you’re integrating the interactive and reflective opportunities at the heart of engaging strategies. You might even find that parts of your lesson plan will connect to two or more questions! I like to draw up a simple matrix like this so that I can see which strategies will be working together for our activities: 

You can use a matrix like this when you’re planning activities for your next class or reflecting on how the day went. And you don’t have to do it alone: Try sharing this tool with a teacher friend or mentor as you develop a SEL practice that’s uniquely yours. 

Intentional Close

I haven’t always used intentional closes. In the early part of my career, doing this would never have occurred to me. But I know now that they are absolutely critical and can reinforce our engaging strategies as core parts of classroom culture. I really started purposely incorporating these early on in the COVID-19 pandemic. There was so much uncertainty and change that shining a little extra light on what was going well became even more important. In my classroom, I often focus on something joyful or optimistic that students can look forward to happening again. 

That means I’m asking questions like: What’s one thing that went well today? Who do you want to shout out? What are three good things from the day? What are you looking forward to? Do you want to make an apology, appreciate someone or share an “aha” in your learning? That encourages students to consider their relationships with one another. It can also bring their own developing skills into focus so they build confidence and learn that they can count on themselves to tackle any challenges ahead. You really do have the room to try a wide range of questions once you’re clear about your intention, and that’s helping every student step forward with a little more confidence every day. It helps us stay grounded in what’s good and what is working. 

I hope you’ll start to see that you’re already well on your way to bringing SEL principles to life in your classroom – whether you’re teaching elementary math, middle school social studies or high school physics. Each activity, each part of your class routine, can have multiple opportunities to develop your practice and support every student in deepening their SEL skills. And that’s just another way to say deepening their sense of power, potential and community. 

You’ve got this! Please reach out if you need support or guidance. You are on your way to SEL excellence. You can find me on social or email me at wendymturner@gmail.com.