Lesson Planning With Purpose: Five Approaches to Curriculum Design by Christy McConnell & Bradley Conrad & P. Bruce Uhrmacher

Author:Christy McConnell & Bradley Conrad & P. Bruce Uhrmacher
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Curricula, Teaching Methods & Materials, Education, General, Higher
ISBN: 9780807763988
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Published: 2020-06-18T21:00:00+00:00

According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), there are four primary ways that schools can implement social–emotional learning: (1) free-standing lessons; (2) general teaching practices; (3) integration; and (4) school-wide initiatives (Dusenbury, Calin, Domitrovich, & Weissberg, 2015). Free-standing lessons are characterized focused solely on social–emotional learning. General teaching practices refers to pedagogical approaches conducive to SEL (e.g., morning check-ins, advisory periods, cooperative group learning) though they may or may not specifically teach SEL concepts in their lessons. Integration, in the context of academic learning, means that the teacher will teach SEL skills alongside subject matter content within a lesson. School-wide initiatives occur when an entire school structures itself—from organizational, operational, curricular, and pedagogical standpoints—to focus on social–emotional learning goals.

While social–emotional learning can be implemented as a stand-alone lesson on a topic such as empathy, through general teaching practices, or as schoolwide undertakings, in this chapter we focus on social–emotional learning as an integration of SEL concepts in the academic curriculum. We can incorporate practicing empathy in any lesson. Later, we use the term Integrated Social Emotional Lesson planning (ISEL) in a nod to CASEL’s integration approach, but we specify and clarify a particular lesson planning approach not previously articulated. That is, ISEL is our creation.

An integrated social–emotional approach to learning teaches both academic and social–emotional skills within a single lesson plan. The subject matter is often mediated by the SEL skill being taught, thereby enhancing the academic understanding and meaning (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger, 2011). Subject matter content as well as social–emotional content is explicitly introduced, taught, and then reflected upon in a lesson. The overall structure of such a lesson includes a brief inclusion activity introducing both academic and social–emotional content to be covered in the lesson, a body of the lesson focused on engaging practices, and a space at the end of the lesson intentionally concentrated on reflection.

Learning objectives for integrated social–emotional lesson plans are written to include both an academic and a social component. Students also can write their own social–emotional learning objective for the lesson, week, or month; this provides them with choice and voice. Also unique to this approach is the intentional space created for reflection at the end of the lesson. In this space, referred to as an optimistic closure, teachers intentionally create opportunities for students to discuss what they have learned, to understand their thinking, to make meaningful connections to their lives, and to look ahead to where they will go.

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