Handout 1: Social and Emotional Learning

(SEL) Competencies and Skills

SEL Competency SEL Skills Related to Each Competency

Self-awareness  Label and recognize own and others’ emotions.

 Identify what triggers own emotions.
 Analyze emotions and how they affect others.
 Accurately recognize own strengths and limitations.
 Identify own needs and values.
 Possess self-efficacy and self-esteem.

Self-management  Set plans and work toward goals.

 Overcome obstacles and create strategies for more long-term goals.
 Monitor progress toward personal and academic short- and long-term goals.
 Regulate emotions such as impulses, aggression, and self-destructive
behavior.
 Manage personal and interpersonal stress.
 Attention control (maintain optimal work performance).
 Use feedback constructively.
 Exhibit positive motivation, hope, and optimism.
 Seek help when needed.
 Display grit, determination, or perseverance.
 Advocate for oneself.

Social awareness  Identify social cues (verbal, physical) to determine how others feel.
 Predict others’ feelings and reactions.
 Evaluate others’ emotional reactions.
 Respect others (e.g., listen carefully and accurately).
 Understand other points of view and perspectives.
 Appreciate diversity (recognize individual and group similarities and
differences).
 Identify and use resources of family, school, and community.

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Relationship  Demonstrate capacity to make friends.
management
 Exhibit cooperative learning and working toward group goals.
 Evaluate own skills to communicate with others.
 Manage and express emotions in relationships, respecting diverse
viewpoints.
 Communicate effectively.
 Cultivate relationships with those who can be resources when help is
needed.
 Provide help to those who need it.
 Demonstrate leadership skills when necessary, being assertive and
persuasive.
 Prevent interpersonal conflict, but manage and resolve it when does occur.
 Resist inappropriate social pressures.

Responsible decision  Identify decisions one makes at school.

making
 Discuss strategies used to resist peer pressure.
 Reflect on how current choices affect one’s future.
 Identify problems when making decisions, and generate alternatives.
 Implement problem-solving skills when making decisions, when
appropriate.
 Become self-reflective and self-evaluative.
 Make decisions based on moral, personal, and ethical standards.
 Make responsible decisions that affect the individual, school, and
community.
 Negotiate fairly.

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 Handout 2: Social and Emotional Learning
(SEL) Connections
Example Experiences With Common Core State SEL Connections— SEL Connections—
Standards Shifts1 Students Teachers

Students will experience working with unfamiliar

vocabulary words in their literacy text.

In mathematics, students will have to explain their

answers in a more nuanced way, in which they will
have to explain their solution path rather than
supply only their answer.

Students will practice more close and critical

reading strategies in which they have to analyze
text and answer higher order, text-dependent
questions that require students to respond with
precision and using evidence from the text for
increasingly complex text and cross-text analyses.

Students will participate in more classroom

discussions in which they practice speaking,
listening, and building on one another’s thinking.

Students will have to work in groups more often to

solve more complex tasks in which they will have
to communicate their ideas and work
collaboratively to solve problems.

Students will have to develop multiple

representations of mathematical knowledge and
make connections between their representations.

1
These practices came from two sources that focus on Common Core Instructional Practices (1) the Core
Instructional Practices developed by the GTL Center
(http://www.gtlcenter.org/sites/default/files/CreatingCoherence.pdf) and (2) http://www.achievethecore.org/

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Handout 3: Social and Emotional Learning
(SEL) Team Action Planning
Directions: In your teams, answer the guiding questions in the following three sections, “general
questions,” “teaching practices that promote SEL,” and “teacher social and emotional
competencies.” Once you have answered the questions, complete the next steps and long term
goals. For each question, think about who will do this, what will they do, and by when?

General Questions

1. If any, what current practices, policies, and procedures does your school or district currently take
to implement SEL?

2. What other initiatives, policies, and procedures does SEL connect to in our school or district?

3. How have we made those connections transparent to educators, students, parents/caregivers and
community members? What else could we do to make those connections more clear?

Teaching Practices That Promote SEL

1. How can we integrate SEL into our formal and informal instructional coaching and feedback
sessions with teachers (e.g., professional conversations)?

2. How can you tell teachers are implementing practices that promote student development and
application of SEL skills and competencies?

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 3. What tools (e.g., guiding questions to use when lesson planning) could we create in order for
educators to think more systematically about how to integrate SEL into teacher practice?

4. How have we made connections between teacher evaluations, professional learning, Common
Core State Standards, teacher’s instruction, and social, emotional, and academic learning? How
can we further make connections within our school and district (e.g., PLCs, disciplinary policies,
school climate initiatives, curriculum selection)?

Teacher Social and Emotional Competencies

1. How can you tell teachers are using their own social and emotional competencies with their
interactions with students, colleagues, parents, and community members?

2. What social and emotional competencies do educators in our school and district need to focus on
the most?

3. How can we integrate teacher social and emotional competencies into our formal and informal
instructional coaching and feedback sessions with teachers? How can colleagues help develop
each other’s SEL competencies? What systems could we use to make teacher SEL transparent to
teachers?

4. What professional learning experiences and/or resources do we have that will help teachers grow
and develop their own social and emotional capacities? What professional learning experiences
and/or resources do we need?

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Next Steps and Long-Term Goals
In the following chart, describe the five immediate next steps, who is responsible for each step,
and the timeline for completing each step. In addition, make sure to determine when the next
group meeting will be to discuss this again. Finally, write down your long-term district or school
goals for creating SEL connections, or additional notes that you have to implement SEL in your
school and district. If you completed next steps in your SEL workbook, make sure to review and
reflect back on those next steps to accomplish your next set of steps.

Immediate Next Steps

Action Step 1

Action Step 2

Action Step 3

Action Step 4

Action Step 5

Long-Term District Goals for Creating SEL Connections OR Additional Comments

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