This course focuses on SEL for its most common audience – students in P-12 school-based contexts. We begin this exploration by introducing the concept of social emotional well-being in Week 1. We explore what social emotional well-being is and investigate the relationship between it and the current emphasis on achievement in educational reform. Then, we highlight SEL as one means of developing social emotional well-being, positioning it in relation to other approaches, while highlighting our course’s focus on SEL programs and theories.

In this section of the course, we trace the origins of the field of SEL, identifying how a perceived need for greater attention to children’s social and emotional development in schools grew in part from the popularization of theories of multiple intelligence and emotional intelligence in the mid to late 1990s. We identify other educational theories that support this work before attending to a discussion of what SEL is, identified primarily through its goals, purposes, and aims.

In this section of the course, we attend to the ways in which school-based SEL programs differ with regard to scope, focus, audience and mode of infusion. Additionally, we take up general considerations of the characteristics of effective programs and practices with the intent of providing participants the tools necessary to evaluate specific SEL programs.

The focus in this section of the course is on SEL programs in early childhood education and in elementary schools. We aim to provide a broad overview of programs on the market, and considerations specific to “doing SEL” with young children. Additionally, we aim to challenge participants to evaluate the usefulness of various programs for their own purposes with respect to the criteria and considerations identified in Week 3.