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Empathy is part of what makes us human and humane, and it has become a core component of the Social Awareness competency of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) (CASEL, 2019). SEL fosters the understanding of others’ emotions, is the basis of Theory of Mind skills and frames the development of empathy. The purpose of this paper is to trace the links between empathy development and social and emotional learning when using real versus virtual environments. Empathy is a uniquely human emotion facilitated by abstract thinking and language. Virtual play is a teaching tool for acquiring prosocial behaviors. And finally, human-mediated (traditional and virtual) play is most favorable for SEL growth. Recognition of emotions such as empathy and other socio-communication skills have been taught to children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Therefore, technology can be a venue for acquiring empathy.

This paper uses a qualitative interpretive methodology to advocate for the use of technology with human mediation to teach Social and Emotional Learning skills, based on the premise that cognitive and social-emotional development occurs synergistically and mediated by speech and interaction with the environment.

Technology is best seen as an instrument of assessing and teaching socio-emotional skills, but not as the only means to an end, because what makes us human can only be taught within an ecology of human interaction in real-life situations.

This paper reviews previous research works (both empirical and theoretical) that bring to light the connection between socio-emotional development, specifically empathy development, and virtual environments.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Conscious Discipline’s (CD) Parenting Education Curriculum (CD PEC), the parenting component of CD’s research-based social and emotional learning program. CD aims to change child behavior by changing how adults understand and manage their own behaviors and emotions. Researchers explored CD PEC’s association with improved parenting skills, parent–child relationships and child behavior and emotion management.

During pre- and post-site visits, parents in four Head Start programs completed the Attentive Parenting Survey (n=25) and interviews (n=19); and 20 staff were also interviewed.

Parents reported that CD PEC shifted their perspectives and practices for managing children’s challenging behaviors, improved parent–child relationships and resulted in decreased child behavior problems.

The study was correlational, based on self-report, and had a small sample with no comparison group.

This study supports CD PEC as a means of shifting parenting practices, relationships and child behavior by focusing on adult social-emotional skills and self-regulation.

This study provides preliminary evidence that addressing the social-emotional needs of adults is a viable step to helping children improve their social skills, emotion regulation and general behavior, which have all been linked to later academic and life success.

The paper studies improvements in parents’ emotion recognition and self-regulation before disciplining their children.

This paper investigates and reports on the study abroad experiences of 22 teacher candidates from the Southeast region of the USA (n=22). The purpose of this paper is to examine the teacher candidates’ development of social and emotional learning through their international teaching experiences.

The study is framed by Critical Cosmopolitan Theory, which is a theoretical lens for a critical understanding of the development of global competencies for critical consciousness. The paper uses a case study research design (Yin, 2008), which included data collected via artifact analysis, participant interviews and participant observation through field notes.

The study found how the study abroad and international teaching experiences were instrumental in aiding in the teacher candidates’ social and emotional learning. This included the adoption of culturally responsive teaching practices, development of reading the world and enactment of taking action to rewrite the world.

One of the limitations is the relatively small sample size. This is due, in part, to the high cost associated with study abroad. The high cost of study abroad can be a barrier for students to access the cross-cultural experiences afforded by study abroad. The hefty price tag of study abroad often limits the number of teacher candidates at public institutions who can go on study abroad (Malewski and Phillion, 2009). A future research agenda is needed about ways to help off-set the costs in order to make study abroad more affordable and equitable.

The practical implications of this paper are that it provides an instructive lens for how to integrate social and emotional learning within a study abroad experience. At the same time, the paper connects socio-emotional learning (SEL) with the development of global competencies and global citizenship.

The social implications relate to the practical implications in that the paper illustrates how SEL is connected to the development of global citizenship development. The study weds the critical cosmopolitan framework with SEL to show how learners develop empathy through reading and rewriting the world.

The case study presented in this paper highlights the possibilities of study abroad in tandem with international teaching experiences to help prepare teachers with SEL features like fostering empathy, developing culturally responsive practices, and becoming critically conscious and cosmopolitan. The study fills a gap in the literature regarding the development of SEL among elementary education teacher candidates through study abroad and international teaching experiences.

The purpose of this paper is to study teachers’ perspectives of social and emotional learning (SEL) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) primary schools.

This research was a case study design investigating the phenomenon of SEL in primary schools (elementary school level) in Aotearoa NZ (Stake, 2005).

The SEL themes that were drawn from the data were: positive interdependence, empowerment, self-management, self-awareness restorative conversations and circle time.

The research challenges the field to work with teachers and community workers to create more in-depth qualitative research knowledge that is contextually relevant to SEL for researchers, educational policymakers and our children.

Based in Aotearoa NZ primary schools, this qualitative research provides a unique perspective of SEL from school-based practicing teachers.

The paper aims to examine how a professional development school-district (PDS-D) partnership, enacting an improvement science stance, collectively explored social-emotional learning (SEL) during collaboratively designed professional learning experiences.

This qualitative study, guided by an improvement science orientation, enacted an iterative research design. Data sources consisted of anecdotal field notes and artifacts from 12 professional learning sessions. Using a constant comparative method, the authors applied an inductive thematic analysis to identify salient themes across data related to teacher wonderings and identified goals.

The paper illuminates teachers' voices while highlighting information gleaned from participant wonderings, their identified goals and how this information informed the iterative development of future professional learning experiences within a district-university partnership.

Due to the chosen research approaches and limited number of participants, the research results may lack generalizability.

This paper provides original insight into collaborative development of recursive professional learning experiences within partnership spaces.

The coach−athlete relationship mediates the relationship between sports participation and student-athlete character, health and well-being outcomes. High school athletic administrators (AAs) can provide critical leadership, mentorship and direction for coaches to optimize student-athlete performance and human development. Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an evidence-based approach to developing adult and student competencies for holistic development across the lifespan that has been primarily performed and researched in the classroom. The purpose of this research is to capture the lived experiences of AAs applying a novel SEL-based curriculum (InSideOut Initiative, ISOI) with coaches and student-athletes in high school sports.

Interviews of 10 AAs captured their lived experiences of applying SEL-based leadership and coaching and their perception of its impact on coaches and student-athletes in high school athletics.

AAs described leadership and coaching that are characterized by (1) safety, support and mentorship; (2) skill and support-based behavior modeling; (3) trusting, loving and supportive relationships; (4) self-reflection of values/beliefs and behaviors that impact self, student-athlete and culture; (5) the influence of emotions on the aforementioned; (6) the ability to have a long-term, sustainable impact on student-athletes and (7) alignment with their immediate environmental context.

The data captured in this study suggest that ISOI-trained AAs practice SEL-competent leadership and coaching. Evaluation of the novel application of SEL-based interventions in athletics will be useful to understanding their effects on participant social and emotional competencies and outcomes traditionally associated with classroom-based SEL applications.

Athletic administrator interviews describe an approach to high school sports that requires a reconceptualization of the purpose of athletics. When the high school sport operates as a curriculum, integrated opportunity for its student-athletes and athletic administrator and coach leadership aligns with this overarching philosophy, there may be increased potential for positive youth development.

The results of this research are valuable in demonstrating preliminary evidence of how SEL-based leadership and coaching is applied and impacts adult and student-athletes in a unique sport context.

There is a growing consensus in education that schools can and should attend to students’ social-emotional development. Emerging research and popular texts indicate that students’ mindsets, beliefs, dispositions, emotions and behaviors can advance outcomes, such as college readiness, career success, mental health and relationships. Despite this growing awareness, many districts and schools are still struggling to implement strategies that develop students’ social-emotional skills. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by examining the social-emotional learning (SEL) practices in ten middle schools with strong student-reported data on SEL outcomes, particularly for African American and Latinx students.

Case study methods, including interviews, observations and document analysis, were employed.

The authors identify six categories of common SEL practices: strategies that promote positive school climate and relationships, supporting positive behavior, use of elective courses and extracurricular activities, SEL-specific classroom practices and curricula, personnel strategies and measurement and data use. Absence of a common definition of SEL and lack of alignment among SEL practices were two challenges cited by respondents.

This is the first study to analyze SEL practices in outlier schools, with a focus on successful practices with schools that have a majority of African American and/or Latinx students.

This paper aims to present a novel pedagogical model that aims at bridging creativity with computational thinking (CT) and new media literacy skills at low-technology, information-rich learning environments. As creativity, problem solving and collaboration are among the targeted skills in twenty-first century, this model promotes the acquisition of these skills towards a holistic development of students in primary and secondary school settings. In this direction, teaching students to think like a computer scientist, an economist, a physicist or an artist can be achieved through CT practices, as well as media arts practices. The interface between these practices is imagination, a fundamental concept in the model. Imaginative teaching methods, computer science unplugged approach and low-technology prototyping method are used to develop creativity, CT, collaboration and new media literacy skills in students. Furthermore, cognitive, emotional, physical and social abilities are fostered. Principles and guidelines for the implementation of the model in classrooms are provided by following the design thinking process as a methodological tool, and a real example implemented in a primary school classroom is described. The added value of this paper is that it proposes a pedagogical model that can serve as a pool of pedagogical approaches implemented in various disciplines and grades, as CT curriculum frameworks for K-6 are still in their infancy. Further research is needed to define the point at which unplugged approach should be replaced or even combined with plugged-in approach and how this proposed model can be enriched.

This paper presents a pedagogical model that aims at bridging creativity with CT, collaboration and new media literacy skills.

The proposed model follows a pedagogy-driven approach rather a technology-driven one as the authors suggest its implementation in low-tech, information-rich learning environments without computers. The added value of this paper is that it proposes a novel pedagogical model that can serve as a pool of pedagogical approaches and as a framework implemented in various disciplines and grades. A CT curriculum framework for K-6 is an area of research that is still in its infancy (Angeli et al., 2016), so this model is intended to provide a holistic perspective over this area by focusing how to approach the convergence among CT, collaboration and creativity skills in practice rather than what to teach. Based on literature, the authors explained how multiple moments impact on CT, creativity and collaboration development and presented the linkages among them. Successful implementation of CT requires not only computer science and mathematics but also imaginative capacities involving innovation and curiosity (The College Board, 2012). It is necessary to understand the CT implications for teaching and learning beyond the traditional applications on computer science and mathematics (Kotsopoulos et al., 2017) and start paying more attention to CT implications on social sciences and non-cognitive skills. Though the presented example (case study) seems to exploit the proposed multiple moments model at optimal level, empirical evidence is needed to show its practical applicability in a variety of contexts and not only in primary school settings. Future studies can extend, enrich or even alter some of its elements through experimental applications on how all these macro/micromoments work in practice in terms of easiness in implementation, flexibility, social orientation and skills improvement.

The added value of this paper is that it joins learning theories, pedagogical methods and necessary skills acquisition in an integrated manner by proposing a pedagogical model that can orient activities and educational scenarios by giving principles and guidelines for teaching practice.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the components, structure and theoretical underpinnings of a cognitive remediation intervention that was delivered within a supported education program for mental health survivors.

In total, 21 participants enrolled in the course Strengthening Memory, Concentration and Learning (PREP 1033 at George Brown College (GBC)) with the diagnosis of depression, anxiety, PTSD, ED and substance use disorder were included in the research. After a baseline assessment, participants completed 14 week cognitive remediation training (CRT) protocol that included six essential components that were integrated and implemented within the course structure of the supported education program at GBC. This was followed by a post-training assessment.

Analysis of the participants’ performance on CRT protocol using computerized games showed little significant progress. However, the research found a positive change in the self-esteem of the participants that was statistically significant and the findings also aligned with the social and emotional learning framework.

One of the limitations in the research was the use of computer-assisted cognitive remediation in the form of the HappyNeuron software. The value and relevance of computer assisted needs are to be further examined. It seems that the implementation of the course that explicitly address cognitive challenges creates a supportive environment can be helpful.

Despite the mixed results and the few limitations associated with the CRT intervention reported in the research, the study offers reminders of the complexity of cognitive remediation and all the factors involved that need to be taken into consideration.

This research created explicit space for addressing some of the implicit assumptions about the cognitive abilities when in post-secondary education.

This work is based on author’s previous work on cognitive remediation research within the supported education setting.