Social & Emotional Learning:
Optimizing Learning Environments with Life Skills

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is teaching life skills that are foundational to motivation in the classroom and classroom management. Students who have strong social and emotional skillsets will be more successful in the classroom and in life in general. In this course, students will first examine what social-emotional learning is, including the research foundational to SEL. Then students will examine the five SEL competencies—self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making—and explore how each of these can be developed first in the classrooms and then in the schools to create optimal learning environments.