Social Emotional Learning: Embracing Empathy and Connection

0:00:01 - Announcer

You are listening to the National University Podcast.

0:00:10 - Kimberly King

Hello, I'm Kimberly King. Welcome to the National University Podcast, where we offer a holistic approach to student support, well-being and success- the whole human education. We put passion into practice by offering accessible, achievable higher education to lifelong learners. On today's episode, we welcome Dr. Maggie Broderick to discuss Social Emotional Learning, or SEL. Dr. Broderick was a curriculum director and is now faculty as an associate professor at the Sanford College of Education at National University. She has served as a dissertation chair and the founding director of the Advanced Research Center. Dr. Broderick has taught online at various universities and previously taught on-ground in both higher education and pre-K through 12th grade education in the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania area, and we welcome her to the podcast. Dr. Broderick, how are you?

0:01:07 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Thanks so much, Kim. I'm great. Thanks for having me again today.

0:01:10 - Kimberly King

Absolutely. Really interested in hearing what you have to say on this today's show topic, but why don't you fill our audience in a little bit on your mission and your work before we get started?

0:01:22 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Oh, thank you. Well, pretty much I've been a teacher my whole life. Actually that is the story. When I was young, I was studying music and I really thought, well, I might play the flute in the symphony or something like that. But over time I quickly realized the thing that really gave me the most joy was if somebody asked me to teach them something like playing the flute, or you know, I like to knit or just anything right, and if they said, hey, how do you do that? I really felt a lot of joy. So I became a music teacher and I continued along and I eventually became a professor of education. I love it. It's been just me following that calling.

Sometimes things change in our lives, right, like different opportunities present themselves when my kids were really young. I wasn't teaching full time at that time, but then I found myself teaching like as a Girl Scout leader or doing crafts and music and things with my kids and their friends. And then, as the higher ed career continued along, I got my PhD and I've sometimes moved into other roles. But I only realized again, hey, I'm really a teacher at heart. I just always seemed to realize that. But most of all, what resonates with me through that journey is that, you know, that opportunity to connect with learners, no matter how you know who they might be or how the context might be. I've taught people of all ages, from like the age of three to 80 or so. I'm just always thinking about that personal connection and I'm thinking about that relationship and the rapport that we have as individuals, and just how that drives momentum and engagement and it helps them with their learning journey. So for me, it's about teaching that whole person.

0:03:02 - Kimberly King

I love that. You're my favorite kind of teacher, professor, that you really do connect and that's really shows up in your passion. So today we're talking about social emotional learning, SEL, and I'm so interested to hear about this. Can you tell us a little bit about your teaching background and why you chose to be an educator? You kind of just touched on that a little bit, but really connect this with the social emotional learning.

0:03:26 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's that thing of teaching the whole person, right, like I think a lot of people think about grades and scores and you know I'm a mom.

I think I was just looking at my kids' grades online and you know, it's important, it is right? Academic stuff's important and we need rigor and we need expectations for learning, but we have to realize the learner's a human being and they are multifaceted. It's not just their academic work and their grades and, yeah, it's important to think about that, but it's just one piece of the puzzle. It's even more so in online. If you think about it, you might not realize that that's a person behind the screen, right, because we're kind of like looking at just a grade book and a discussion board, but teaching that whole person, it's like it's about having empathy and taking that time to think and put yourself in their shoes and kind of work together collaboratively.

It's about being human and a really nice thing is, you know, at National University where I work, I love it because they call it whole human education. It's that phrase. If you go on their website, it says right there that one of their major tenets is whole human education and it just goes beyond academics, like the supports that we have for students, because their learners - and – they’re students - and - a parent, a caregiver, a professional, an employee, a military service member, veterans, all of these things and so we have to support them, not just that grade book, not just those assignments, all that stuff, but understanding their emotional wellness and their social, emotional being as a human being. So really that's sort of what it's about.

0:05:05 - Kimberly King

I love that and I think good for National University for recognizing that and being ahead of the curve. I think it's- We all have life moments, so to do education along with living your life, that seems to be what they really are rising to the occasion on, so that's great. Can you tell us more about what it means to be really teaching that whole person?

0:05:29 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Yeah, yeah, so I've been thinking about this a lot. I mean, it's, it's my nature, it's who I am as a person, but lately I've gotten into sort of more scholarly pursuits with that. So I've been doing some publications and presentations about SEL and I'm a lead in a one of our many things at National. We have a lot going on with SEL, but one of our SEL tracks, if you will, one of our areas with SEL, and so I also have done some of these scholarly works. I did an article pretty recently with my colleague, Dr. Amy Lynn, and actually a student who's working at National, Emily Spranger. We actually wrote a book chapter together about online adult learners on SEL and I've been doing a lot of work with colleagues about things.

Like you know, SEL came up a lot during COVID so we had a research team thinking about that and some themes about SEL came out. We've looked at things about teacher dispositions, which ties into SEL, because that's about you know how that you know person of the teacher connects, and also some work with my colleagues Dr. Walker Roberts and Dr. Galveo on sort of belonging and diversity, equity, inclusion, which goes along with SEL. So it's not really a new term, it's just that we're exploring it in a lot of different ways. There's a lot going on in the curriculum and, like I said, a lot going on in scholarly work in the area. So it's not a new idea. I can tell you a little bit more about SEL if you like.

0:06:59 - Kimberly King

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, that was my next question - what is SEL and what is that learning like?

0:07:05 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Yeah, yeah, it's like it's not a new idea. You know, like I said, it's my heart, that's who I am, and there are so many other educators, just like you said, Kim, I mean, when you think about the best teacher you ever had, it's not about their amazing knowledge of calculus, it's about who they were as a person, right? So it's not a new idea and it is very human. But there are new ways of sort of framing it and new and evolving approaches, strategies and resources, and there are some specific organizations who have really framed that idea of social emotional learning over the past couple of decades. It's great to see that in print instead of like, yeah, we all know good teaching, we all know a good human, it's important to understand, like, what does that mean on paper? Right? How do we actually teach that? How do we actually share that? So I can share more about that, but I can say like in the past, we just sort of would say like soft skills, right, we would say people have these sort of soft skills and being human, communication, empathy, things like self reflection and self regulation and growth and relationships.

But the one organization that I'd like to tell you a bit about is called CASEL, c-a-s-e-l, and what's really at the root of all that. CASEL has the five competencies and that really helps us understand that framework for social emotional learning. And so if you go to their website, it's just C-A-S-E-L, CASEL. The same wording that I'm going to tell you here is right there, but they refer to the CASEL five. It's the competencies and they're just areas like self awareness, self management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. And so those things can, like I said, they're sort of on paper now, right, so we can actually tangibly understand. Okay, it's not just a nice teacher that I really cared about and connected with, but here's how that works and beyond that, also in the school, and so it can be taught and applied at all different stages, from childhood to adulthood, all different cultural contexts. It's for everyone, it's human and, like it says on the website, many school districts and states and countries have used the CASEL five competencies to establish preschool to high school learning standards and ways to say what students should know and be able to do, and that ties in with their academic success and their school and civic engagement and their wellness and even going into careers, right, as they go along, because it's a lifelong thing.

It's a journey of understanding yourself as a person, how to kind of do that self-management and, you know, manage your stress and have your motivation, make responsible decisions and do personal and social interactions that across very diverse situations where you are successful and you feel good, right, people feel good in those relationships, relationship skills and the social awareness, right. So those sorts of things if we think about, like how to feel compassion for others and empathy and understanding, ways to interact with others and to understand ourselves, that's what CASEL is putting on paper for us to really. You know, look at that, there's a lot of good literature on it and you can just go right to their website. It's great stuff.

0:10:20 - Kimberly King

That's amazing and it's just great, again, you know, as we've come through COVID and the pandemic and all of that, we've kind of moved into and really matching people with what they are going, what's going through. As we talked about empathy in their life, you know, really kind of this CASEL method seems to really apply no matter where you are, what age you are and what you know, whether you're in elementary, middle, high school or in college, it seems. Is that kind of how that's plugged in? Is that how that's working in schools today?

0:10:53 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean I feel like I've been around a while now and it's kind of incredible to think back on all that's happened in my own lifetime and I'm sure if any listeners can think back for the decades they've been around. I remember being like a young student in the 80s and there were some negative things, right. I mean I had some lovely teachers, wonderful experiences, but there was always this idea of like punishment, right. There was this idea that you are doing something bad, you are getting in trouble, you'd better listen to your teacher, you'd better follow the rules. It was very much that sort of climate and I understand that. But then over time people started to see other sides, other facets of school climate basically. So, like when I started teaching, I learned in the 90s, about maybe, the school climate and also about classroom management and maybe being a little more positive. Then, sort of like the punishing right in the negative and sort of the, the things that you want to take more positively. And then we saw some things evolving, like when my children were young. There's something called PBIS positive behavioral interventions and supports, and those are, those are helpful.

But SEL goes deeper because it's more holistic. PBIS tends to be a little bit more, you know, of the extrinsic rewards sometimes and it can work. I have a story when my current 17 year old was in fourth grade and, honestly, having sort of a fun thing where you get prizes, helped her. I get it.

Extrinsic rewards can be really fun and she would come home with a cookie and a prize. I know I got to pay my, my funny money at school to get you know some kind of thing, but then it wasn't going very deep right, it was like just a sort of quick approach and she was happy. But I felt like there was more that could have been taught. SEL does that. It's holistic. It actually would teach, you know, the students and all of the people in the system, in the school climate, and set it up in a way where the administration and leadership, they really infuse it into everything. So it's not like just a class or a fun party or a fun moment, but it's like really infused into the whole school climate, more like a way of thinking about relationships and the culture of a school and teaching those five castle competencies. That even includes, like the families and the community and all of that sort of stuff beyond the classroom.

0:13:14 - Kimberly King

That's what my next question was, and that is yeah, how does that work, that SEL works beyond the classroom and in schools? Can you tell us about the different kind of learners at various ages in different contexts?

0:13:28 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Sure, sure. I mean it's kind of incredible to think about because, like, we go through incredible developmental phases right? From a very small child all the way up through adulthood, through our whole journey as a human being, and I've taught, like I said before, a lot of different ages of students and I'm also a parent, and so when we think about that lifespan of a person, it's incredible to think about how we could impact those learners and, you know, sort of connect with them, whether they're a three-year-old just learning some basics of you know, how do I share with that other child in this preschool classroom? Or maybe I don't know, a 50 year old online learner. I have actually a doctoral student who just finished and he did his dissertation focused on SEL. It was about the pandemic and he's a special education teacher in Florida and he defended pretty recently and he was so proud of himself and he collected sort of the experiences of secondary, so high school special education students during COVID-19 and their thoughts about how SEL in their schools helped them. Right, because it was a really, really hard time.

There were just so many things during COVID and I've heard a lot of other things lately about, you know, SEL being the focus of dissertations because it is. It really doesn't just relate to young children. I have some information to share with you a little bit later on about something specific for more of the young children, because that's where we see a lot of the sort of packages that are out there that you can get to help with this and the online resources. But honestly, like my students saw, it's a high school thing. Like I see when I do research and work with my, you know, adult online learners, it's an adult thing. It's for everyone because we're all human and having that relationship and rapport and building those skills can support us so that we can be feeling that momentum in our studies, feeling good about our studies and really do our best work and have that excellent school climate, no matter what. It could be university, it could be preschool, it could be all these things.

0:15:35 - Kimberly King

That's so great and again you know it really kind of moves across the board. I noticed that SEL has been in the news in recent years. What can you tell us about where it's going with the future of it?

0:15:46 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

It's like well, it's been kind of tricky. I mean, it's interesting to see because, you know, we all go on social media, we all hear things in the news and sometimes people don't really know what SEL is and they might get it sort of wrongfully conflated with a lot of other things. There's a lot of buzzwords out there. Things are happening fast, right, I mean like there's a lot, and especially since COVID, people sometimes will lump things together. They'll sometimes like jump to conclusions about something they hear. That's very human and we can kind of meet them where they are. But we have to think about, like, what SEL is and what it isn't. And it really is just a way, like I said, of sort of packaging up this idea that we're going to lead with that person, that individual, the empathy and the relationships, thinking about those, like I said previously, called soft skills, and that's really all it is. And we saw that kind of thing with the, the news cycle, with the pandemic too. Right, sometimes people jump to conclusions.

SEL has gotten a lot more attention in the news since the pandemic because there was a huge and obvious need for that social, emotional stuff During the pandemic. Right, we were all hurting and so, like, a lot of information came at once, but I'd say generally, like, just really look for those primary sort of research-based sources. Like I said, CASEL, I have some other things to share with you later on that are really excellent resources so people can really understand, like you know, with all that noise out there, really what is SEL? Why do I want to know about it and you know if it's happening, let's say, my kids school or whatever. What am I actually, you know, understanding from those primary sources?

0:17:26 - Kimberly King

Got it. Oh, that's so interesting and it sounds like the COVID-19 pandemic definitely figures in. And what kind of things did you notice changing at that time with regard to SEL?

0:17:38 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Well, I mean we were overwhelmed, right, I mean it was- There's not a person out there who says, oh sure, that was a piece of cake.

It was not wonderful, right. So that was especially true for our kiddos. Like I said, a lot of the SEL stuff, especially through CASEL, is more through, you know, say, sixth grade or so. My youngest kiddo was nine in 2020. And so if you really think about it, you know that was like a tenth of her, or a fifth rather, of her 10 years, like she was turning 10. And that was like two of her of her experience in life, two years of her of her 10-ish years on this planet. If you put yourself in those kids’ shoes, which is what SEL is all about putting yourself in somebody else's shoes, and kind of understanding perspectives and taking that time it's amazing. And we adults we went through like a lot there was a lot of stress, anxiety, worry, trauma, and you add that emergency online schooling to all of it.

There was, just like all these unknowns and there's a learning curve there. A lot of things happen. For example, you know the faces were blocking the facial expressions with the mask. You couldn't see their face because of the mask blocking facial expression and, you know, maybe the camera was off in an online teaching environment and so how could we really relate, like SEL, we need to understand how to do it because you know it was so hard, but kids can be very, very resilient. If we kind of take that breath together and meet them where they are, we can figure out a path forward. SEL just really came into play there and became like really prominent in the news and our programs became more heavily enrolled because people realized, oh my gosh, wow, like there was a need for this. And then during the pandemic, that idea of educating the whole person, that idea of connecting with relationship and rapport and culture, school climate, so, so, so important, and I think we really realized it just acutely during the pandemic.

0:19:38 - Kimberly King

I can imagine. I know there's so many changes afterward. This is interesting information. Right now we need to take a quick break. More in just a moment. Don't go away. We will be right back. And now back to our interview with Dr. Maggie Broderick, and we're talking about social, emotional learning, SEL and Dr. Broderick. What are some specific tips and strategies that teachers should consider for their classrooms and schools?

0:20:06 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Oh yeah, well, it's important to put it all into practice, right, it's all nice to look things up and understand and really get your bearings, but then how do you actually do it right? And so luckily yeah, so luckily I talked with some really great folks that I worked with from the Sanford Harmony Program, so you can just Google where I can give you some links later for Sanford Harmony or Harmony Academy, and they are wonderful. They have so much up there. If you have a full day to look through their site, they've got a ton and it's really approachable. So they partnered up with National University and they offer a digital curriculum at no cost and professional development for teachers and it has things.

I'm just looking at stuff right from their site setting goals, something called BuddyUp and MeetUp, so I can tell you a little bit about those. There's also some other things like mindful minutes, sharing and responding, checking in on your goal setting, connecting with yourself with a mindful minute and connecting with others, and there are things. They have things called quick connection cards. So one fun thing I'll tell you two of them. Meetup is really quick and easy to do in about 15 minutes a day. They tell us some ideas of how to do like a little you know exercise with the students where they feel connected, where they feel comfortable and motivated and you're really meeting them, like I said, where they are right, so that you're comfortable sharing.

I was a really shy child personally, so like I needed to learn some of this stuff and it would have been good to have more of these things back in the 80s when quite have all this stuff Learning about you, know others, feelings and listening and responding and how to be a part of a group together. And then they also have this thing called the BuddyUp and the BuddyUp is a peer buddy system and the students get to know one another in just duos like that. So they can kind of have a fun environment to bring together diverse students who might not interact because you know you have your clicks, you have your groups and so it pairs up students in a very mindful way with their materials and then they can learn and sort of enhance connection and share that kind of social responsibility together. They just have these really approachable ideas at Sanford Harmony and Harmony Academy which you know the teachers or anyone else involved can foster those CASEL 5 competencies for SEL.

0:22:37 - Kimberly King

Great. So, with that being said and thank you for you know those resources are really great when people are starting to really kind of wrap their heads around that. But how many teachers best support students, academics and social, emotional needs in various types of classrooms? So you know that whole transition from in-person, on-the-ground, hybrid or online how can teachers support those?

0:23:03 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Yeah, I mean everything sort of changed these days. We did the other podcast a while back. It was so great chatting with you then, Kim, and you know we talked about how you know there's traditional on-ground, there's online, there's hybrid and honestly, it feels like everything is basically a hybrid these days. I actually was just interacting with some folks at my kid's school because a teacher is on leave, something happened I hope they're well, but they haven't been around for a while because of a health concern and there's been substitute teachers and so I was like, okay, I had to speak the language because everything was on Schoology and in this online system. I was like, okay, I understand this and I could say to these other people who were trying to help with this bad situation you know about what's going on with my own kiddo and connect with them, and so really, online is part of everything almost always these days.

But it's trickier for SEL because, like I said earlier, that body language is not there. When I'm just looking at that Schoology, you know, for my daughter, you don't see that the facial expression, the proximity, if the students don't turn on their camera, if you're in a Zoom. But you can plan proactively and those are some things we talked about in the other podcast. It's just a little harder to find the ways to connect. I would say it really starts from the school climate and trickles down from there.

But if you find yourself teaching in a place where the leadership or you know powers that be, they haven't really changed over to this sort of SEL driven, that's okay. Teachers can use sort of those materials from Sanford Harmony or from other things that are really reputable sites online and the literature on SEL to sort of start from that ground up, maybe build that culture sort of, you know, from a grassroots sort of way. There are ways to do it. So really it's a great start with those baby steps to just kind of start, maybe that mindful minute, maybe that buddy up, maybe the you know having the meetings, and when they do that, maybe that can eventually, you know, go from the classroom out, even in an online environment, which is definitely trickier, I'll admit, but at least it can be infused. You can infuse it in lots of different ways if you're creative about it and you really wanted to give it a try.

0:25:08 - Kimberly King

Oh, I love it. Yeah, giving it a try. I think you know not being afraid to try something new. How about other important people in students' lives I think this is such an important part such as parents, families, mentors, what should they know about SEL?

0:25:24 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Yeah, I mean it's really not just the teacher and the student, right? I mean it never is anyway. I just was talking about, you know, my experience as a parent and I don't want to intervene all the time. I'm not a helicopter parent, but in this case I needed to kind of be in the in the bubble and I want to give my 12 year old lots of independence. But I also want to say, hey, I've got this, I know how to email this person, and so it's so much more than just the teacher and the student. There are the peers and there's the learners' families and the communities. And this is not just true for the younger students. Like I said, the Sanford Harmony materials are more for younger learners, but there's a lot out there for all different, but it's for adults too.

I mean, we're all part of some broader ecosystem, some big picture, and you know we saw it during COVID too, but we see it all the time where if somebody is having a rough time, a bad day I remember an anecdote from when I was taking flute lessons back in the 80s and my teacher wonderful person, sort of like you were saying has that disposition. That's just the teacher you remember for the rest of your life. And she could tell I just wasn't having a good day. I had broken up with my boyfriend, and so she just knew it. And it makes me want to cry because I remember her empathy and like I didn't even have to tell her what happened, you could just see. And so we just kind of changed the lesson for that day and kind of adapted, because she could tell, okay, we're not going to be working really hard on these scales today. How about we play some duets? How about we do this something we enjoy together, right, and so, yeah, it's important, right.

So she understood, and that's true for the parents and true for the community we all have to support and kind of read the room and say, okay, how's this person doing? And you also has courses on trauma, informed teaching practices and they go along with SEL. It's that idea of you know, the parents, the family, the peers, the friends, the community, anyone my neighbor is, anyone who says, hey, looks like this person, maybe let's kind of bring them into the fold and have a quick chat. Or hey, let's find a way to, you know, make them feel like included and connecting, instead of just powering through with some kind of you know determination, just supporting them emotionally. It comes from everyone and it's really everyone needs it. It's universal.

0:27:39 - Kimberly King

I love that and it is true kind of anything and everything we're doing, especially these days when you have your pack around you checking in. What resources would you recommend for teachers, parents and others interested in learning more about SEL? You talked about it a little bit, but I don't know if you have anything specific that you want to talk about for these resources.

0:27:59 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

Sure, sure. Well, CASEL is number one. Definitely check that out. And there are other similar sites.

So if you kind of look at that one and then branch off because you know, I know I work with some early childhood teachers a lot of their stuff aligns.

If you look at the professional organization NAEYC, for them, a lot of their stuff.

If you look side by side at what CASEL talks about and sort of their framework and you look at basic things that are good practice in teaching early childhood, it aligns beautifully. So sometimes going to your professional organization if you're a teacher of math or teacher of music or whatever and seeing how they approach it teachers of English learners and things like that and, most importantly, trying to find quality sources. So if you're curious and you want to learn more beyond sort of that CASEL website or the Stanford Harmony, which is really nicely packaged, you could maybe do a university or community library research or Google scholar looking for some evidence based articles on SEL and avoiding some of those pitfalls and misunderstandings of what SEL is right, like really going to the source and say, okay, CASEL's got the information, Sanford Harmony's got the information, and then maybe my professional organization as a teacher, whatever I have context and grade level and things and just maybe talking to people who have those primary sources research based, evidence based sources. A lot of great stuff out there, so good stuff to look for.

0:29:21 - Kimberly King

Great, and is there anything else about SEL that people might want to be thinking about right now that it is the new year, 2024?

0:29:30 - Dr. Maggie Broderick

2024 already, wow. Well, I think it's a good time to start something new. So, like we said earlier, think about maybe baby steps. Take a little, you know, a little moment to think. Okay, I can start small, you know, maybe my school is very supportive of this, maybe not, maybe I only know a little.

But, honestly, if you do a little research and you think about what you're already doing as a person, as an important person who cares about a learner, and you're an important person in their life, maybe you're their teacher, parent, family member, community member, neighbor, whatever the case may be, flute teacher whatever you're already doing, you know building and nurturing those, those five competencies from castle, right? What are you doing about helping that person with their self regulation and their reflection, with their relationships with others? Right, I talked about playing those duets. Right, I played duets with my teacher. I had to play them with other people too. So, you know, what are you doing to foster that and how can you maybe do more?

And then, if you were able to do it as the teacher, let's say what might you do to help SEL infusion of your whole school culture, the whole climate wherever you might find yourself after school program, or something. It's going to differ for everyone and our communities are so diverse. But just maybe take time to reflect and build day by day with that core idea of SEL in mind, because it's really it's a perspective and an approach. More than anything. It's not like a totally packaged program, it's just it's really the heart and the mind of a person and just taking that moment to realize you know where is my mind, where is my heart in all of this and how can I do more to help the learners so that supports them in their journey and in all sorts of ways, not just academically but the social, emotional growth for their whole life, I'd say.

0:31:18 - Kimberly King

I love it. Thanks for taking the time to tell us more about what social emotional learning is all about, and I love your passion. We appreciate you coming on with us and if you want more information, you can visit National University's website at nu.edu. And thank you again for your time. Thanks so much. You've been listening to the National University podcast. For updates on future or past guests, visit us at nu.edu. You can also follow us on social media. Thanks for listening.