5 Ways to Teach Social Emotional Learning in the High School Classroom

Social Emotional Learning can be pushed to the side when it comes to high school students. However, as you will learn below, high school students need this SEL support more than ever. In the below article, you will find a brief description of what SEL is, why it is important, and 5 different ways that you can teach social emotional learning in your high school classroom. 

What is Social Emotional Learning?

SEL is an acronym for Social Emotional Learning. The core concepts of this type of learning are: self awareness, self management, decision making, and interpersonal skills (such as relationship skills and social awareness).

These specific skills might take the form of learning empathy, problem solving, emotional regulation, stress management, relationship building, time management or organization, among others.

It is especially beneficial for gifted students as they need more direct instruction on some of these skills. However, social emotional learning is not just for gifted students or those in the younger grades.

High school students are stressed with their courses and need these tools to help them navigate not just high school but the rest of the world and academia too.

To learn more about Social Emotional Learning, check out the full article here! We discuss what social emotional learning is in depth, why we need it in high school, and an example lesson of what it might look like in your classroom.

Importance of Social Emotional Learning

When trying to find SEL information that would benefit my own high school students, I noticed that I find many resources are directed toward elementary students, sometimes including middle school. But what about the high schoolers?

They are still stressed as they take on more classes and get ready for college or other avenues out into the world beyond education. They also need different structures for how to learn SEL concepts so that it is relevant to them.

Plus, as mentioned above, SEL is part of the gifted learning standards/outcomes and should especially be incorporated into classrooms that have gifted students (not just gifted classes). 

I know that as a high school teacher, I sometimes assumed that my students already had these skills from elementary and middle school, only to realize that my assumption was far off.

Students need more help as their lives become more stressful. Plus, even if students have learned some of these skills in previous grades, the needs of their academic journey have changed once transitioning to high school and they may not know how to adapt these skills to a new and often more stressful environment.

As such, even one lesson a month or even quarter can help students understand the SEL curriculum more fully and hopefully continue to adapt these skills in the future.

To learn more about the benefits of incorporating SEL into your high school classroom, click here. In this article, we discuss how social emotional learning can help build rapport with students.

Social Emotional Learning in the Classroom

Embedding Social Emotional Learning in the classroom does not have to be an overwhelming task. The hope is that you will be able to provide a safe environment where students can learn about stress-management, time-management, empathy, and interpersonal skills so that they can succeed in the future. 

However, that does not mean that you get to dump your own mental health into a dumpster fire just so that you can support your students. As the old saying goes, “put your mask on first.”

As such, take what you can from the following activities. Feel free to use parts or as much as you deem necessary not just for your individual students, but also for the amount of effort it takes to implement. The irony of having teacher burnout because of social emotional learning is not a path we want to go down. 

My goal here is to offer as much information as I can, so that it is easiest for you to add to your classroom a little at a time. Look for resources (here or otherwise) that are printable and take little prep time (we both know you barely have any as it is). 

The key to teaching, especially with anywhere from 100-200 students under your care, is to balance your mental health with their social emotional learning. Teaching works best when both you AND your students are benefitting and (relatively) stress free. The following activities are made to try and help create that balance.

5 Ways to Teach Social Emotional Learning in High School

1. Well-Being Wednesdays/Wellness Wednesdays

• This option is a favorite for both myself and my students. We would only get to do this about once a month, but the students seriously looked forward to knowing that they wouldn’t have to be “on” and could actually make time to relax (while also learning something) for a class period. 
• I would set it in the calendar, usually on a short day, and spend 30-40 minutes to complete a full lesson plan that included: a bell work journal prompt, a video on the topic, an interactive activity to practice together, and end on a reflection about the topic/activity (discussion or individual writing).
• You can incorporate these weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. Do what works best for your students. If you would like a sample of one of my Wellness Wednesday activities, check it out here. 

2. Brain Breaks

• Purposefully add in brain breaks throughout the class period (especially if you are on block scheduling). The attention span for an adult is about 30 minutes, so you can only imagine how long it is for teenagers. 
• I like to change activities or topics or incorporate movement of some kind every 20-30 minutes. This may be to get up and stretch, to take a walk outside as a class (if available), to color, complete a journal reflection, listen to a guided meditation, play a quick game, or just have time for students to talk to their peers about a SEL topic (or not). 
• Brain Breaks are a fantastic way to keep students engaged in your content and they only take up 5-10 minutes (your choice) to complete. Then, students come back to their work with their brains ready to get things done.
• Plus, by having students purposefully take a break every 25 minutes, you are teaching them the POMODORO study technique. You can learn more about this effective study habit here. The article is written with students in mind, so you can even print it as a resource for more direct instruction on time-management if you have extra time. 

3. Bell Work

• Bell Work is a great tool to use for journal prompts. These can be turned in, kept in a notebook, or periodically checked at the end of the quarter. That part is up to you and how much paperwork you want to handle.
• But, using bell work to allow students time to reflect on their day, write down affirmations, discuss their stress levels, engage in a stress management technique, etc.
• The first 5 minutes of class (when used as part of your routine) helps situate your students into a more calm headspace and gives them consistent practice with journaling that they can use outside of class. 

4. Testing Days

• You know those days where you only have half your students in a class and don’t want to get too far forward in one period versus the others? AKA most of the month of May…
• This is a great time to incorporate SEL learning. Students are already stressed about exams and tired from all the testing. Give them skills and space to cope with that stress in a healthy way. Plus, you can take a breather and join in with students as they embrace more SEL in their lives.

5. Extra Time

• Students finishing early, some taking extra long while the others wait, you end up finishing 10 minutes early on a lecture that took the entire class last period. 
• All of these have happened in my class and I’m sure yours too. So what do we do with that time? 
• Students can start on their homework, or you can use the opportunity to incorporate a short SEL strategy: coloring for stress management, meditation, journaling, a video on how stress impacts the brain, organization techniques, relationship building questions, etc.
• For quick coloring printables for teens, check these out.
• Use the extra time when it happens to incorporate a concrete skill that students can use beyond the classroom. 

Becoming a Social Emotional Learning Teacher

Want more information on each of these activities? 

I will be releasing my High School Specific Social Emotional Learning Course in a few weeks! 

And the whole thing is FREE! 

This course will help you incorporate social emotional learning activities to build rapport with your students, while also making it an easy implementation for you. Sign up for my newsletter here to get more information on stress management, social emotional learning, and even more free resources!

Can’t wait for the free course or want some other stress-management resources you can use right now? 

Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers Store for coloring pages, a stress-management ebook, or a time-management ebook ready for student use. You can also find these resources in my video courses here.