October 16, 2020 • 38 mins
This week, I speak with my teaching team about how we integrated social and emotional learning into our online graduate courses. We speak about how we created a class climate of openness, respect, and value for everyone's experiences and views through modelling, engagement, and empathy.
Amanda Krause is a PhD Student in Clinical Psychology and was the teaching assistant for the Social and Emotional Learning Special Topics Course.
Sarah Bethune is a MA Student in Counselling Psychology and was the teaching assistant for the Social and Emotional Competencies in Distance Leadership.
Resources (e.g., syllabi, examples of assessment notebooks, etc. are available on the episode website).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Heather Woods (00:01):
Hello, you're listening to the SEL in Action
podcast podcast where we explorewhat social and emotional
learning looks like in differenteducational and professional
settings. I'm your host, HeatherWoods. And today on episode
seven, we'll be talking abouthow to implement social
emotional competencies in youronline courses. And so today I
have with me my teaching teamfrom the last year, we have
(00:24):
Amanda Krause who is my ta inthe social emotional learning
Special Topics course. And thenwe have Sarah Bethune, who is my
ta in the social emotionalcompetencies in distance
leadership course. So thank youboth so much for being here
today to talk about how we kindof thought through implementing
social emotional competencies inour courses over the last year
(00:46):
or so
Sarah Bethune (00:47):
thank you for having us.
Amanda Krause (00:49):
Yeah. Thank you.
Happy to be here.
Heather Woods (00:51):
Well, I guess first, I should mention that you
two were part of my greatteaching team, partly because of
your educational background. SoSarah is a second year Master's
of education student doingEducational Counseling, our
educational psychology, andAmanda Krause is doing her first
(01:12):
year of her PhD in clinicalpsychology, and was a
Educational Counseling studentat the time that she was working
with me. And so their expertisewas invaluable throughout the
course. And yeah, so I'm reallylooking forward to chatting
today. And so my first kind ofquestion is, you know, what are
(01:33):
some of the strategies that youkind of saw us implementing as a
teaching team to support ourstudents own social emotional
competencies online?
Amanda Krause (01:44):
I think for me, when you ask that question, and
one of the things that jumps outis healthy relationships, which
is a key component of socialemotional learning, and
competencies. I think, makingourselves as a teaching team
accessible to the students,introducing ourselves not just
as in this academic way, but aspeople too was a really
(02:09):
important way to build theserelationships with them on a
human level, rather than justprofessor and TA and student
level. And I think, in doing so,as a teaching team, the students
are also more likely andencouraged to do that with their
peers as well, building healthyrelationships, building
(02:31):
respectful and humanrelationships with their
colleagues in the course.
Sarah Bethune (02:37):
Yeah. And to add to that, the other thing that I
think is really important isthat we really tried to create
open communication. So one ofthe things that we did, for
example, was, we had a GoogleDoc, where we commented and
asked questions on differentassignments. And it's kind of
(02:57):
different than the traditionalway, you would often see it in
courses where the professor justmakes a comment on the
assignment, it was a lot morecollaborative, there was it was
opening up room for aconversation, where the students
could also, you know, write backto us and it could be more of a
back and forth.
Heather Woods (03:17):
Yeah, the I think the personalized assessment
notebooks really. Like, I know,Amanda, you you've, we use them
as well, in the winter. And Ithink it does open up that kind
of private space where there's aback and forth. And it's not
just that kind of I think itreally just builds on the
formative feedback. You know,we're outlining next steps or
(03:39):
additional questions to maybehelp them think a little bit
deeper about things. And yeah, Idon't know, Amanda, did you have
any kind of thoughts on on howthe assessment notebooks were
used, and kind of how theyfostered any competencies?
Amanda Krause (03:55):
Yeah, I think Sarah hit the nail on the head
that it really fostered thatopen communication, this sharing
of different perspectives, thestudent felt like their opinion
mattered, in their ownassessment. And I think the key
in all of this, is because it'sonline, those things get lost so
(04:19):
quickly. I think in highereducation courses, it's just,
it's just harder to have thoseopen lines of communication for
students to feel heard, and liketheir individual self matters.
Rather than just being a name ona screen, the professor doesn't
even get to see a face. And so Ithink in that way, it was really
(04:40):
successful in in providing thoseopen lines of communication,
even in an online format.
Heather Woods (04:47):
Yeah, and I think particularly right now, like we
were doing this long beforeCOVID, we were teaching online,
so we were definitely at a bitmore of an advantage in terms of
when all of that hit it was Asyou know, Sarah and I were
teaching in the spring and kindof had to quickly adapt at the
end. But I think because we hadthose open lines of
(05:09):
communication, it reallyinfluenced how we were able to
manage that shift. I don't know,Sarah, if you can maybe comment
on kind of maybe the communitythat we had built, and kind of
how you saw that, during that,you know, stressful pandemic
hit. If, if that brings upanything for you?
Sarah Bethune (05:29):
Yeah, well, one of the things that comes to mind
for me, was just trying to bevery empathetic of everyone's
situation. And the situationthat we're all in collectively,
at the moment, the way thecourse was designed, where, you
know, people could completetheir readings and their
assignments within a flexibletime period, I think was really
(05:52):
important. And I think, youknow, having those notebooks,
the assessment notebook, forexample, was a good way. Like I
said, to open the communication,but nothing was ever forced,
either. I feel like, you know,it allows the student a chance
to reach out if they want to.
And we did try to do that on afew occasions to check in with
(06:13):
them. But if they didn't wantto, that was okay, as well,
Heather Woods (06:19):
any kind of other. Like, I know, you both
had the opportunity to we hadlike optional skill, building
things, which, obviously reallyrelated to the topic of the
course, like we were teachingabout social emotional
competencies, but any thoughtson like, those optional kind of
skill, building things and maybehow we integrated those subtly
(06:41):
into even our own teachingpractice,
Amanda Krause (06:45):
I'm trying to think about some of those skill
building options that were givento the students. And the one
that's coming to mind is theempathy one. Which, I know,
like, while they were optional,the students really enjoyed
doing them, because it wasn'tjust specific to this course,
(07:10):
and learning the content. Butthese are things that are
applicable to other areas oflife. And many of the students
that are part of the course, atleast the one that we taught,
together, were teachers orparents or working in other
fields. And so these socialemotional competencies are, can
(07:31):
be applied across the board, tomany different realms. And I
think that was reallyappreciated. And then from a
teaching perspective, doingthose activities along with them
and coming up with thoseactivities, and in trying to
implement them in terms of howwe communicated with students
Heather Woods (07:48):
any thoughts, Sarah?
Sarah Bethune (07:50):
Um, yeah, I agree with what Amanda saying, I think
a lot of the optional activitiesthat we tried to include were
things like, we also looked atmindfulness and self compassion
and things that people couldintegrate into their career in
their professional lives, or asa student, but also in their
(08:12):
everyday lives as well. Andespecially during a pandemic. I
mean, these are skills that Ithink can be really helpful,
professionally, but also,personally. Mm hmm.
Heather Woods (08:25):
Yeah, I almost wonder if they'd be applicable
to like, you know, differentcourses, just always having that
like, little bit of optional,because we're, like, academics
are always thinking of ways thatwe can kind of foster those
social emotional skills at thehigher ed level. But whether
it's like a little add on,
Amanda Krause (08:44):
that makes me think about the primary, like
the public school curriculumright now, just what you're
saying here. And that, ideally,we have social emotional
competencies integratedthroughout all subjects
throughout the whole day, fromlike, kindergarten or whatever,
all the way through to highschool. And for some reason,
(09:09):
higher ed kind of gets forgottenabout, we don't think it's
important. While they're adults,maybe they can do this on their
own. But it just makes me wonderthat these things are just as
important in your adulthood, asthey are as a child, or a youth.
And maybe we should be thinkingabout integrating these social
(09:29):
emotional competencies into inhigher ed across courses, across
faculties, across departments,and that it shouldn't just be
designated to a single coursethat actually teaches on the
content of social emotionallearning.
Sarah Bethune (09:46):
I agree. And I also think that, you know,
people are busy and they have alot going on, and sometimes it's
difficult to be researchingthese things or trying to, you
know, search to build thesecompetencies in your spare time,
I think it's, it's reallyrelevant. And I think it's
really handy to have these builtin optionally, to a course to
(10:09):
where you know that you'regetting good resources, and
you're not, you know, spendingyour free time necessarily
looking into these things.
Heather Woods (10:16):
Mm hmm.
Certainly. Yeah. And I mean, itjust, I think reinforces that
kind of notion that these skillslike social emotional skills,
whether it's self awareness, orself management, you know,
social awareness, are all thingsthat you can build on and work
on and develop across yourlifetime. Like it doesn't you
(10:37):
don't stop developing theseskills, like in K to eight.
right? So I wonder if there'sother ways that you kind of saw
us providing opportunities forstudents to engage in developing
these skills? In our coursestructure?
Sarah Bethune (10:53):
Yeah, one thing that I think was really
important is this opportunityfor self reflection. You know,
we had that self evaluation thatwe did at the end of two weeks,
where we asked them, you know,what they felt they learned how
they were actually feeling aboutthe material. And I think having
a formal way of asking them toengage in self reflection can be
(11:16):
really beneficial. And I thinkfrom my understanding, a lot of
them actually enjoyed thatopportunity as well.
Heather Woods (11:23):
Mm hmm. I hope so.
Amanda Krause (11:25):
Yeah, I think what's coming to mind is the
openness of the activities, eachmodule or each bi weekly period,
there was tasks, there isactivities and and things to do
related to the content. But Ifelt like it was it was open
enough that the student couldput their own, like real stamp
(11:47):
on it, from their own individualperspective from wherever
they're coming from. There's alot of diversity in the students
kind of like what I mentioned inthose aspects, but also students
from different parts of theworld, different parts of the
country. And I think theassignment provided that
flexibility for them to becomeuse their self awareness to
(12:11):
integrate parts of theirperspectives and share parts of
themselves that make thelearning more applicable to
them, the content moreapplicable to them, but also to
develop those social emotionalcompetencies that you may not be
able to get if, if theassignments were more
structured, or there was lessroom for flexibility in, in
(12:33):
completing the task.
Heather Woods (12:34):
Yeah. So just to kind of add some clarification
there. All the assignments werefairly flexible, I think, over
the the two courses that wetaught together, they always had
lots of options, which I thinkis overwhelming. For some
students like coming into, youknow, they're so used to having
very structured like, you needto write this much, it needs to
(12:57):
be formatted This way, you needto include these points, whereas
we kind of let them decide howthey would present things. It
was very student focused, very,like bring your personal
experiences professionalpractice into this, like, we
need to see those connections,which I think is a huge part of
adult learning, as well asmaking those connections to
(13:18):
experience. But yeah, just toclarify that like, and they had
an independent research projectwhere they got to deep dive into
a competency or a skill andrelate it back to their
professions and create like aresource or write a paper, it
was up to them. How do you thinkthat structuring, like the, the
assignments and everything inthat way it kind of influenced
(13:41):
like students, you know, ownskill building or opportunity to
engage their skills,
Amanda Krause (13:46):
I think self management is a huge part of
that just managing your timemanaging, making decisions in
terms of what's most important,what's most relevant to me,
what's going to be the best useof my time, the openness and the
flexibility of theseassignments, kind of forces the
students to, to think about,okay, what do I care about most?
(14:10):
Or how do I want to use thisproject, which are difficult
skills, and sometimes it feelslike it's easier to just have
someone tell you what to do, orlike have it structured like and
what how things are supposed tolook. But I that it doesn't
necessarily have the same impactor the same meaning and the
(14:31):
skills in terms of Yeah,decision making and managing
yourself and this project isreally, like you have full
ownership over it. Not only arethey key comp competencies and
the social emotional learningrealm, but they're just
applicable for any profession ormanaging your daily life, your
(14:53):
own personal chores, tasks,errands but then like your
professional obligations,because Well, they kind of go
hand in hand.
Sarah Bethune (15:02):
Yeah. And to add to that I think you don't often
see courses was such a diversewith students who have such
diverse experiences. So that Ithought was really interesting
to partake in. Because, youknow, they were in discussion
with each other, and they hadsuch a unique things to share.
And I think it really added tothe course. And I think the
(15:24):
flexibility in the assignmentsallowed for creativity as well.
And just being able to choose,you know, what's relevant to
their profession, or what'simportant to them. And also, you
know, be able to share some oftheir experiences and expertise
in certain areas.
Heather Woods (15:41):
Yeah. And I think, like, you bring up an
interesting point, both of youhave mentioned kind of the
diverse group that we get at thegraduate level in education. And
so our program, it has a healthprofessions education program,
there's teaching and learning,there's leadership, there's
curriculum, there's, you know,all these different aspects of
(16:03):
teaching, but then also, healthprofessions and like,
oftentimes, and leadership, likepeople may not have a teaching
degree, they're in a differentleadership type role, but
looking to get into likeleadership education, or
leadership training, so they,you know, sign up for this
graduate course. And I think,oftentimes, and what we were
(16:26):
seeing in a lot of the time isin the open discussion rooms,
people were like, oh, like, Ihadn't thought about it that
way, or like seeing how itapplies to different
professions, I think,particularly Sarah, in our
course, where they were able totalk about their professional
practice, quite a bit, becausewe were talking about leadership
(16:46):
across domains. But I thinkhaving that open discussion
room, where everyone kind of wassharing some experiences, but
then on the flip side, we alsohad, like, the specialized
discussion rooms, where theywere more with like, their
similar professional peers, Ithink, created a really
(17:06):
interesting dynamic that theycould have that kind of group
where they really related, butthen also have that opportunity
to see what is happening acrossdomains, which was really,
really neat to watch.
Sarah Bethune (17:17):
To add to that, too, I noticed that a lot of the
students had just varying levelsof experience, like some of
them, you know, might have beenmuch younger, or they were just,
you know, at the beginning oftheir careers and other people
were taking courses, but theywere, you know, 20 years into
their careers. So it was alsoreally interesting to see that
dynamic.
Heather Woods (17:37):
Mm hmm. And I think right off the bat, we were
trying to really be explicit,and highlighting everyone's
expertise, like, Yes, I haveexpertise in social and
emotional learning. But thatdoesn't mean I know everything.
And I don't know, you know, thathow it applies to the whole
(17:57):
world. You know, I have veryspecialized knowledge, but
everybody's experiences andexpertise was valuable in that
course. So I think the differentexpertise and professions plus
the different ages, I think, Iwould like to think you can
correct me if I'm wrong, but wedid try to create a climate that
(18:22):
everyone's perspectives andexperiences were important and
valued. And I think everybodywas able to really learn off of,
you know, each other, with thatkind of climate. I mean, within
their introductions on all theirintroductions, I was saying,
like, Oh, this is so great. Youbring this to the course or, you
(18:44):
know, um, so yeah, I think, Idon't know, it was I think we
did all right, and creating adecent climate, for sharing and
valuing each other'sperspectives.
Amanda Krause (18:56):
I think when I was teaching, or the teaching
assistant for the socialemotional learning course, that
was this past winter semester,so from January to April, which
is also when COVID-19 wasintroduced into our lives. I'm
late, that's the nicest way ofputting it. And so I think I
(19:18):
remember looking at these opendiscussion boards between the
students and their groups, andeveryone's sharing the different
perspectives and the challengesthat they have been facing as
they're trying to cope with thispandemic, going to school,
parenting, what does work looklike? Now all of these things
are changing. And the amount ofsupport that the students are
(19:42):
giving each other and this likeempathy that they were offering
one other and just sharing theirown different perspectives
because they were all in we werein similar boats but we're all
in are in different boats to inour in our situations looked
really different from one to thenext. And I remember, just, I
(20:04):
mean, it was difficult, butseeing the support that each
student was offering and theunderstanding that your student
was offering that was reallycool to see. And I don't think
is not necessarily often seen inonline courses, that sense of
community, that sense ofbelongingness. That sense of
(20:24):
people care about what I have tosay, or even if I get a little
vulnerable, or share somethingmore personal, I'm not going to
be made to feel bad about it,like people are going to
understand me and accept mestill. I think that was
something that was importantfrom, like, as a teaching team,
we also brought those samecharacteristics to the students.
(20:48):
And then the students sharedthose characteristics with each
other.
Heather Woods (20:53):
Mm hmm.
Amanda Krause (20:53):
So yeah, I just, that was really cool. And that
was a really difficulttransitionary period.
Heather Woods (20:59):
Yeah, certainly.
Earlier, I said it was Sarah,that was with me during that
time. But no, you're totallyright. It was you and I, Amanda,
that did the transition to COVIDtimes. Just goes to show that
we've been in this for too long.
All my time, is blurringtogether. Yeah, I think, you
(21:19):
know, creating that climate andcreating those opportunities for
less academic type interactions.
Like, I think their smallgroups, we call them
professional learningcommunities, provided that kind
of less structured, we hadquestions for them to answer,
but what's working well, andkind of lots of reflective
(21:40):
questions, but I think theyreally used many of them use
that as an opportunity to, youknow, have less formal
conversations. So yeah, I think,you know, it really helped
create the atmosphere that wehad, where everything was quite
open and a strong community. Anyother kind of thoughts on on
(22:04):
skills that we engaged withourselves or fostered with our
students during the academicterm?
Sarah Bethune (22:14):
I guess you could say one thing is that we really
tried to ask questions tofacilitate reflection and
further thinking. And, you know,there wasn't necessarily this
relationship. I mean, I knowAmanda mentioned it earlier, but
this relationship of like, aweird hierarchy between the
(22:37):
teaching team and the students,it really felt like it was a
really collaborative experience.
And that, you know, it was itwas more of a discussion, and we
were asking questions back andforth. And I think that was
quite beneficial. Yeah,
Heather Woods (22:52):
certainly, yeah, I miss you both this term, I
don't have a teaching assistant,or teaching team, but it would
have been really fun to haveboth of you on and kind of this
term, I'm experimenting with,like, way more flexibility than
we did previously. And I think,yeah, it would have been just
really fun for us all to worktogether and see how that works
(23:14):
out. But I'm on my own thisterm. Was there anything that
you, you know, saw usimplementing or me trying to
implement that kind of didn'twork so well, in terms of trying
to foster like community or, youknow, opportunities for student
(23:38):
reflection and criticalthinking,
Amanda Krause (23:41):
I think, Okay. I don't know if this directly
answers your question. But atleast in the course that we
taught together, and you had aHow are you poll for students to
fill out? Obviously, it was notobligatory. But just so that
(24:01):
they could tell us tell us howthey're doing. And it was
private, but it was a way for usto be able to check in and for
the students to, yeah, to haveautonomy over that as well. And
I might not be rememberingcorrectly, but I don't know how
often it was used. And Iwondered about, like, it's such
(24:24):
a good idea. And then I wonderedwhy students didn't fill it out
as like that often. And maybesome of the barriers, barriers
to that possibly, from lookingat it from this, like the
teaching team. And then thestudents and I don't know if
this is me thinking out loud,but that's something that came
(24:45):
to mind when you ask thatquestion.
Heather Woods (24:47):
Yeah, I know.
Like we sent it out kind ofright when the pandemic hit just
to check in with students. Andperhaps if I had like, continued
to send it out, I mean, thepandemic it fairly late in the
course, there's only a few weeksleft. But yeah, I know, Sarah
and I sent it out as well, Ibelieve once during the term,
(25:07):
and again, it didn't have ahuge, probably even less
response rate due to I thinkpeople kind of get
uncomfortable, not comfortable.
But, you know, they're, they'recoping already with the
pandemic, it wasn't a freshthing. But I mean, each time we
still had one or two people thatwanted me to reach out to them.
(25:30):
But yeah, I think I do wonderhow that can be used better, or
continue to break down thosethat kind of sense of hierarchy
and maybe not wanting todisclose if something's up.
Amanda Krause (25:43):
Yeah, because that's Yeah, what came up? That
was one thing that I wonderedabout was, no matter how hard
you try to dismantle this powerimbalance between teacher
teaching team and students, it'ssomething that is so ingrained
(26:04):
in us that we experience from,like four years old and
kindergarten, even like beforethen. And so it's a, I wonder
from the students perspective oflike, I do want to reach out,
but I don't know how, like,where my comfort level is in
that. And then thinking aboutis, yeah, is this something
(26:25):
that, like, the teachers andeducators should be this role
for students, because it's soembedded within social emotional
competencies, this empathy, justlike I care about you, beyond
just being a student, like, Icare about you as a person, and
I want to get to know you, and Iwant to make sure you're okay.
Heather Woods (26:46):
Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think it feeds into, at least
mine, my own philosophy ofteaching is, if you're not
building those connections withstudents, you know, it's
beneficial to the learningprocess, and allows them to
fully engage if they, you know,have that founding relationship
of trust, and know that, like,you know, you're there and
(27:10):
understand or will support themand understand that they're not
just a student, they are, youknow, a parent or a sibling, or
a caretaker of, you know, youknow, they have other things
outside of school. Um, and also,I think it's part of just my
philosophy to teaching is thatyou're teaching people and
(27:34):
people aren't just consumingknowledge there. There's
different aspects to them thatneed to be nurtured for them to
be able to learn and engage withthat knowledge. But yeah, I know
that that's, I mean, makes methink of so many things. But I
won't ramble. Any otherchallenges that you kind of saw
(27:54):
us facing? Or maybe you weremitigating for me behind?
Sarah Bethune (28:00):
One thing I noticed, although I feel like
this is a very common problemthroughout the semester. So I'm
really not sure what the answerhere is. But the participation
as the semester goes on, usuallydrops a little bit. And I
started to notice that peoplewere having maybe a bit more
difficulty engaging in the groupsometimes, or even, you know,
(28:25):
responding to their assessmentnotebooks. And I just wonder,
you know, what the answer tothat is, I don't really have it,
but it's just something Inoticed.
Heather Woods (28:35):
Amanda did you notice that at all? and unique
situation, though?
Amanda Krause (28:39):
Yeah, I'm really trying to reflect back on that
time, because it was a littlebit ago, and the end of our
semester was not normal. No. Ithink I just remember, people
needed flexibility. Peopleneeded time assistance,
(29:03):
understanding from us, becausebarriers were coming up that
they had never anticipatedbefore, that were getting in the
way of their schooling, whichmade it difficult for them to
complete things by the deadlinesthat we had originally set. And
I remember students reaching outto us saying like, this is up in
(29:25):
my life, like I'm dealing withthis. I don't know if I'm going
to have time and then asking forextensions, or just like, yeah,
support in completing theassignments, when may they be
before if COVID-19 wasn't athing, then they may not have
required that.
Heather Woods (29:42):
Yeah, and I know, like, even feedback from
students when we, during thespring, I think a lot of
students sign we're like, I haveall this free time. I'm gonna
take like four condensedcourses. And that's just silly.
That's a lot lot like condensedcourses, Oh, my goodness. So I
(30:03):
think I know a few of them, Igot messages saying like, you
know, nearing the mid to laterend of the term. They were just
so overwhelmed, because they'dsigned up for way too much and
then still had jobs or, youknow, this, that. And the other
thing, you know, I think we didour best to kind of let them
(30:23):
know that that was okay. And somaybe that also leads to the
disengagement a little bit,because they know that we
understand to some extent,ideally, they'd stay engaged.
And so, you know, that'sdefinitely something I think to
work on and think about issustaining that engagement,
which I think is a concern forall courses. So I think my final
(30:46):
question to you both is, do youthink how we approach teaching
over the last two terms, sospring, summer and winter was
more work than like a typicalteaching team effort?
Amanda Krause (31:04):
I think, yes, it is more work. If you are
actively engaged, we wereactively engaged as a teaching
team, commenting anddiscussions, keeping up with
those providing individualized,like personal feedback to
students, that wasn't just asingle sentence, it was a whole
paragraph. And it was reallytalking about what the student
(31:26):
had offered in their, theirassignment. So it is more work.
But it's more rewarding and moremeaningful, I think, personally,
for both, like, on the teachingside, and from the student side.
So it's not like this work isnot being reciprocated, you're
(31:46):
getting something back tenfold.
So I would say yes, more work,but worth the work.
Sarah Bethune (31:54):
Yeah, I agree with what Amanda saying
completely. And I also think, assomeone like, as part of the
teaching team, I think it wasalso just a really interesting
experience for me, because itfelt like, you know, I was
learning a lot as well. And Iwas engaging with them. And, you
know, it was really interestingexperience.
Heather Woods (32:15):
No, I think like, I agree, like, it is certainly
more work. But I think it's it'smore engaging. Yeah, like you're
saying, Sarah, like, it's moreengaging for us as the teaching
team to be that involved. Idon't necessarily think it's
sustainable. If you've got like,multiple courses, like I think,
(32:38):
probably do a couple of coursesif I wasn't also doing my
dissertation at the same time.
But you know, like, if you'vegot like a full course load, and
you're teaching like fourcourses at a time or something
like that's not sustainable tobe doing that level of
engagement with your students.
But, I mean, that's a commentaryon just workloads that we won't
get into. But yeah, I think it'sit's so rewarding to watch,
(33:03):
especially with the selfdirected projects, like, we
scaffolded that for them. Sothat they were kind of working
on chunks throughout the course.
And so we're actively involvedthe whole process of like
thinking through things withthem and offering suggestions or
resources or articles to lookinto. Yeah, and for me, that's
just very rewarding. I likebeing part of you know, that
(33:26):
process. So yeah, it wascertainly takes a long time. But
like you said, Amanda, it's soworth it.
Amanda Krause (33:37):
Yeah. And I, I think, seeing the students
experience, the course and howwe had organized it and how we
were involved with it. I guessthe word I'm thinking of is
refreshing, it's refreshing tothem, because higher ed,
graduate level courses,particularly online courses just
(33:57):
don't look like this.
Heather Woods (33:59):
Mm hmm.
Amanda Krause (34:00):
And a lot of ways, and so there was a lot of
I sensed a lot of appreciationand just like happiness to be a
part of this course there is agratefulness and as being on the
teaching team, that was alsothose I had similar feelings.
And so seeing the studentsrespond so positively to being
(34:22):
part of a course that wasdesigned in such a way that was
really cool as well.
Heather Woods (34:27):
Yeah. Certainly, any other kind of Final thoughts
about you know, how westructured the course I'll have
to put in the show notes, kindof our syllabus or something. So
people can kind of get a betteridea of how we laid everything
out. But yeah, any other finalthoughts on like, integrating
(34:48):
and thinking about findingopportunities to engage with
social emotional competencies inkind of higher ed learning?
Amanda Krause (34:56):
I think understanding Like, you don't
have to do it all at once. Youcan do bits and pieces. So
offering like little mindfulnessexercises or a video on empathy
or just like having an activitythat highlights diversity and
taking other people'sperspectives integrated to the
(35:19):
content of whatever courseyou're teaching. It doesn't have
to be the whole thing, becausethat feels overwhelming. And it
is a lot of work. So it's notmay not even be feasible. But I
think, take what you can and gofrom there. Because I think,
from our experiences, at least,it was very positive from the
(35:40):
student perspective. And it maybe worth integrating into a
course that has nothing to dowith social emotional learning,
or teaching and see how your howthe students respond.
Heather Woods (35:52):
Yeah, definitely,
Sarah Bethune (35:53):
I don't know. To add to that. I also think that
modeling some of these socialemotional competencies and
trying to actually integratethem into the course, rather
than just, let's say, readingabout it, or reflecting on a
reading, it was a little bitmore than that it was actually
practicing some of thecompetencies, which I think had
Heather Woods (36:13):
Mm hmm. Yeah, no, I think, you know, we did do our
a lot of value.
best to integrate. And I mean,it's not easy, but providing
those opportunities, like, youknow, just structuring, okay,
you're, you have this project,like maybe make a SMART goal
about it, and like break itdown. And like helping students
(36:33):
kind of implement these, youknow, study or goal setting
strategies. Without being likeoverly like, this is time
management. This is how you seta goal. Like it's just like a
subtle way of working in it. Ithink which is, is super helpful
to the students as well. Andthen it's not like you're
(36:53):
throwing this stuff at them kindof thing. It's more subtle and
integrated.
Well, thank you both so much forchatting with me today. It's so
great to kind of brainstorm andtalk about how things went over
the last few terms. And I wascertainly grateful to have you
part of the teaching team, youboth brought so much to the
(37:15):
course, in terms of how we didfeedback and how we communicated
with students and reallycreating that community. So I
definitely miss you both. Butthank you both so much for
taking time out of your verybusy Start of fall schedules to
chat with me. I really, rally appreciat
Amanda Krause (37:36):
This is fun.
Sarah Bethune (37:37):
It's really nice to see you guys.
Heather Woods (37:39):
So you've been listening to the SEL in Action
odcast. The podcast where wealk about social emoti
nal competencies in professionaland educational settings. Toda
, I was very fortunate enougto speak to my teaching team
for the last two semesters, Amnda Krause and Sarah Bethune, ta
king about how we kind of fosered community and engag
(38:01):
ment throughout our graduateevel courses that we were tea
hing last two terms. And so iyou want to continu
the conversation, feel free toeach out to us on Facebook, Tw
tter and Instagram. It's SEL inction or SEL-in-action.
om. I look forward to hearingyour thoughts about how you fos
(38:22):
er community and engage socil emotional competencie
in your classrooms. Until nextime, this is Heather Woods. Than
you for listening.
Hello, you're listening to the SEL in Action
podcast podcast where we explorewhat social and emotional
learning looks like in differenteducational and professional
settings. I'm your host, HeatherWoods. And today on episode
seven, we'll be talking abouthow to implement social
emotional competencies in youronline courses. And so today I
have with me my teaching teamfrom the last year, we have
(00:24):
Amanda Krause who is my ta inthe social emotional learning
Special Topics course. And thenwe have Sarah Bethune, who is my
ta in the social emotionalcompetencies in distance
leadership course. So thank youboth so much for being here
today to talk about how we kindof thought through implementing
social emotional competencies inour courses over the last year
(00:46):
or so
Sarah Bethune (00:47):
thank you for having us.
Amanda Krause (00:49):
Yeah. Thank you.
Happy to be here.
Heather Woods (00:51):
Well, I guess first, I should mention that you
two were part of my greatteaching team, partly because of
your educational background. SoSarah is a second year Master's
of education student doingEducational Counseling, our
educational psychology, andAmanda Krause is doing her first
(01:12):
year of her PhD in clinicalpsychology, and was a
Educational Counseling studentat the time that she was working
with me. And so their expertisewas invaluable throughout the
course. And yeah, so I'm reallylooking forward to chatting
today. And so my first kind ofquestion is, you know, what are
(01:33):
some of the strategies that youkind of saw us implementing as a
teaching team to support ourstudents own social emotional
competencies online?
Amanda Krause (01:44):
I think for me, when you ask that question, and
one of the things that jumps outis healthy relationships, which
is a key component of socialemotional learning, and
competencies. I think, makingourselves as a teaching team
accessible to the students,introducing ourselves not just
as in this academic way, but aspeople too was a really
(02:09):
important way to build theserelationships with them on a
human level, rather than justprofessor and TA and student
level. And I think, in doing so,as a teaching team, the students
are also more likely andencouraged to do that with their
peers as well, building healthyrelationships, building
(02:31):
respectful and humanrelationships with their
colleagues in the course.
Sarah Bethune (02:37):
Yeah. And to add to that, the other thing that I
think is really important isthat we really tried to create
open communication. So one ofthe things that we did, for
example, was, we had a GoogleDoc, where we commented and
asked questions on differentassignments. And it's kind of
(02:57):
different than the traditionalway, you would often see it in
courses where the professor justmakes a comment on the
assignment, it was a lot morecollaborative, there was it was
opening up room for aconversation, where the students
could also, you know, write backto us and it could be more of a
back and forth.
Heather Woods (03:17):
Yeah, the I think the personalized assessment
notebooks really. Like, I know,Amanda, you you've, we use them
as well, in the winter. And Ithink it does open up that kind
of private space where there's aback and forth. And it's not
just that kind of I think itreally just builds on the
formative feedback. You know,we're outlining next steps or
(03:39):
additional questions to maybehelp them think a little bit
deeper about things. And yeah, Idon't know, Amanda, did you have
any kind of thoughts on on howthe assessment notebooks were
used, and kind of how theyfostered any competencies?
Amanda Krause (03:55):
Yeah, I think Sarah hit the nail on the head
that it really fostered thatopen communication, this sharing
of different perspectives, thestudent felt like their opinion
mattered, in their ownassessment. And I think the key
in all of this, is because it'sonline, those things get lost so
(04:19):
quickly. I think in highereducation courses, it's just,
it's just harder to have thoseopen lines of communication for
students to feel heard, and liketheir individual self matters.
Rather than just being a name ona screen, the professor doesn't
even get to see a face. And so Ithink in that way, it was really
(04:40):
successful in in providing thoseopen lines of communication,
even in an online format.
Heather Woods (04:47):
Yeah, and I think particularly right now, like we
were doing this long beforeCOVID, we were teaching online,
so we were definitely at a bitmore of an advantage in terms of
when all of that hit it was Asyou know, Sarah and I were
teaching in the spring and kindof had to quickly adapt at the
end. But I think because we hadthose open lines of
(05:09):
communication, it reallyinfluenced how we were able to
manage that shift. I don't know,Sarah, if you can maybe comment
on kind of maybe the communitythat we had built, and kind of
how you saw that, during that,you know, stressful pandemic
hit. If, if that brings upanything for you?
Sarah Bethune (05:29):
Yeah, well, one of the things that comes to mind
for me, was just trying to bevery empathetic of everyone's
situation. And the situationthat we're all in collectively,
at the moment, the way thecourse was designed, where, you
know, people could completetheir readings and their
assignments within a flexibletime period, I think was really
(05:52):
important. And I think, youknow, having those notebooks,
the assessment notebook, forexample, was a good way. Like I
said, to open the communication,but nothing was ever forced,
either. I feel like, you know,it allows the student a chance
to reach out if they want to.
And we did try to do that on afew occasions to check in with
(06:13):
them. But if they didn't wantto, that was okay, as well,
Heather Woods (06:19):
any kind of other. Like, I know, you both
had the opportunity to we hadlike optional skill, building
things, which, obviously reallyrelated to the topic of the
course, like we were teachingabout social emotional
competencies, but any thoughtson like, those optional kind of
skill, building things and maybehow we integrated those subtly
(06:41):
into even our own teachingpractice,
Amanda Krause (06:45):
I'm trying to think about some of those skill
building options that were givento the students. And the one
that's coming to mind is theempathy one. Which, I know,
like, while they were optional,the students really enjoyed
doing them, because it wasn'tjust specific to this course,
(07:10):
and learning the content. Butthese are things that are
applicable to other areas oflife. And many of the students
that are part of the course, atleast the one that we taught,
together, were teachers orparents or working in other
fields. And so these socialemotional competencies are, can
(07:31):
be applied across the board, tomany different realms. And I
think that was reallyappreciated. And then from a
teaching perspective, doingthose activities along with them
and coming up with thoseactivities, and in trying to
implement them in terms of howwe communicated with students
Heather Woods (07:48):
any thoughts, Sarah?
Sarah Bethune (07:50):
Um, yeah, I agree with what Amanda saying, I think
a lot of the optional activitiesthat we tried to include were
things like, we also looked atmindfulness and self compassion
and things that people couldintegrate into their career in
their professional lives, or asa student, but also in their
(08:12):
everyday lives as well. Andespecially during a pandemic. I
mean, these are skills that Ithink can be really helpful,
professionally, but also,personally. Mm hmm.
Heather Woods (08:25):
Yeah, I almost wonder if they'd be applicable
to like, you know, differentcourses, just always having that
like, little bit of optional,because we're, like, academics
are always thinking of ways thatwe can kind of foster those
social emotional skills at thehigher ed level. But whether
it's like a little add on,
Amanda Krause (08:44):
that makes me think about the primary, like
the public school curriculumright now, just what you're
saying here. And that, ideally,we have social emotional
competencies integratedthroughout all subjects
throughout the whole day, fromlike, kindergarten or whatever,
all the way through to highschool. And for some reason,
(09:09):
higher ed kind of gets forgottenabout, we don't think it's
important. While they're adults,maybe they can do this on their
own. But it just makes me wonderthat these things are just as
important in your adulthood, asthey are as a child, or a youth.
And maybe we should be thinkingabout integrating these social
(09:29):
emotional competencies into inhigher ed across courses, across
faculties, across departments,and that it shouldn't just be
designated to a single coursethat actually teaches on the
content of social emotionallearning.
Sarah Bethune (09:46):
I agree. And I also think that, you know,
people are busy and they have alot going on, and sometimes it's
difficult to be researchingthese things or trying to, you
know, search to build thesecompetencies in your spare time,
I think it's, it's reallyrelevant. And I think it's
really handy to have these builtin optionally, to a course to
(10:09):
where you know that you'regetting good resources, and
you're not, you know, spendingyour free time necessarily
looking into these things.
Heather Woods (10:16):
Mm hmm.
Certainly. Yeah. And I mean, itjust, I think reinforces that
kind of notion that these skillslike social emotional skills,
whether it's self awareness, orself management, you know,
social awareness, are all thingsthat you can build on and work
on and develop across yourlifetime. Like it doesn't you
(10:37):
don't stop developing theseskills, like in K to eight.
right? So I wonder if there'sother ways that you kind of saw
us providing opportunities forstudents to engage in developing
these skills? In our coursestructure?
Sarah Bethune (10:53):
Yeah, one thing that I think was really
important is this opportunityfor self reflection. You know,
we had that self evaluation thatwe did at the end of two weeks,
where we asked them, you know,what they felt they learned how
they were actually feeling aboutthe material. And I think having
a formal way of asking them toengage in self reflection can be
(11:16):
really beneficial. And I thinkfrom my understanding, a lot of
them actually enjoyed thatopportunity as well.
Heather Woods (11:23):
Mm hmm. I hope so.
Amanda Krause (11:25):
Yeah, I think what's coming to mind is the
openness of the activities, eachmodule or each bi weekly period,
there was tasks, there isactivities and and things to do
related to the content. But Ifelt like it was it was open
enough that the student couldput their own, like real stamp
(11:47):
on it, from their own individualperspective from wherever
they're coming from. There's alot of diversity in the students
kind of like what I mentioned inthose aspects, but also students
from different parts of theworld, different parts of the
country. And I think theassignment provided that
flexibility for them to becomeuse their self awareness to
(12:11):
integrate parts of theirperspectives and share parts of
themselves that make thelearning more applicable to
them, the content moreapplicable to them, but also to
develop those social emotionalcompetencies that you may not be
able to get if, if theassignments were more
structured, or there was lessroom for flexibility in, in
(12:33):
completing the task.
Heather Woods (12:34):
Yeah. So just to kind of add some clarification
there. All the assignments werefairly flexible, I think, over
the the two courses that wetaught together, they always had
lots of options, which I thinkis overwhelming. For some
students like coming into, youknow, they're so used to having
very structured like, you needto write this much, it needs to
(12:57):
be formatted This way, you needto include these points, whereas
we kind of let them decide howthey would present things. It
was very student focused, very,like bring your personal
experiences professionalpractice into this, like, we
need to see those connections,which I think is a huge part of
adult learning, as well asmaking those connections to
(13:18):
experience. But yeah, just toclarify that like, and they had
an independent research projectwhere they got to deep dive into
a competency or a skill andrelate it back to their
professions and create like aresource or write a paper, it
was up to them. How do you thinkthat structuring, like the, the
assignments and everything inthat way it kind of influenced
(13:41):
like students, you know, ownskill building or opportunity to
engage their skills,
Amanda Krause (13:46):
I think self management is a huge part of
that just managing your timemanaging, making decisions in
terms of what's most important,what's most relevant to me,
what's going to be the best useof my time, the openness and the
flexibility of theseassignments, kind of forces the
students to, to think about,okay, what do I care about most?
(14:10):
Or how do I want to use thisproject, which are difficult
skills, and sometimes it feelslike it's easier to just have
someone tell you what to do, orlike have it structured like and
what how things are supposed tolook. But I that it doesn't
necessarily have the same impactor the same meaning and the
(14:31):
skills in terms of Yeah,decision making and managing
yourself and this project isreally, like you have full
ownership over it. Not only arethey key comp competencies and
the social emotional learningrealm, but they're just
applicable for any profession ormanaging your daily life, your
(14:53):
own personal chores, tasks,errands but then like your
professional obligations,because Well, they kind of go
hand in hand.
Sarah Bethune (15:02):
Yeah. And to add to that I think you don't often
see courses was such a diversewith students who have such
diverse experiences. So that Ithought was really interesting
to partake in. Because, youknow, they were in discussion
with each other, and they hadsuch a unique things to share.
And I think it really added tothe course. And I think the
(15:24):
flexibility in the assignmentsallowed for creativity as well.
And just being able to choose,you know, what's relevant to
their profession, or what'simportant to them. And also, you
know, be able to share some oftheir experiences and expertise
in certain areas.
Heather Woods (15:41):
Yeah. And I think, like, you bring up an
interesting point, both of youhave mentioned kind of the
diverse group that we get at thegraduate level in education. And
so our program, it has a healthprofessions education program,
there's teaching and learning,there's leadership, there's
curriculum, there's, you know,all these different aspects of
(16:03):
teaching, but then also, healthprofessions and like,
oftentimes, and leadership, likepeople may not have a teaching
degree, they're in a differentleadership type role, but
looking to get into likeleadership education, or
leadership training, so they,you know, sign up for this
graduate course. And I think,oftentimes, and what we were
(16:26):
seeing in a lot of the time isin the open discussion rooms,
people were like, oh, like, Ihadn't thought about it that
way, or like seeing how itapplies to different
professions, I think,particularly Sarah, in our
course, where they were able totalk about their professional
practice, quite a bit, becausewe were talking about leadership
(16:46):
across domains. But I thinkhaving that open discussion
room, where everyone kind of wassharing some experiences, but
then on the flip side, we alsohad, like, the specialized
discussion rooms, where theywere more with like, their
similar professional peers, Ithink, created a really
(17:06):
interesting dynamic that theycould have that kind of group
where they really related, butthen also have that opportunity
to see what is happening acrossdomains, which was really,
really neat to watch.
Sarah Bethune (17:17):
To add to that, too, I noticed that a lot of the
students had just varying levelsof experience, like some of
them, you know, might have beenmuch younger, or they were just,
you know, at the beginning oftheir careers and other people
were taking courses, but theywere, you know, 20 years into
their careers. So it was alsoreally interesting to see that
dynamic.
Heather Woods (17:37):
Mm hmm. And I think right off the bat, we were
trying to really be explicit,and highlighting everyone's
expertise, like, Yes, I haveexpertise in social and
emotional learning. But thatdoesn't mean I know everything.
And I don't know, you know, thathow it applies to the whole
(17:57):
world. You know, I have veryspecialized knowledge, but
everybody's experiences andexpertise was valuable in that
course. So I think the differentexpertise and professions plus
the different ages, I think, Iwould like to think you can
correct me if I'm wrong, but wedid try to create a climate that
(18:22):
everyone's perspectives andexperiences were important and
valued. And I think everybodywas able to really learn off of,
you know, each other, with thatkind of climate. I mean, within
their introductions on all theirintroductions, I was saying,
like, Oh, this is so great. Youbring this to the course or, you
(18:44):
know, um, so yeah, I think, Idon't know, it was I think we
did all right, and creating adecent climate, for sharing and
valuing each other'sperspectives.
Amanda Krause (18:56):
I think when I was teaching, or the teaching
assistant for the socialemotional learning course, that
was this past winter semester,so from January to April, which
is also when COVID-19 wasintroduced into our lives. I'm
late, that's the nicest way ofputting it. And so I think I
(19:18):
remember looking at these opendiscussion boards between the
students and their groups, andeveryone's sharing the different
perspectives and the challengesthat they have been facing as
they're trying to cope with thispandemic, going to school,
parenting, what does work looklike? Now all of these things
are changing. And the amount ofsupport that the students are
(19:42):
giving each other and this likeempathy that they were offering
one other and just sharing theirown different perspectives
because they were all in we werein similar boats but we're all
in are in different boats to inour in our situations looked
really different from one to thenext. And I remember, just, I
(20:04):
mean, it was difficult, butseeing the support that each
student was offering and theunderstanding that your student
was offering that was reallycool to see. And I don't think
is not necessarily often seen inonline courses, that sense of
community, that sense ofbelongingness. That sense of
(20:24):
people care about what I have tosay, or even if I get a little
vulnerable, or share somethingmore personal, I'm not going to
be made to feel bad about it,like people are going to
understand me and accept mestill. I think that was
something that was importantfrom, like, as a teaching team,
we also brought those samecharacteristics to the students.
(20:48):
And then the students sharedthose characteristics with each
other.
Heather Woods (20:53):
Mm hmm.
Amanda Krause (20:53):
So yeah, I just, that was really cool. And that
was a really difficulttransitionary period.
Heather Woods (20:59):
Yeah, certainly.
Earlier, I said it was Sarah,that was with me during that
time. But no, you're totallyright. It was you and I, Amanda,
that did the transition to COVIDtimes. Just goes to show that
we've been in this for too long.
All my time, is blurringtogether. Yeah, I think, you
(21:19):
know, creating that climate andcreating those opportunities for
less academic type interactions.
Like, I think their smallgroups, we call them
professional learningcommunities, provided that kind
of less structured, we hadquestions for them to answer,
but what's working well, andkind of lots of reflective
(21:40):
questions, but I think theyreally used many of them use
that as an opportunity to, youknow, have less formal
conversations. So yeah, I think,you know, it really helped
create the atmosphere that wehad, where everything was quite
open and a strong community. Anyother kind of thoughts on on
(22:04):
skills that we engaged withourselves or fostered with our
students during the academicterm?
Sarah Bethune (22:14):
I guess you could say one thing is that we really
tried to ask questions tofacilitate reflection and
further thinking. And, you know,there wasn't necessarily this
relationship. I mean, I knowAmanda mentioned it earlier, but
this relationship of like, aweird hierarchy between the
(22:37):
teaching team and the students,it really felt like it was a
really collaborative experience.
And that, you know, it was itwas more of a discussion, and we
were asking questions back andforth. And I think that was
quite beneficial. Yeah,
Heather Woods (22:52):
certainly, yeah, I miss you both this term, I
don't have a teaching assistant,or teaching team, but it would
have been really fun to haveboth of you on and kind of this
term, I'm experimenting with,like, way more flexibility than
we did previously. And I think,yeah, it would have been just
really fun for us all to worktogether and see how that works
(23:14):
out. But I'm on my own thisterm. Was there anything that
you, you know, saw usimplementing or me trying to
implement that kind of didn'twork so well, in terms of trying
to foster like community or, youknow, opportunities for student
(23:38):
reflection and criticalthinking,
Amanda Krause (23:41):
I think, Okay. I don't know if this directly
answers your question. But atleast in the course that we
taught together, and you had aHow are you poll for students to
fill out? Obviously, it was notobligatory. But just so that
(24:01):
they could tell us tell us howthey're doing. And it was
private, but it was a way for usto be able to check in and for
the students to, yeah, to haveautonomy over that as well. And
I might not be rememberingcorrectly, but I don't know how
often it was used. And Iwondered about, like, it's such
(24:24):
a good idea. And then I wonderedwhy students didn't fill it out
as like that often. And maybesome of the barriers, barriers
to that possibly, from lookingat it from this, like the
teaching team. And then thestudents and I don't know if
this is me thinking out loud,but that's something that came
(24:45):
to mind when you ask thatquestion.
Heather Woods (24:47):
Yeah, I know.
Like we sent it out kind ofright when the pandemic hit just
to check in with students. Andperhaps if I had like, continued
to send it out, I mean, thepandemic it fairly late in the
course, there's only a few weeksleft. But yeah, I know, Sarah
and I sent it out as well, Ibelieve once during the term,
(25:07):
and again, it didn't have ahuge, probably even less
response rate due to I thinkpeople kind of get
uncomfortable, not comfortable.
But, you know, they're, they'recoping already with the
pandemic, it wasn't a freshthing. But I mean, each time we
still had one or two people thatwanted me to reach out to them.
(25:30):
But yeah, I think I do wonderhow that can be used better, or
continue to break down thosethat kind of sense of hierarchy
and maybe not wanting todisclose if something's up.
Amanda Krause (25:43):
Yeah, because that's Yeah, what came up? That
was one thing that I wonderedabout was, no matter how hard
you try to dismantle this powerimbalance between teacher
teaching team and students, it'ssomething that is so ingrained
(26:04):
in us that we experience from,like four years old and
kindergarten, even like beforethen. And so it's a, I wonder
from the students perspective oflike, I do want to reach out,
but I don't know how, like,where my comfort level is in
that. And then thinking aboutis, yeah, is this something
(26:25):
that, like, the teachers andeducators should be this role
for students, because it's soembedded within social emotional
competencies, this empathy, justlike I care about you, beyond
just being a student, like, Icare about you as a person, and
I want to get to know you, and Iwant to make sure you're okay.
Heather Woods (26:46):
Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think it feeds into, at least
mine, my own philosophy ofteaching is, if you're not
building those connections withstudents, you know, it's
beneficial to the learningprocess, and allows them to
fully engage if they, you know,have that founding relationship
of trust, and know that, like,you know, you're there and
(27:10):
understand or will support themand understand that they're not
just a student, they are, youknow, a parent or a sibling, or
a caretaker of, you know, youknow, they have other things
outside of school. Um, and also,I think it's part of just my
philosophy to teaching is thatyou're teaching people and
(27:34):
people aren't just consumingknowledge there. There's
different aspects to them thatneed to be nurtured for them to
be able to learn and engage withthat knowledge. But yeah, I know
that that's, I mean, makes methink of so many things. But I
won't ramble. Any otherchallenges that you kind of saw
(27:54):
us facing? Or maybe you weremitigating for me behind?
Sarah Bethune (28:00):
One thing I noticed, although I feel like
this is a very common problemthroughout the semester. So I'm
really not sure what the answerhere is. But the participation
as the semester goes on, usuallydrops a little bit. And I
started to notice that peoplewere having maybe a bit more
difficulty engaging in the groupsometimes, or even, you know,
(28:25):
responding to their assessmentnotebooks. And I just wonder,
you know, what the answer tothat is, I don't really have it,
but it's just something Inoticed.
Heather Woods (28:35):
Amanda did you notice that at all? and unique
situation, though?
Amanda Krause (28:39):
Yeah, I'm really trying to reflect back on that
time, because it was a littlebit ago, and the end of our
semester was not normal. No. Ithink I just remember, people
needed flexibility. Peopleneeded time assistance,
(29:03):
understanding from us, becausebarriers were coming up that
they had never anticipatedbefore, that were getting in the
way of their schooling, whichmade it difficult for them to
complete things by the deadlinesthat we had originally set. And
I remember students reaching outto us saying like, this is up in
(29:25):
my life, like I'm dealing withthis. I don't know if I'm going
to have time and then asking forextensions, or just like, yeah,
support in completing theassignments, when may they be
before if COVID-19 wasn't athing, then they may not have
required that.
Heather Woods (29:42):
Yeah, and I know, like, even feedback from
students when we, during thespring, I think a lot of
students sign we're like, I haveall this free time. I'm gonna
take like four condensedcourses. And that's just silly.
That's a lot lot like condensedcourses, Oh, my goodness. So I
(30:03):
think I know a few of them, Igot messages saying like, you
know, nearing the mid to laterend of the term. They were just
so overwhelmed, because they'dsigned up for way too much and
then still had jobs or, youknow, this, that. And the other
thing, you know, I think we didour best to kind of let them
(30:23):
know that that was okay. And somaybe that also leads to the
disengagement a little bit,because they know that we
understand to some extent,ideally, they'd stay engaged.
And so, you know, that'sdefinitely something I think to
work on and think about issustaining that engagement,
which I think is a concern forall courses. So I think my final
(30:46):
question to you both is, do youthink how we approach teaching
over the last two terms, sospring, summer and winter was
more work than like a typicalteaching team effort?
Amanda Krause (31:04):
I think, yes, it is more work. If you are
actively engaged, we wereactively engaged as a teaching
team, commenting anddiscussions, keeping up with
those providing individualized,like personal feedback to
students, that wasn't just asingle sentence, it was a whole
paragraph. And it was reallytalking about what the student
(31:26):
had offered in their, theirassignment. So it is more work.
But it's more rewarding and moremeaningful, I think, personally,
for both, like, on the teachingside, and from the student side.
So it's not like this work isnot being reciprocated, you're
(31:46):
getting something back tenfold.
So I would say yes, more work,but worth the work.
Sarah Bethune (31:54):
Yeah, I agree with what Amanda saying
completely. And I also think, assomeone like, as part of the
teaching team, I think it wasalso just a really interesting
experience for me, because itfelt like, you know, I was
learning a lot as well. And Iwas engaging with them. And, you
know, it was really interestingexperience.
Heather Woods (32:15):
No, I think like, I agree, like, it is certainly
more work. But I think it's it'smore engaging. Yeah, like you're
saying, Sarah, like, it's moreengaging for us as the teaching
team to be that involved. Idon't necessarily think it's
sustainable. If you've got like,multiple courses, like I think,
(32:38):
probably do a couple of coursesif I wasn't also doing my
dissertation at the same time.
But you know, like, if you'vegot like a full course load, and
you're teaching like fourcourses at a time or something
like that's not sustainable tobe doing that level of
engagement with your students.
But, I mean, that's a commentaryon just workloads that we won't
get into. But yeah, I think it'sit's so rewarding to watch,
(33:03):
especially with the selfdirected projects, like, we
scaffolded that for them. Sothat they were kind of working
on chunks throughout the course.
And so we're actively involvedthe whole process of like
thinking through things withthem and offering suggestions or
resources or articles to lookinto. Yeah, and for me, that's
just very rewarding. I likebeing part of you know, that
(33:26):
process. So yeah, it wascertainly takes a long time. But
like you said, Amanda, it's soworth it.
Amanda Krause (33:37):
Yeah. And I, I think, seeing the students
experience, the course and howwe had organized it and how we
were involved with it. I guessthe word I'm thinking of is
refreshing, it's refreshing tothem, because higher ed,
graduate level courses,particularly online courses just
(33:57):
don't look like this.
Heather Woods (33:59):
Mm hmm.
Amanda Krause (34:00):
And a lot of ways, and so there was a lot of
I sensed a lot of appreciationand just like happiness to be a
part of this course there is agratefulness and as being on the
teaching team, that was alsothose I had similar feelings.
And so seeing the studentsrespond so positively to being
(34:22):
part of a course that wasdesigned in such a way that was
really cool as well.
Heather Woods (34:27):
Yeah. Certainly, any other kind of Final thoughts
about you know, how westructured the course I'll have
to put in the show notes, kindof our syllabus or something. So
people can kind of get a betteridea of how we laid everything
out. But yeah, any other finalthoughts on like, integrating
(34:48):
and thinking about findingopportunities to engage with
social emotional competencies inkind of higher ed learning?
Amanda Krause (34:56):
I think understanding Like, you don't
have to do it all at once. Youcan do bits and pieces. So
offering like little mindfulnessexercises or a video on empathy
or just like having an activitythat highlights diversity and
taking other people'sperspectives integrated to the
(35:19):
content of whatever courseyou're teaching. It doesn't have
to be the whole thing, becausethat feels overwhelming. And it
is a lot of work. So it's notmay not even be feasible. But I
think, take what you can and gofrom there. Because I think,
from our experiences, at least,it was very positive from the
(35:40):
student perspective. And it maybe worth integrating into a
course that has nothing to dowith social emotional learning,
or teaching and see how your howthe students respond.
Heather Woods (35:52):
Yeah, definitely,
Sarah Bethune (35:53):
I don't know. To add to that. I also think that
modeling some of these socialemotional competencies and
trying to actually integratethem into the course, rather
than just, let's say, readingabout it, or reflecting on a
reading, it was a little bitmore than that it was actually
practicing some of thecompetencies, which I think had
Heather Woods (36:13):
Mm hmm. Yeah, no, I think, you know, we did do our
a lot of value.
best to integrate. And I mean,it's not easy, but providing
those opportunities, like, youknow, just structuring, okay,
you're, you have this project,like maybe make a SMART goal
about it, and like break itdown. And like helping students
(36:33):
kind of implement these, youknow, study or goal setting
strategies. Without being likeoverly like, this is time
management. This is how you seta goal. Like it's just like a
subtle way of working in it. Ithink which is, is super helpful
to the students as well. Andthen it's not like you're
(36:53):
throwing this stuff at them kindof thing. It's more subtle and
integrated.
Well, thank you both so much forchatting with me today. It's so
great to kind of brainstorm andtalk about how things went over
the last few terms. And I wascertainly grateful to have you
part of the teaching team, youboth brought so much to the
(37:15):
course, in terms of how we didfeedback and how we communicated
with students and reallycreating that community. So I
definitely miss you both. Butthank you both so much for
taking time out of your verybusy Start of fall schedules to
chat with me. I really, rally appreciat
Amanda Krause (37:36):
This is fun.
Sarah Bethune (37:37):
It's really nice to see you guys.
Heather Woods (37:39):
So you've been listening to the SEL in Action
odcast. The podcast where wealk about social emoti
nal competencies in professionaland educational settings. Toda
, I was very fortunate enougto speak to my teaching team
for the last two semesters, Amnda Krause and Sarah Bethune, ta
king about how we kind of fosered community and engag
(38:01):
ment throughout our graduateevel courses that we were tea
hing last two terms. And so iyou want to continu
the conversation, feel free toeach out to us on Facebook, Tw
tter and Instagram. It's SEL inction or SEL-in-action.
om. I look forward to hearingyour thoughts about how you fos
(38:22):
er community and engage socil emotional competencie
in your classrooms. Until nextime, this is Heather Woods. Than
you for listening.
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