How to Create a Flourishing Classroom? An Intervention Protocol for Enhancing Teachers’ Social and Emotional Learning

Abstract

The positive psychology movement values good atmosphere and flourishing in the classroom. In order to do this, it is important to develop teachers' social and emotional learning (SEL) as a part of expertise, because teachers are in key position to create supportive and engaging learning environment. Even though promoting SEL as a means to create a flourishing classroom is often recommended in the literature, there is not much multi-national evidence about the development of the teachers' competencies associated with SEL. Previous research indicates that it is difficult to aid students to flourish without teachers having the necessary skills to scaffold them. Focusing merely on cognitive outcomes is not helping, but instead, we need to train the teachers to support autonomy, agency and self-efficacy in classrooms to build sustainable success and happiness among youth. The whole classroom culture should be developed to support positive encounters.This chapter describes studies on SEL interventions on teachers. The participants of the first study were Finnish teachers who attended to Gordon's Teacher Effectiveness Training (TET) workshops, based on humanistic psychology. For assessing teachers' development of SEL, a new method, Dealing with Challenging Interaction (DCI) was developed. DCI helps to capture the real-life challenging situations at teacher's work in various settings. In all, after the TET intervention the teachers really started using the studied skills, and they were more likely to support their students' autonomy and agency than the teachers in the comparison groups. The Talvio, K. M., & Lonka, K. M. (2019). How to create a flourishing classroom? An intervention protocol for enhancing teachers' social and emotional learning. In: L. E. van Zyl, & S. Rothmann (Eds.), Positive psychological interventions: Theories, methodologies and applications within multicultural contexts. Springer. 2 next step was to carry out global investigations about the Lions Quest teacher workshops. These studies revealed increased readiness to develop teachers' SEL competencies worldwide. Finally, various SEL interventions in nine European countries were looked at. So far, using mixedmethod approach in several countries has produced consistent results with satisfactory effect sizes. The research methods appear ecologically valid, yet generalizable in various cultures and contexts. In all, these studies demonstrated that teachers benefit from SEL training. Diverse interventions appeared to increase teachers' readiness to implement SEL. Especially, teachers' sense of competence in teaching SEL increased. As such, the purpose of this chapter is to present an intervention protocol, based on the SEL interventions described above that aims at enhancing teachers' social and emotional learning. The final aim is to develop classroom cultures that promote flourishing in both teachers and students. The present research adds to both theoretical and practical understanding of teachers' continuing professional development worldwide.

Significant in life

“…SEL programmes implemented in schools may be also long lasting (Taylor, Oberle, Durlak, & Weissberg, 2017). SEL interventions in schools do not only teach skills to students, but also include ways in which teachers interact and solve problems (Talvio & Lonka, 2019;Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Teachers' socioemotional skills and positive attitudes towards SEL help their engagement and effectiveness in implementing SEL programmes (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009;Collie, 2017;Collie & Perry, 2019).…”

“…First, according to our findings, a single course may "open" students' eyes and guide them in developing their pedagogical thinking during their studies. Talvio and Lonka (2019) point out that teachers need time to adopt studied SEL skills in their practices, as their pedagogical thinking and ways of working have developed during their earlier experiences and studies. Jones et al (2013) suggest that creating a culture of continuous improvement and learning is vital.…”

A Systematic Review of Research on Training Faculty on Well-Being in STEM

“…This training program focuses on listening skills, positive I-messages, and supporting autonomy which showed improvements in the Well-being of teachers [46].…”