Teaching and Developing Social and Emotional Skills with Technology

Abstract

Supporting social interactions is a long-term focus for Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). However, understanding how social and emotional skills are learned, and how this process can be supported by technology, is an important but underresearched area in HCI so far. To address this gap, we review existing approaches to social and emotions skills learning (SEL) in other fields, with a specific focus on SEL in education, in which a large number of evidence-based programs is widely deployed. In doing so, the primary aim of this article is to provide a foundation and set an agenda for future research on the design of technology that would support, and help teach, social and emotional skills. We identify the key challenges to successful learning shared by SEL programs in education-such as embedding skills learned in class also into everyday situations, promoting reflection, and providing additional opportunities for practice-and outline how these could be addressed by digital technology. Overall, our key argument is that much existing HCI work could be used in support of social and emotional skills learning in education, and possibly other domains, but that the topic has not been explored so far. We also highlight how the focus on supporting SEL would bring novel opportunities and challenges for HCI, as well as provide a basis for a strong HCI research agenda in this space. ACM Reference Format:Petr Slovák and Geraldine Fitzpatrick. 2015. Teaching and developing social and emotional skills with technology. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum.

Designing Social and Emotional Skills Training

“…Through these engagements, we identify what the SEL experts consider to be the key challenges and opportunities where technology could be of use, setting up an initial agenda for future HCI work in this space (cf. also [14]). …”

“…The present study builds on a literature review [14] that drew on a wide sample of SEL literature including 5 books, 66 academic articles, and 34 SEL programs. One gap identified in existing work was little or no discussion of the opportunities for technology support of SEL programs.…”

“…However, all of these systems embrace only single, isolated aspects rather than the full complexity of social and emotional skills that are needed and developed within the SEL curricula (cf. [14]). …”

Supporting teaching and learning of situational empathy by technology

“…However, existing curricula use little technology to support learning of such skills, despite its potential to address some of the key challenges faced (such as providing timely feedback); and little research within HCI has focused on supporting social skills training for neuro-typical children and adults to date [10].…”

“…One of a CHInd, Toronto, ON, Canada also finished a review journal paper[10], identifying key aspects technology can focus on for teaching social skills in counselling as well as other domains.…”