SEL- Building Today’s Students for the Future

Sept. 16, 2010 - PRLog -- There have been various Positive Behavior programs that have been instituted in schools across America.  They focus on eliminating difficult situations through redirection of activity.  Very few address the actual behavior, correcting the social emotional flaw that has become implanted in the student’s make up.  Most just offer discipline, not intervention.

Research by Durlak et al. (as cited in Payton, Weissberg, Durlak, Dymnicki, Taylor, Schellinger, & Pachan, 2008) confirmed that intervention programs that use four recommended practices for skill training are more effective than those that do not. These types of programs are referred to as SAFE programs because each letter in this acronym refers to one of the recommended practices.

Sequenced or applies a planned set of activities to develop skills sequentially in a step-by-step fashion;

Active or uses active forms of learning such as role-playing and behavioral rehearsal with feedback;

Focused or devotes sufficient time exclusively to developing social and emotional skills;

Explicit or targets specific social and emotional skills

What this type of building block needs, is time.  Time that has been left out of nurturing children in many family situations.  Time to develop skills in a step-by-step fashion.  Time to spend role-playing.  Time for behavioral rehearsal.  Focused time to be able to target specific social emotional skills.  

Family structures have been stretched because of the economy and more demanding work schedules.  So schools are now being asked to step up to the plate and focus “Time” to accomplish these SEL objectives.  But time and money is not something most public schools have an abundance of.

Computers have been there when there was “academic short falling”.  They have given individual instruction, repetition and the testing to evaluate when a student has “learned” the academic skill. Educators have done an excellent job using a computer to give teachers more time to teach and still allow for the individual instruction needed by these “at risk” students. The question has been, “how can a computer teach SEL”?

With English Language Learners, the concept is to meet students were they are at and supply instruction so that language does not become a barrier to learning.  A student will continue to learn math at a 4th grade level in Spanish, and work harder on his 2nd grade English with the hopes he can mainstream into a 5th or 6th grade Math class in English.

The same appears to be true with SEL.  Greg Guy, CEO, Alternative Behavior Educator, says “Rather than removing students from the classroom, we need to teach them correct social emotional skill sets.”

In a truly remarkable way, Alternative Behavior Educator (ABE) from Bainbridge GA, has seemingly been able to harness these SAFE strategies into a web based computer program.  The initial studies have shown great promise in helping these at risk students stay in the classroom at low price point.  Repeat discipline problems, dropout rates and alternative placement have drop significantly.

To effect social emotional learning today, studies show that following the SAFE principles, will greatly increase a schools probability of success.  As we strive to “build the youth for the future.”

Alternative Behavior Educator is located in Bainbridge GA.  They can be reached at http://abeintervention.com or by calling 877-698-2231

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Campus Planners supply student planners and behavior modification products to Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. They can be reached at 800-332-2426