Erasmus+ Training

Course description

There is extensive evidence associating childhood social and emotional skills with improved outcomes at school and in later life, in relation to physical and mental health, school readiness and academic achievement, crime, employment and income. This course offers practical tips to support children’s social and emotional development. It provides a starting point for teachers to review their current approaches, and suggests practical ideas they can implement.

Target Group

Teachers and such aspirants.

Objectives 

Support teachers in reflecting on their own emotional and social skills, in order to recognize student’s emotional, social and behavioural needs and manage them by Social and Emotional Learning approach (SEL).

Methodology

The course will alternate theoretical parts and practical activities. More specifically:

• informal discussions to arrive at a shared definition of social and emotional skills: what they are, why they are important;
• LEGO® Serious Play® to improve awareness of the participants about their own social and emotional skills;
• simulations and games to practice tools to be used in the classroom.

Detailed description

Ask any school teacher, and they will tell you that alongside the ‘core business’ of teaching topics, a large and often unrecognised part of their job involves addressing student’s emotional, social and behavioural needs. In fact, teaching is not just a simple transfer of notions, but involves the whole emotional sphere of the methods adopted in the classroom to facilitate the learning and motivation process. This course offers teachers tips to evolve personally and professionally: it will be an opportunity to start from themselves, from the development of their emotional and social skills, and to reflect together on tools and methods to be used in the classroom with their students. The course provides an interactive mode. To share reflections and experiences on the topic will be used LEGO® Serious Play®, a methodology that offers the group a way to share ideas, assumptions and problems, encourages discussion and dialogue in a problem-solving perspective. In addition, participants will experience first-hand some activities to propose to their students in the classroom.

Training Outcomes

This course will be an opportunity to share methodologies and exchange good practices, acquire some new tools to manage students’ emotional experiences and, last but not least, work on themselves on a personal level.

At the end of the course, participants are expected to:

• have become more aware of their own social and emotional skills and areas for improvement;
• have become more familiar with some active ways to support students in developing theirs social and emotional skills.