Integrated Learning, Integrated Lives: Highlighting Opportunities for Transformative SEL within Academic Instruction. Social and Emotional Learning Innovations Series

The SEL Innovations series aims to help the field imagine new, more expansive and equitable approaches to social and emotional learning (SEL) and wellness to ensure that all children, adolescents, and adults feel safe, supported, and seen so that they can thrive. This is the second report in a series exploring innovations in SEL. The purpose of the report is to highlight the importance of systemic, integrated SEL in classrooms, where the goal is to foster supportive classroom environments wherein educators teach explicit SEL and integrate SEL throughout academic instruction by weaving deep academic learning with opportunities for students to understand their own emotions, empathize with diverse perspectives, solve problems constructively, and make decisions while considering the needs of others. The authors briefly explore the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) model for SEL before critically examining the literature around inquiry-based learning opportunities. The focus is on two inquiry-based approaches to learning, Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), which show promise as examples of integrated, systemic approaches to SEL by allowing students to be authors and co-designers in their own learning. Next, conditions necessary to enact inquiry-based approaches in the classroom are explored. Lastly, they share a set of case studies illustrating what inquiry-based learning opportunities, specifically PBL and YPAR, can look like in practice. In this way, the goal is to provide both inspiration and practical application for educators, program providers, and researchers looking to continue to move the conversation forward, integrate new strategies into their programs or practices, and expand their research agendas.