A high-quality K-12 education involves far more than learning the ABCs — or preparing for the SATs. In addition to academics, school is where students learn the essential social and emotional (SEL) skills they need to develop healthy, successful lives.
In recent years, extensive research has confirmed that social and emotional learning programs help students do better academically and socially. High levels of emotional and social competency lead to higher test scores, graduation rates, employment rates, and earnings.
“The idea that schools should be doing something beyond math and English is not in any remote way new,” says Dave Hersh, CEO of Character Lab, an organization that translates scientific research into actionable steps to help young adults grow. “The idea has always been out there in some form that these traits that we think of as character or SEL are malleable.”
Nevertheless, implementing social-emotional interventions and measuring their outcomes has been a persistent challenge, especially in public schools. On the other hand, independent schools have the flexibility to adopt highly targeted and effective programs.
To ensure that students are gaining the skills they need, it’s essential to measure their social and emotional learning regularly, and traditional assessments focus only on academic markers. ERB’s Whole Child Solution addresses this gap by including the SelfWise Inventory, which uses an evidence-based methodology to ensure students learn the skills they need to thrive.
What Are Social and Emotional Skills in the Classroom?
SEL skills are the tools that students and adults alike use to manage their emotions, make healthy choices, develop positive relationships, and work toward their goals. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has laid out five areas of interrelated competence, each relevant in both the classroom and the community. They include:
1. Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is an individual’s ability to identify their own emotions and understand how those emotions influence their thoughts and behaviors. This competency also includes an individual’s confidence in themself and their ability to grow and learn.
Classroom Example: A student with well-developed self-awareness might recognize that they are having a hard time learning math. However, they remain optimistic that they can improve with time, effort, and help.
2. Self-Management
Self-management refers to a student’s ability to regulate their thoughts, behaviors, and emotions to manage stress, take initiative and personal responsibility, and work toward individual and shared goals.
Classroom Example: If a student is overwhelmed by a project, they might demonstrate self-management by identifying an approach to the work that reduces stress and helps them meet their due date. For example, they might break the project into smaller milestones and do some work each day instead of procrastinating. They may also use strategies to keep their emotions in check, like taking regular breaks or listening to music that they find relaxing.
3. Social Awareness
Social awareness is a student’s ability to understand and empathize with the perspectives of others, including those with different backgrounds and life experiences, and to follow behavioral norms.
Classroom Example: A student with solid social awareness might recognize that a new student from a background that is underrepresented at their school may be nervous and lonely and try to put them at ease. For example, they might invite a new student to sit at their table at lunch or join a game at recess.
4. Relationship Skills
Relationship skills include an individual’s ability to build and maintain healthy relationships, work effectively with others, navigate conflict constructively, and seek and offer help when needed.
Classroom Example: A student might demonstrate strong relationship skills while working on a group project by listening to each group member’s perspective, responding respectfully, and taking a team approach (rather than an individualized one) to the work.
5. Responsible Decision-Making
Responsible decision-making refers to a student’s ability to assess problems and potential solutions, evaluate the personal and social consequences of a decision, and make constructive choices about their behavior in various settings.
Classroom Example: A student may demonstrate responsible decision-making by going to get a teacher if a conflict is starting on the playground rather than joining in.
Collecting Data on Social and Emotional Skills
Teachers have recognized the need to help students develop social and emotional skills for decades, but high-quality tools to measure their progress have only recently become available.
ERB’s SelfWise inventory is a self-assessment that offers actionable insights on students’ social and emotional learning. Students choose ratings from a scale to indicate their agreement with statements that measure their alignment with the CASEL competencies — for example, “I am really good at listening to what my teacher is telling the class.” Each statement or scenario is worded positively to avoid causing negative ideation.
The untimed inventory typically takes about 15 minutes to complete and is designed to be administered twice per year — ideally, once in the fall and once in the spring. It is available across three grade spans: Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, and Grades 9-12.
Beth Tidwell, Curriculum Coordinator at Parkview Baptist School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which implemented SelfWise in the 2022-2023 school year, noted the inventory’s speed and ease of implementation.
“You have to be careful what you’re adding to the classroom and adding for the teacher,” she said. “But I think we got good information that’s different from what we’re getting a pulse on already on the academic side… it was easy to administer, and the students did seem engaged.”
Taking Action on SEL Skills Data
“There’s this cliche that we are information-rich and evidence-poor,” says Hersh. “But we now have ready access to so much more data — defined very, very broadly as any information about the thing you care about — yet very little, relatively speaking, that is easily actionable.”
ERB’s SelfWise inventory closes that gap between information and action by providing detailed scores based on students’ responses to age-appropriate, real-life scenarios. Educators and school leaders can view SelfWise assessment results at the individual, classroom, or school level through ERB 360 Access, which makes it easy to spot these trends and plan and test specific interventions.
In ERB’s 2022-2023 pilot of the SelfWise inventory across 14 independent schools, assessment data revealed how factors ranging from the school’s pedagogical approach to students’ age and gender impact their social-emotional development.
For example, in participating schools that emphasized problem-solving by student teams, self-awareness and social awareness were much more closely associated with academic outcomes than at the other pilot schools. Information like this can help validate a school’s approach or point to areas for improvement.
In another school, which only admits structurally disadvantaged students, the students showed lower confidence in their social and emotional skills. With this data in hand, educators may modify the curriculum to help build those skills and offer targeted support to help specific students.
SEL as Part of a Whole Child Approach to Learning
A student’s growth can’t be measured on one single axis, whether that’s SEL progress or scores on academic assessments. Effective schools help develop the whole child — and that means collecting data across several areas.
Independent schools can get a comprehensive view of their students’ progress through the ERB Whole Child Solution, which assesses and tracks students’ academic progress, social-emotional growth, and sense of well-being and belonging. In addition to the SelfWise inventory, the bundle includes the CTP and Milestones academic achievement assessments and the Check-In Survey, which measures students’ attitudes about their emotional well-being, academic engagement, and fairness and belonging in their school community.
In addition to in-depth reporting, the Whole Child Solution provides educators with interactive visualizations and data-driven insights into the factors affecting student performance through ERB 360 Access.
Ultimately, these tools reflect what educators have always known. Each student is complex and unique, and helping them reach their full potential requires attention to both their academic and personal development.
Learn more about the SelfWise inventory and the ERB Whole Child Solution.
