Skip to main content
  • About Us
  • Work at WestEd
  • Contact Us
  • Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Don't Miss Out!

Subscribe to the E-Bulletin for regular updates on research, free resources, solutions, and job postings from WestEd.

Subscribe Now

WestEd E-Bulletin

close

WestEd

WestEd
Improving learning, healthy development, and equity in schools and communities
  • Areas of Work
    • Areas of Work

      Building leadership, skills, and knowledge across critical topics.

      • Charters & School Choice
      • College & Career
      • Early Childhood Development & Learning
      • Economic Mobility, Postsecondary, and Workforce
      • English Learners & Migratory Students
      • Literacy
      • Resilient and Healthy Schools and Communities
      • Schools, Districts, & State Education Systems
      • Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics
      • Special Education
      • Standards, Assessment, & Accountability
      • Teachers & Leaders
      • Featured Initiative
      • COVID-19: Accelerate Learning Recovery
      • Magnet Schools and Magnet Services
      • Strategic Resource Planning & Implementation
      • Trauma-Informed Practice & Resiliency
  • Professional Development
  • Research & Evaluation
    • Research & Evaluation

      Conducting research and evaluation studies to help improve education and other important outcomes for children, youth, and adults.

      • What We Do
      • How We Can Help
      • WestEd Insights
      • Reports & Publications
      • Other Pages of Interest
      • National TA Centers
      • Consulting & Policy Support
  • Technical Assistance
    • Technical Assistance

      Build systemwide capacity to plan and implement research-informed solutions that ensure positive outcomes.

      • Technical Assistance Services
      • National Support Networks
      • Policy Analysis & Other Support
  • Resources
    • Resources

      A rich portfolio of resources that promote educator effectiveness, inform policy, and support positive outcomes for all learners.

      • Resources Home
      • New Releases
      • Top Downloads
      • Podcasts
      • R&D Alert Articles
      • Research
      • Free Resources
      • Webinars
      • Best Sellers
      • Reprint Permissions
      • Customer Support
      • Contact Publications Center
      • Login/Create Account
  • Events
  • About Us
    • About Us

      Trust unparalleled expertise from WestEd to help all learners succeed.

      • Overview
      • Board of Directors
      • Leadership
      • Staff
      • Offices

      • Work at WestEd
      • Work with WestEd
      • News
      • Events
      • Subscribe
      • Contact Us
  • Work at WestEd
Menu

WestEd Insights / research and innovations

Read about significant research findings and impact from WestEd experts related to teaching, learning, and human development.

Diverse teenagers interacting in the classroom

Insights & Impact

Social and Emotional Learning Within Science Education

Written by Jennifer Folsom, Lead Learning Architect for the Making Sense of SCIENCE project at WestEd.

Social-emotional well-being is an essential part of learning and life. Likewise, social and emotional learning (SEL) is an essential part of growing up and schooling. The stresses of the COVID pandemic have intensified the needs of our youth in these areas. Across the country, teachers are struggling to engage their students as we all navigate a novel post-pandemic landscape.

With the national drumbeat of accelerating learning, some districts have not deeply focused their energies on the social and emotional well-being of their students, teachers, administrators, and support staff. Of the districts that are truly prioritizing this area, some are falling victim to a common pitfall — attempting to address the issue with an add-on social-emotional learning curriculum, for example, an extra 20-30 minutes of activities that are separate from the authentic work of school. Often, these SEL interventions get skipped or feel so unconnected from “real life” that it doesn’t have the intended impact.

Science classrooms are ideal venues for students to engage in embedded social-emotional learning that is authentically essential to the tasks at hand. Today’s science classrooms are about integrating science knowledge with the practices and crosscutting concepts that guide the thinking of science. Next generation science classrooms are filled with small groups of students investigating phenomena and problems, looking for patterns, and piecing together evidence. We see groups designing prototypes and making sense of the data and observations they collected. Students challenge each other’s processes and debate their results. Sometimes their work proves their ideas correct, and other times they are left to struggle with the reality that initial intuitions aren’t always accurate. They build off each other’s questions, data sets, successes, failures, and half-baked ideas. Throughout all of this, teachers help students negotiate group dynamics so teams can collaboratively design experiments and have productive discussions.

Science classrooms like these are doing more than just getting students to learn science content, do the work of science, and look at the world through the conceptual lens scientists use. They are also home to authentic social and emotional learning led by teachers who recognize that learning collaboratively is a social and emotional pursuit. When a science teacher asks students to talk about what strengths each is going to bring to a small group charged with designing an experiment and how they will work as a team — that’s embedded social-emotional learning that promotes self-awareness and relationship skills. When a science teacher has pairs of students talk through their first attempts at using a new piece of technology — that’s embedded social-emotional learning that promotes social awareness. When a teacher guides a whole class discussion to generate the values and norms that will help them forge a culture of collaboration — that’s embedded social-emotional learning that promotes responsible decision-making.

By making these efforts transparent to students and by encouraging them to be metacognitive about their own social and emotional needs, science teachers are helping students build an awareness of the social and emotional demands of life. Not only can they help improve students’ social-emotional well-being and deepen their SEL, but they can improve their ability to be productive in a collaborative science classroom and beyond.

How might you authentically include social and emotional learning and well-being in your classroom, work with colleagues, school community, and personal life?


Making Sense of SCIENCE (MSS) is founded on the belief that high-quality professional development for teachers is critical to the success of teachers and students alike. This belief, shaped by years of research and development, informs the Making Sense of SCIENCE approach to teacher learning.

Learn more about Making Sense of SCIENCE at WestEd.

Enjoyed this blog post? Subscribe to our E-Bulletin to stay up to date on all things science at WestEd.

Posted on November 9, 2021

COVID-19NGSSProfessional developmentSchool climateSchools and districtsSciencesocial emotional learningSTEM

View More

 

Contact Us

Ask a question, request information, make a suggestion, or sign up for our newsletter.

Areas of Work

  • Areas of Work
  • College & Career
  • Early Childhood Development & Learning
  • Economic Mobility, Postsecondary, and Workforce
  • English Learner & Migrant Education Services
  • Literacy
  • Resilient and Healthy Schools and Communities
  • Schools, Districts, & State Education Systems
  • Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics
  • Special Education
  • Standards, Assessment, & Accountability
  • Teachers & Leaders

Professional Development

  • Professional Development

Research & Evaluation

  • Research & Evaluation
  • What We Do
  • How We Can Help
  • Reports & Publications
  • WestEd Insights

Technical Assistance

  • Technical Assistance
  • Technical Assistance Services
  • National Support Networks
  • Policy Analysis and Other Support

Resources

  • Resources
  • Resources Home
  • New Releases
  • Best Sellers
  • Top Downloads
  • Free Resources
  • Research
  • Webinars
  • R&D Alert Articles

About Us

  • About Us
  • Overview
  • Board of Directors
  • Leadership
  • Staff
  • WestEd Offices
  • Work with WestEd
  • WestEd Insights
  • News
  • Events
  • Making a Difference
  • Work at WestEd
  • Contact Us
  • FacebookTwitterLinkedIn
Also of Interest:
  • College and Career Services, Research, and Resources
  • Products
  • Technical Assistance

Copyright ©1995 - 2022 WestEd | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Accessibility Statement