GUIDELINES FOR EFFECTIVE SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL LEARNING

sunandaC

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The guidelines for social and emotional training are presented schematically in Figure 1. They are arranged in the form of a flow chart that describes the optimal process for helping individuals to increase their Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Competence in personal and interpersonal contexts.



FIGURE 3. The Optimal Process for Developing Emotional Intelligence in
Organizations

The flow chart suggests that there are four basic phases to the training process. The first occurs even before the individual begins formal training. This initial phase, which is crucial for effective social and emotional learning, involves preparation for change. This preparation occurs at both the organizational and
individual levels. The second phase, training, covers the change process itself. It includes the processes that help people change the way in which they view the world and deal with its social and emotional demands. The third phase, transfer and maintenance, addresses what happens following the formal training experience. The
final phase involves evaluation. Given the current state of knowledge about social and emotional learning, the complexity of programs designed to promote such learning
and the great unevenness in the effectiveness of existing programs, evaluation always should be part of the process.

Phase One: Preparation for Change

Motivation is especially important in social and emotional learning. Such learning can be challenging for adults who already have established a way of relating to themselves and others, and people need to be strongly committed to the change process for an extended period of time. So what can managers and trainers do to increase learners’ motivation prior to the start of the change process? The first set of guidelines addresses this question.

1. Assess the Organization’s Needs - Good training begins with needs assessment. For social and emotional training, there are two particular challenges that must be addressed at this point in the process. First, many people in the organization will be skeptical about the link between Emotional Intelligence and the bottom line. A systematic and rigorous study can help show that such a link exists. The second challenge in applying this guideline to social and emotional training efforts is to identify all of the particular competencies that are important for success. Sometimes it is easy to miss crucial ones.

2. Assess Personal Strengths and Limits - Two challenges confront those who wish to assess the social and emotional competence of individuals. First, people

usually are less aware of skill weaknesses in the social and emotional domains. Second, these competencies are manifested primarily in social interaction. Therefore, the best approach usually involves ratings by those who interact with the person. However, the beliefs, motives, and feelings of the rater influence ratings of social and emotional competence.


3. Provide Feedback with Care - Motivation for change can be enhanced when people are given feedback on the assessment results. However, there are many pitfalls in giving people feedback on their social competence. These competencies are closely linked to a person’s identity and self-esteem. And in social and emotional development efforts, it is especially important that the feedback occur in an atmosphere of safety. The understood purpose of the feedback also affects its motivational and emotional impact.


4. Maximize Learner Choice - People generally are more motivated to change when they freely choose to do so. In social and emotional training, however, choice is particularly important. Because these competencies are so close to the essence of what makes us the people we are, it is better if we are free to choose whether or not to engage in such training. It also is better if the choice is real.

5. Encourage Participation - Because social and emotional learning is viewed, as "soft" and thus, somewhat suspect, employees will tend not to choose to participate in it unless they believe that the organization’s management strongly endorses it. The words and actions of supervisors are especially important. Trainees are more willing to participate in development activity if their supervisors indicate that they support it. In a large financial services company, a training program in emotional competence was popular in part because several regional vice presidents encouraged their management groups to participate and then attended the program with them.

6. Link Learning Goals to Personal Values - People will be most motivated to learn and change if they believe that doing so will help them achieve goals that they value. Often the most salient personal values will be work-related, but they need not


be. Trying to motivate learners by showing them that training will contribute to career success will be difficult if success is unimportant to them.

7. Adjust Expectations - Expectations about performance can become self-fulfilling prophecies. People who are confident that they can succeed in a training program will tend to be more motivated and, not surprisingly, more successful. Unfortunately, in the case of social and emotional learning, many people are skeptical that Emotional Intelligence can be improved. And people who find social and emotional problems challenging will be particularly dubious about their ability to improve.

8. Gauge Readiness - Research on a wide variety of behavior change programs suggests that people go through several stages of readiness for change before they are ready to make a true commitment. In the first stage, they deny that they have any need for change. In the next stage, people begin to see that they need to improve, but they are not sure that anything can be done about their problems and they put off making a decision. In the third stage, the individual recognizes that there is a problem and also that there are ways of dealing with it, but the person has not made a concrete plan to act.


It is not until the fourth stage that the person is ready to act. People at this stage have a concrete plan, and they put it into action. Before training begins (or toward the beginning), the training staff should, ideally, assess the readiness stage of each potential participant. They then would design an appropriate intervention based on that assessment, which will differ for people at each stage of readiness.
 
The guidelines for social and emotional training are presented schematically in Figure 1. They are arranged in the form of a flow chart that describes the optimal process for helping individuals to increase their Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Competence in personal and interpersonal contexts.



FIGURE 3. The Optimal Process for Developing Emotional Intelligence in
Organizations

The flow chart suggests that there are four basic phases to the training process. The first occurs even before the individual begins formal training. This initial phase, which is crucial for effective social and emotional learning, involves preparation for change. This preparation occurs at both the organizational and
individual levels. The second phase, training, covers the change process itself. It includes the processes that help people change the way in which they view the world and deal with its social and emotional demands. The third phase, transfer and maintenance, addresses what happens following the formal training experience. The
final phase involves evaluation. Given the current state of knowledge about social and emotional learning, the complexity of programs designed to promote such learning
and the great unevenness in the effectiveness of existing programs, evaluation always should be part of the process.

Phase One: Preparation for Change

Motivation is especially important in social and emotional learning. Such learning can be challenging for adults who already have established a way of relating to themselves and others, and people need to be strongly committed to the change process for an extended period of time. So what can managers and trainers do to increase learners’ motivation prior to the start of the change process? The first set of guidelines addresses this question.

1. Assess the Organization’s Needs - Good training begins with needs assessment. For social and emotional training, there are two particular challenges that must be addressed at this point in the process. First, many people in the organization will be skeptical about the link between Emotional Intelligence and the bottom line. A systematic and rigorous study can help show that such a link exists. The second challenge in applying this guideline to social and emotional training efforts is to identify all of the particular competencies that are important for success. Sometimes it is easy to miss crucial ones.

2. Assess Personal Strengths and Limits - Two challenges confront those who wish to assess the social and emotional competence of individuals. First, people

usually are less aware of skill weaknesses in the social and emotional domains. Second, these competencies are manifested primarily in social interaction. Therefore, the best approach usually involves ratings by those who interact with the person. However, the beliefs, motives, and feelings of the rater influence ratings of social and emotional competence.


3. Provide Feedback with Care - Motivation for change can be enhanced when people are given feedback on the assessment results. However, there are many pitfalls in giving people feedback on their social competence. These competencies are closely linked to a person’s identity and self-esteem. And in social and emotional development efforts, it is especially important that the feedback occur in an atmosphere of safety. The understood purpose of the feedback also affects its motivational and emotional impact.


4. Maximize Learner Choice - People generally are more motivated to change when they freely choose to do so. In social and emotional training, however, choice is particularly important. Because these competencies are so close to the essence of what makes us the people we are, it is better if we are free to choose whether or not to engage in such training. It also is better if the choice is real.

5. Encourage Participation - Because social and emotional learning is viewed, as "soft" and thus, somewhat suspect, employees will tend not to choose to participate in it unless they believe that the organization’s management strongly endorses it. The words and actions of supervisors are especially important. Trainees are more willing to participate in development activity if their supervisors indicate that they support it. In a large financial services company, a training program in emotional competence was popular in part because several regional vice presidents encouraged their management groups to participate and then attended the program with them.

6. Link Learning Goals to Personal Values - People will be most motivated to learn and change if they believe that doing so will help them achieve goals that they value. Often the most salient personal values will be work-related, but they need not


be. Trying to motivate learners by showing them that training will contribute to career success will be difficult if success is unimportant to them.

7. Adjust Expectations - Expectations about performance can become self-fulfilling prophecies. People who are confident that they can succeed in a training program will tend to be more motivated and, not surprisingly, more successful. Unfortunately, in the case of social and emotional learning, many people are skeptical that Emotional Intelligence can be improved. And people who find social and emotional problems challenging will be particularly dubious about their ability to improve.

8. Gauge Readiness - Research on a wide variety of behavior change programs suggests that people go through several stages of readiness for change before they are ready to make a true commitment. In the first stage, they deny that they have any need for change. In the next stage, people begin to see that they need to improve, but they are not sure that anything can be done about their problems and they put off making a decision. In the third stage, the individual recognizes that there is a problem and also that there are ways of dealing with it, but the person has not made a concrete plan to act.


It is not until the fourth stage that the person is ready to act. People at this stage have a concrete plan, and they put it into action. Before training begins (or toward the beginning), the training staff should, ideally, assess the readiness stage of each potential participant. They then would design an appropriate intervention based on that assessment, which will differ for people at each stage of readiness.

Hey sunanda, thanks for sharing such a very nice article. Well, i think social and emotional learning is the procedure by which kids and adults obtain and successfully apply the information, behaviour, and knowledge which is required to comprehend and manage feelings and accomplish positive goals. I am also uploading a document which will explain it in more detail.
 

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