Format
Individual Presentation
First Presenter's Institution
PAWsitive Choices Social & Emotional Learning
First Presenter’s Email Address
lindsey@pawsitivechoices.com
First Presenter's Brief Biography
Lindsey Kealey is the author of PAWsitive Choices Social and Emotional Learning and teaches in the education department at Oregon State University-Cascades. She earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Human Development and Family Sciences with an emphasis in child development and holds a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Oregon State University-Cascades. Her university work, as well as her experience teaching in public schools, helped her craft a curriculum that integrates neuroscience, social and emotional learning, and problem solving into a program that helps children thrive.
Location
Session Five Breakouts (Westbrook)
Strand #1
Heart: Social & Emotional Skills
Strand #2
Health: Mental & Physical Health
Relevance
This session will emphasize the importance of creating a culture of safety and wellbeing to drive educator and school improvement of trauma responsive practices. In order to achieve high rigor and relevance within the scope of the presentation, I will explore practical ways educators can interpret relevant research-based practices and data to infuse routines and strategies that help students experiencing trauma thrive. We will cover high leverage strategies that John Hattie identifies in his renowned research on visible learning and teaching that pertain to student-teach relationships. Most importantly, participants will reflect on the research and have opportunities to translate the theories into practice so they can set goals for increasing social-emotional learning and mental health outcomes of their students.
Brief Program Description
Lindsey Kealey discusses practical ways apply a trauma-responsive approach to helping children and adults solve problems in the classroom. When you unwrap problems with students in productive, rather than punitive ways, you will find that problems are not just fires to put out or issues that weight us down. Rather, problems can be a gift to ourselves and the students we teach.
Summary
In her presentation, Problems Are a Gift, Lindsey Kealey discusses practical ways to apply a trauma-responsive approach to helping children and adults solve problems in the classroom. Now more than ever, teachers and administrators need support with assisting students who struggle with emotional regulation and impulse control as a result of trauma and other environmental stressors. Students' problematic behavior in the classroom is the number one reason why many educators leave the teaching profession after just four years. Lindsey shares heartwarming and relatable stories of her personal experience as a kindergarten teacher and teaches brain-based strategies from her university research and coaching practice. Educators will leave the session with effective strategies to support their students' social and emotional learning and thereby reduce problematic behaviors in the classroom so students can make positive choices, regulate strong feelings, build empathy, and collaboratively solve problems with others. This session will emphasize the importance of creating a culture of safety and wellbeing to drive educator and school improvement of trauma responsive practices. In order to achieve high rigor and relevance within the scope of the presentation, we will explore practical ways educators can interpret relevant research-based practices and data to infuse routines and strategies that help students experiencing trauma thrive. We will cover high leverage strategies that John Hattie identifies in his renowned research on visible learning and teaching that pertain to student-teach relationships. Most importantly, participants will reflect on the research and have opportunities to translate the theories into practice so they can set goals for increasing social-emotional learning and mental health outcomes of their students. When you unwrap problems with students in productive, rather than punitive ways, you will find that problems are not just fires to put out or issues that weigh us down. Rather, problems can be a gift to ourselves and the students we teach.
Evidence
Research for Connection Strategies: Dr. Tina Payne Bryson and Dr. Daniel Siegel capture the importance of authentic connection and the power of helping children feel seen in their book The Power of Showing Up (2020). Their research reveals that "one of the best scientific predictors of how children turn out in terms of happiness, academic success, leadership skills, and meaningful relationships is whether at least one adult in their life has consistently shown up for them" (Siegel & Bryson, 2020). They explain that helping children "feel seen" is one of the key ingredients to showing up for children and helping with the development of secure attachment.
Research for Calming Strategies:
Academic researcher, Dr. Brene Brown, describes calm as, "creating perspective and mindfulness while managing emotional reactivity." In her book, Atlas of The Heart (2021), Brown describes calm people as people "who can bring perspective to complicated situations and experience their feelings without reacting to heightened emotions." When we teach children how to bring this kind of mindful perspective to situations in which they experience emotional reactivity, they are better equipped to cope with difficulty and make choices that help them get back into a learning state of being.
Research for Collaboration Strategies:
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) identifies responsible decision-making as one of the five key competencies to social-emotional learning. They state that responsible decision-making includes "learning how to make a reasoned judgment after analyzing information, identifying solutions for personal and social problems, and evaluating the consequences of one’s actions" (CASEL, 2021). When you collaborate with students through problem solving, you are implementing all the elements that comprise responsible decision-making. CASEL has found that responsible decision-making (along with the other competencies) increases students’ academic performance on average by 11 percentile points (Durlak et al., 2011). This kind of support is especially helpful for supporting underperforming learners who often benefit greatly from problem solving skills.
Learning Objective 1
Participants will be able to implement strategies for connecting with students.
Learning Objective 2
Participants will be able to learn strategies for helping students build emotional regulation skills.
Learning Objective 3
Participants will be able to solve problems with students through a trauma-responsive problem solving process.
Keyword Descriptors
social and emotional learning, trauma responsive practices, connection, early childhood education
Presentation Year
2023
Start Date
3-7-2023 10:15 AM
End Date
3-7-2023 11:30 AM
Recommended Citation
Kealey, Lindsey, "Problems Are a Gift- How to Turn Challenging Behaviors in the Classroom Into Opportunities for Growth and Connection" (2023). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 60.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2023/2023/60
Included in
Cognitive Science Commons, Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Early Childhood Education Commons, Elementary Education Commons
Problems Are a Gift- How to Turn Challenging Behaviors in the Classroom Into Opportunities for Growth and Connection
Session Five Breakouts (Westbrook)
Lindsey Kealey discusses practical ways apply a trauma-responsive approach to helping children and adults solve problems in the classroom. When you unwrap problems with students in productive, rather than punitive ways, you will find that problems are not just fires to put out or issues that weight us down. Rather, problems can be a gift to ourselves and the students we teach.
