“You’re going to be working with your table buddies for this activity. It’s up to you guys to work together to figure out how you’re going to complete this. You can refer to our anchor chart up on the board for the partner procedures that we just reviewed.”

It’s almost always a matter of minutes after saying those words in my classroom, no matter the subject, no matter the buddies, no matter the activity, that I will have at least one group in the room yelling at each other or coming up to me to tell on one another because they could not figure out a way to even start the project or activity. Someone said it was their turn first, or called someone a name, or just sat and didn’t respond when their buddy asked them a question. I saw it in with my 4th grade students, and see it even today with my 1st graders. It seems that it is becoming harder and harder for students to cooperate and work collaboratively to complete something. I am constantly dealing with fights outside at recess and in the cafeteria line. I have tried everything from using Classdojo.com, sticker behavior sheets, clip charts, positive behavior reinforcements, behavior logs, tracking sheets, and countless other strategies. While I feel that it strongly depends on the group of students you are working with, there is never usually one size fits all behavior management plan.

Clip charts are used to help students be more aware of the consequences attached to the choices they make throughout the day.

The clip chart works really well with most of my first graders, but I had a handful last year that I also had to create individual behavior sheets on their desks to help them pinpoint different areas throughout the day that were a struggle and to help remind them of the expected and desired behavior for each moment. Many students struggled with understanding personal space, how to effectively communicate their needs when someone was bothering them, and we had huge issues with a lack of self-advocacy. While these methods worked to help my class function as a whole, it still doesn’t address the main underlying issue. Kids these days are being pushed sooner than ever before to succeed academically: to read at an earlier age, to solve word problems at an earlier age, to complete academic tasks they may not be mentally prepared for yet, and I feel that we are seeing the effects of these demands on the way they behave both socially and emotionally. Pushing these kids to perform these tasks in 4K and 5K, we are taking away very crucial learning opportunities that occur from informal play. We are taking away the chance for them to work out things together through games, building block towers, or running with their friends outside.

Seeing these areas of common struggle, the school where I currently work at has decided to adopt a new social emotional teaching curriculum called Social Thinking within the primary grades. We will be utilizing the We Thinkers! Learning package which was created for children ages 4-7. It focuses on building self-regulation skills, self awareness, and perspective taking. I am truly looking forward to seeing how it will help my students interactions and my classroom function as a whole.

The We Thinkers! package comes with many resources for teachers to utilize in their primary classrooms.

Many great resources can be found on their website to help with understanding the methodology of Social Thinking. The first major thing to understand is the difference between Social Thinking (big S and big T) versus social thinking (little s and little t). Pamela Crooke and Michele Garcia Winner define Social Thinking as follows:

“Social Thinking is a language and cognitive-based methodology that focuses on the dynamic and synergistic nature of social interpretation and social communication skills, both of which require social problem solving. The methodology is developmental, utilizing aspects of behavioral and cognitive behavioral principles, as well as stakeholder input as a way to translate evidence-based concepts into conceptual frameworks, strategy-based frameworks, curricula, activities, and motivational tools.” (Crooke & Winner, 2015)

Social Thinking is a tool and curriculum to use with individuals with social emotional challenges. It helps teach social emotional skills in order to achieve goals focused around getting along with others, problem solving, developing relationships (with co-workers, peers, friends, family, etc.), effectively sharing space with others, and working collaboratively.

Michelle Garcia Winner, Speech Language Pathologist, MA, CCC, the founder of Social Thinking goes on to explain it in depth in the video below.

Winner discusses the importance of the development of the social mind, which I will dive into further in the theories section below. The social mind is grown through play and the use of our imagination. She claims it is our meaning maker and how we make sense of the world around us. Imagination is directly connected to academic skills such as reading comprehension. Social thinking is defined as, “the ability to consider your own and others' thoughts, emotions, beliefs, intentions, knowledge, etc.to help interpret and respond to the information in your mind and possibly through your social behavioral interactions.” (Winner, 2016) Without the ability to interpret what others are feeling or thinking it is hard to have productive and successful interactions. It is difficult to put yourself inside a story and understand a character's motivations or actions, thus hindering the ability to understand pieces of literature.

It is a common misconception that we only use our social minds for play. Schools have taken and continue to take play away from young kids and are pushing more rigorous standards and expectations on them. They are doing this without realizing the vital role play and non-structured interactions have in developing the social mind and the imagination which affects many areas of academia. The imagination and social mind helps a person understand history, characters in a book, and even with problem solving in math and science.

Our social mind helps us draw conclusions, predict the reactions of others, and interact with the world around us.

The Social Thinking methodology was developed as an intervention and assessment framework, “dedicated to tackling the complex social emotional learning needs of individuals with social learning challenges.”(Crooke & Winner, 2015) The major motivation behind developing it was to provide individualized interventions to help those trying to overcome the challenges with social interactions and to create a plan and goals for them to function in a certain setting or participate in a community. It is based on research on how to best meet the needs of those commonly diagnosed with social challenges (e.g., ASD, Social Communication Disorder, ADHD, Learning Disabilities, Twice Exceptional, etc.). The methodology promotes the use visual supports, modeling, naturalistic teaching, and self-management. Originially created with high school aged students in mind, it has grown to include different resources for all the developmental stages. With the primary students in my school we will be using the Social Explorers, We Thinkers! Learning package. It aims to meet the young students where they are at with the use of play, read alouds, songs, and student friendly vocabulary. The books provide a direct way of incorporating play and positive interactions in the classroom. You can see a few examples of pages from the teacher books below.

Pages from the teaching resource book from the We Thinkers! curriculum.

Social emotional learning increases students’ ability to utilize skills, attitudes, and behaviors to deal with daily tasks and challenges in an effective way. Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) works in research, practice and policy in order to help educators incorporate quality and meaningful social emotional learning in their classrooms. CASEL says there are 5 major components of social emotional learning that can be taught: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making.

These 5 components are addressed throughout the Social Thinking curriculum. They are each crucial in their own way in order to aid individuals in functioning in a community.

The importance of self-management can be seen in the video below.

As the video above states, when students are taught how to be aware of their emotions, they are better able to regulate them. They can learn how to manage stress levels, motivate themselves, and work toward personal goals. This illustrates the importance of just one of the 5 major components of social emotional learning. (CASEL, 2019)

Another important concept to understand behind social emotional learning is the social mind. The social mind has nothing to do with biology and our actual brain, it is the way we process, make choices, predict interactions, and connect with our environment and the people around us. Thornton and Tamir discuss the importance of the social mind, “To successfully interact with other people, we must anticipate their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Imagine the difficulty of navigating the social world if one could not anticipate that tired people tend to become frustrated, or that agreeable people tend to cooperate. Our social interactions depend on our capacity for social prediction, and our social predictions are predicated on knowledge about other people, such as their mental states (e.g., tired) or traits (e.g., agreeable).” (Tamir & Thornton, 2018)

Without the development of the social mind we would miss out on building relationships, drawing conclusions, inferring, and being a successful member of society.

Understanding yourself and the world around you involves social interpretation as you can see in the image above. You have to constantly analyze and think critically about the situation, the people involved, world knowledge, basic emotions, and self-conscious emotions in order to process things that are happening. Social Thinking is based on the development of these areas and the social mind as a whole.

One of the major draws to the Social Thinking methodology is that it is research based. Children benefit both socially and academically from direct social emotional instruction. Dr. Dorothy Espelage, Ph.D Professor in Educational Psychology discusses the importance of social emotional learning in schools in relation to bullying prevention in the video below.

Dr. Espelage states that, “SEL focuses on the systemic development of a core set of social and emotional skills that help youth more effectively handle life challenges, make better decisions, and thrive in both their learning and their social environments through a climate that supports the practicing of skills.” (Espelage, 2017) She makes the point that the research shows if you are a child in a school that provides explicit social emotional instruction that you will have less disruptive behavior and higher test scores than a child from a school that does not provide these resources. “A meta-analysis of 213 programs found that if a school implements a quality SEL curriculum, they can expect better student behavior and an 11 percentile increase in test scores.” (Espelage, 2017).

Social Thinking was created for those with social disorders, such as autism. A lack of social competence is one of the main characteristics of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Brooks Lacy Peters M.ed. wrote about the effectiveness of the Social Thinking intervention system. The study focused on, “Eight students with ASD between the ages of 5 and 7 years, with current placements in self-contained kindergarten or first grade classrooms in the public school setting participated in a 12 week intervention.” The study aimed to gauge the increase in participant’s positive social initiations, positive social responses, and active participation during recess. (Peters, 2016)

Peters concluded that the evidence was unclear. She stated that there didn’t seem to be a huge increase in desired behaviors in connection to the Social Thinking curriculum. As you can see in the chart above there was a slight increase across the different areas. One of the limitations Peters listed was the necessity for a prolonged period of time in order for more positive behaviors to be learned and observed. Perhaps an increase in daily small group instruction over a longer period of time could be more beneficial and show more growth. (Peters, 2016)

The Social Thinking methodology was initially developed for those diagnosed with specific social disorders but is starting to be used more widely in the general education classroom. As informal learning and play are being taken away from children at great rates, we are seeing a need for more explicit social emotional instruction for all students. SEL can be used with people at any developmental stage or age. An innovative way to even utilize the materials would be in the workplace. The importance skills like self-management, problem solving, and self-awareness can benefit everyone working collaboratively in a community. A major component of the Social Thinking methodology is the use of Behavior Maps. These maps can be used after a conflict or incident in order to go over the thought process that resulted in the undesirable outcome. It can be used as a reflection piece to see where changes can be made in the future. Below is an example of a behavior map.

These behavior maps can be valuable tools in understanding those around you and working better together as a team no matter the setting.

One of the major limitations of the Social Thinking methodology is time. As supported by the research study share above, 20 minutes a day with small group instruction for 12 weeks wasn’t even enough time to see the desired increase in positive social behaviors. We are going to be encouraged to incorporate this curriculum in our primary classrooms. I will have at least 22 students in my room this upcoming school year and I am having a hard time concluding that I will be able to effectively use all of the tools available. We are being required as teachers to now teach something to children that seems to be a skill that should be learned informally when growing up. I cannot help but question the need for more instructional materials, standards, and assessments rather than just allowing the students to have an extra recess or provide more time for play and positive interaction throughout the day.

Another major limitation tied in to the time factor is how it will replace the behavior management system we already have in place. I see this methodology as a way of helping students get along and build their social mind. We will be required to take away our clip chart behavior management tool, and guide students to be more self-aware of their feelings, interactions, and behavior. If this is something that is going to take time to teach how do adminstrators expect our classrooms to run efficiently without scaffolding an extrinsic reminder or aid in behavior awareness?

Social emotional learning curriculum has proven over time to be something that all students need more of. There is research supporting the relationship between SEL and higher test scores and lower displays of disruptive behaviors. Cassel.org is a leader in research-based SEL programs that can be implemented in any setting, helping to increase the desired major social emotional components such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. Social Thinking is a program that is evidence based and focuses on improving these skills on an individualized basis. As with any intervention system, extensive amounts of time, consistency, and individual goal-making will aid in the successful implementation of this social skill development methodology.