Index for Social Emotional Technologies

Challenging Approaches to Inclusive Education

Annalisa Morganti, Stefano Pascoletti, Alessia Signorelli

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351185035
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Index for Social Emotional Technologies explores how technology can strengthen access and foster the acquisition of transversal skills useful for inclusive educational processes. It investigates the value that technology can offer to social and emotional learning through different tiers of actions and the main features of educational technology that can support such use.

The book brings together educational technologies and research evidence relevant to different education systems to outline new, unexplored ways of intersecting educational and technological fields. It also addresses the need for a guide to designing and creating new inclusive educational tools for an international market.

Index for Social Emotional Technologies will be of great interest to academics, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of inclusive education, educational technology, and social and emotional learning.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Annalisa Morganti

Why we decided to write this book

We addressed the themes of inclusive education and social and emotional learning for the first time in the article “For an Inclusive Education: The Innovative Challenge of Technologies for Social Emotional Learning” (Morganti, Pascoletti & Signorelli, 2016), as we had noticed how educational research and practices connected to such topics were very scarce (when not completely lacking), especially in the Italian context. The collection of European and international evidence on the three themes linked between them showed both “lights” and also “shadows” that could be, for educational research, an object of further investigations. This first experience led us to follow and further examine in depth these three critical dimensions which promote pedagogical reflection and didactic innovation: the more personal one of social emotional learning (SEL), the philanthropic one of inclusion, and the more “impersonal”, but certainly stimulating, one of educational technologies (ed-techs). This is what brought us to the writing of this book, the aim of which is to open up and enhance a debate that could further help progress in the knowledge of these three different domains and, above all, on the great potential arising from their interconnection.

Several questions guided us in writing this manuscript. Amongst them, we can surely include “when” and “how” these three domains meet and match, and if a higher educational quality and personal growth corresponds to such connections. Are we facing trajectories intersecting with synergic overlapping, or is everything a mere sum of the parts? Are there professional figures which are apt in appreciating and supporting future benefits? By analysing what European and international research suggests, we proposed some hypotheses for intervention and new “starting points” for developing research in those fields.

For schools’ concerns, technologies are gaining a central role in supporting the paradigm of inclusion. To completion, social and emotional learning contributes to the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal skills and takes care of the student on a social-personal level, showing to be very effective for education. SEL, in fact, is one of the key elements with which new students should be equipped to deal with the complexity of the current world, because such competencies are essential in promoting inclusion and openness to others, and are vital for leading a good life at the workplace and in society. At the same time, educational technologies can be a close “ally” to modernize educational systems designed and implemented to support participants in acquiring new and encompassing competencies such as emotional and social ones, while improving the learning experiences of all students, including those with “special needs”.

The matching of ed-techs and SEL is, therefore, the natural fusion of two strategic features in support of inclusive education processes. Thus, we must provide an analysis that would try to integrate and include, in a synergic way, SEL in ed-tech products and resources, capitalizing on what works and trying to provide guidelines for “authorized personnel”.

The theme addressed in this work involves, as we have seen, the delicate and relevant area of training and education, and more, the focus of which is centred on the growth and gradual control of the world of emotions, a very personal dimension that each individual, since the beginning of their cognitive evolution, experiences and understands in utterly unique ways.

In fact, one of the main critical points is primarily linked to the collection of the more correct “decoding” of the cause-effect relations that channel emotions in a “waterbed” of balance and control. This is mainly due to the many ways specific learning contents interact with the different of emotions that each set of experiences bring with them.

We will thus have the need for tools for monitoring this set of emotional experiences destined to be compared to what others – peers, friends, adults, etc. – feel in given circumstances. These are relevant factors in the many interactions that can increase, if correctly understood and assessed, both the feeling of belonging and the respect of the rights and needs of others – therefore helping the foundation of civil society’s values. It is a perspective aimed at instrumentally supporting the different possible intervention designs, created by the team of teachers, for the different needs and categories of students, according to inclusive principles and goals. We cannot, in fact, ignore the nature and complexity of the concept of “inclusion”, the implementation of which starts with focusing on specific needs and then turns towards the setting of knowledge (and know-how) accessibility for all students, independently from their “cognitive status”, an unavoidable challenge that is precisely the core of future and new teaching-learning practices.

In many countries, researchers face the challenge of improving inclusive education while at the same time equipping students with new skills for a smarter, more creative, and global inclusive agenda. It already has been expressed by a recent communication from the European Commission to the European Parliament (July 12th, 2016): “Improving and Modernising Education”. The communication remarks that:

Education systems need to be modernized and the quality of education continuously improved. Globalization and technological change open up new possibilities, for education and for work… . School systems struggle with providing sufficient key competencies, such as digital and entrepreneurial skills or social and civic competences. This issue needs to be addressed. Striving for improving the quality of education is a goal that is relevant for all Member States.

(p. 3)

This book aims at answering these European and international requirements through the innovative “triangulation” of the three research topics until now investigated in separate studies:

1. 1 inclusive education;
2. 2 educational technologies;
3. 3 social and emotional learning.

The study aspires to reduce the academic gap between the world of education and the world of technologies, which too often look like two parallel universes, keeping their contacts at a minimum level and only when strictly necessary. The book wishes to lay the foundation for a future, fruitful, and sustainable research dialogue between SEL, inclusion, and technologies, offering information about the current state of the art of research on these three scientific fields; it also offers starting points for further development that would go beyond the use, sometimes not very “imaginative”, of digital technologies in education, with the aim of increasing their implementation, variety, goals, and objectives. If there is strong international attention to the separate study of each of these elements, this book tries to provide a unitary reading to channel the interest of many academics engaged in each of the three topics, extending such attention to the world of learning technologies production companies.

Summing up, this volume wishes to deal with, through a partially original way, the triad of technologies, SEL, and inclusion, seen as essential elements for an educational evolution that cannot be postponed or merely “theoretically” conceived anymore, imagining for the future the birth of a “connection” figure, a “digital social-emotional educationalist”, expert precisely in leading and enhancing the dialogue between educational and technological sciences.

This volume is a work that wishes to make a significant impact on school contexts and also on all those organizations and companies that develop and create learning tools and software, providing new elements for international reflection and debate on these three key levels: educational technologies, social and emotional learning, and inclusive education.

Structure of the book

This volume is made up of six chapters, the first dedicated to introducing the main themes that will be discussed and investigated in depth in the following pages.

In the second chapter, we will analyse the state of the art of social and emotional learning in Europe and the United States, with closer attention to the investments (including economic) that have been provided in the different contexts to increase the presence of social and emotional learning inside and outside of schools. After a quick review of the primary definition given to social and emotional learning, both in Europe and in the U.S., and relating key competencies, particular attention will be paid to the inclusive potential that could be enhanced thanks to social and emotional learning by supporting some of its key elements, particularly in terms of educational practices.

Through the description of international research, we will look for evidence on SEL efficacy for inclusion. We will look for content that would ideally urge leading policymakers and stakeholders introduce social and emotional learning in all national curricula and at all levels of education, also through a correct and “smart” use of educational technologies.

We will also provide a quick overview of the different policies regulating inclusion and social and emotional learning in Europe and in the U.S., providing some examples taken from official documentation.

The third chapter will summarize the state of the art of educational technologies, noticing how, in time, technologies modified the way of learning and engaging with others; we will then move onto an analysis of European and American indications concerning investments, research, and evidence collected internationally. The introduction and use of ICTs in education, in recent years, has now left a visible mark that allows for focusing on different strengths and weaknesses. Through a retrospective analysis, the assessment of the various solutions will allow us to identify the gaps between what has been implemented and the aims and objectives defined by research and by the many pedagogical paradigms. We will, therefore, try to understand the more relevant and innovative aspects of educational technologies, in particular of those tools and good practices adopted by SEL, with a specific attention on the feasibility – how are most likely implemented in class – and on the degree of inclusion – contribution and effectiveness in inclusive processes – to finally come to a taxonomic model harbinger of operational tessera that gradually could feed into the indicators presented in the following chapters, which will propose guidelines for schools and, as a partially new aspect, for companies.

We will then take into consideration questions such as: “Which SEL programs are more apt to improve the use of educational technologies?” and “Which are the main characteristics of these ‘pro SEL’ technologies (web, virtual, etc.)?” We explore how technology can strengthen the acquisition and access to knowledge through a set of transversal functions and different-level actions aimed at inclusive educational processes and as added value for social and emotional learning.

The fourth and fifth chapters respond to the need of providing useful and concrete tools to different fields, from school and extra-school to academic or company research, to orient, guide, and monitor planning in a SEL perspective, through a series of indicators and general guidelines. Evidence showed a “rational extraction” of strengths and good practices proved to be effective, and that can be applied thanks to the support of the most popular technologies.

In the school world, teachers could make use of such technologies individually by consulting a collection of possible strategies – interventions to implement during their lessons and in a team, while collaborating, reflecting, and planning activities, and in moments of debate with the administration about investments. We offer an overall picture of pro-SEL educational applications to examine, a handbook for planning and envisioning interactions between different operational models for the cognitive heterogeneity of the end-users and as a support to inclusive processes. Readers will find starting points for activating clear actions aimed at fostering motivation, thus allowing all students to master, in different ways, not only the essential contents of the different curricular subjects, but also those skills and habits of behaviour through which one can build one’s own identity – all of this through tools created or adapted for answering such needs. The guidelines could also help teachers in researching and adopting tools or web services available on the market and, even if still not so widely practised, in the phases of self-production.

For companies and publishers, it could be a way to benefit from the analysis of the international state of the art, of the collection of the most significant tech-strategy, and of the still unexplored ways of intersecting education and technologies. There are starting points for designing new “inclusive educational tools” in a SEL perspective, as an added value to be on the market with a more attentive sensibility towards the new European needs and indications.

Specifically, the fourth chapter will provide an index (I4SET) of 14 macro-indicators that will collect the main principles and strategies that could be implemented through “dedicated” or “adapted” social and emotional technologies, organized in three main domains: (intra)personal development which is concerned with skills and competencies of the individual; interpersonal development related with social skills and peer or group learning; and, finally, professional training.

At the end of the chapter, through a specific distribution diagram (I4SET Chart) we will see, for each dimension, the areas of “high” or “low” concentration of applied technologies, highlighting in the following analysis which potential and further space for development could and should be investigated in the different, relevant contexts (school, work, retirement) and for the different age ranges. From the consulted literature and of the suggestions gathered from the Index for Social and Emotional Technologies, the fifth chapter will provide a series of recommendations for educators working in schools and for companies producing software for social and emotional skills development. Particular attention will be paid to the importance of social and emotional learning for improving and maximizing inclusion.

The last chapter will summarize the main themes addressed by the whole manuscript. Particular attention will be paid to providing clear indicators for monitoring and assessing social and emotional learning for inclusive and innovative education, through dedicated technologies. To achieve this aim, we will reference European research in which we have been personally involved, which allowed us to develop and create a tool (mainly aimed at primary schools) used by schools to assess and monitor, through specific indicators, the quality of the inclusive processes implemented by them. Starting from this set of indicators, we will develop their possible relation with social and emotional learning and inclusion, as further “flywheels” for maximizing inclusion through education.

The last part of the chapter will be devoted entirely to those who work in the field of education and innovation technologies, suggesting, in this case as well, developments for a higher interaction between schools, research, and work. We will provide reflection and possible “tracks” for creating a new professional figure (a “digital social-emotional educationist”) who could ideally “close the gap” between technological research and educational sciences. We will actually suggest the creation of this figure as a “bridge” connecting these two worlds too often parallel: the first, the world of technology, subjected to a historical period increasingly obsessed by technological competition and relentless rhythms; the other more contemplative and with slower and gradual paces of change. For this “digital social, emotional educationist”, we will provide two different “destinations”, inside and outside of the school, identifying “key formative areas” that we think are fundamental at the technical and operational level, to build its professional DNA.

Some final thoughts

We really hope that the arguments addressed and the suggestions proposed could in some cases set new debates and research on the topics, while, in other cases further increase and feed the landscape of knowledge already acquired, promoting development. We hope that our suggestions encourage closer collaboration between those who work in schools and those who work in companies, and innovation for creating new technological and educational solutions to face the social and emotional growth challenges of new generations. We hope that teachers/educators and all the education professionals consider and use technology in new and different ways, as we wish that also computer engineers, technicians, and ed-tech professionals could increasingly recognize and appreciate the social and emotional value that technological tools can channel and promote at any age and in different contexts (school, work, retirement). Our highest hopes and expectations are that the ideas here presented would contribute to the creation of increasingly innovative societies, not only from a technological point of view but also with the ability to appreciate social and emotional education as a leading and privileged tool for equity, social justice, and inclusion.

Reference

Morganti, A., Pascoletti, S., & Signorelli, A. (2016). Per un’educazione inclusiva: la sfida innovativa delle tecnologie per l’educazione socio-emotiva. Form@re, 16, 52–66, ISSN: 1825–7321, doi:10.13128/formare-19159

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Social and emotional learning and inclusive education
• 3 Social and emotional learning and educational technologies
• 4 Index for Social and Emotional Technologies
• 5 Recommendations for social and emotional technologies
• 6 Conclusions
• Index