Math + Social and Emotional Learning = Student Success

Key Points

• Social and emotional learning is essential in math classrooms to help students overcome self-doubt, engage deeply, and view themselves as capable learners.
• Integrating social and emotional learning into academics fosters student agency, belonging, and curiosity—conditions that transform passive learners into active “explorers.”
• CASEL has released a set of guidelines in collaboration with WestEd to help support curriculum developers and educators build math classrooms where all students have the opportunity to feel  agentic, engaged, and curious.

Imagine you walk into an eighth-grade math classroom.  You see the teacher at the front, leading an algebra lesson. A handful of students actively participate. Their hands are frequently in the air, asking questions, offering solutions, and engaging with other students’ comments. Others follow along, paying attention but passive. A few students seem to be actively disengaged. Their attention is elsewhere. Some are bored. Others seem to have given up.

If you’ve spent time teaching or observing classrooms, this is probably a familiar scenario. This division within the classroom is itself a lesson in fractions that can befuddle even the most advanced math teacher.

But why does this happen? And how do we solve it?

The Social and Emotional Dynamics of Learning

Students’ beliefs about themselves as learners, and the task of learning itself, are at the root of the problem. To learn, all students need a willingness to take the social, emotional, and academic risks necessary for growth. Things like having a growth mindset, feeling supported, and viewing mistakes as opportunities to learn are great contributors to whether a student thrives in the classroom or merely gets by.

This is especially true in math classrooms, where many students enter class  believing that they are just not “math people,” that the work is not relevant to their lives, and that if they don’t get it immediately they won’t get it at all. 

In cases like these, social and emotional learning can play a key role in supporting academic learning. While many think of social and emotional learning as a discrete period in the school day or school week when students learn to identify their own and others’ emotions and master mindsets and practices that can help them work with others, it also plays a key role in creating the conditions for learning.

When fully integrated into a school setting, social and emotional learning helps build safe and supportive environments where students have positive relationships with staff and each other so they are prepared for deep learning. SEL sets the foundation for classrooms where all students—especially those who’ve been left out in the past—can see themselves as capable math thinkers, work together to solve interesting problems, and grow their skills.

Putting Students in the Drivers’ Seat in Math Learning

When social and emotional learning is integrated into academics, it supports engagement by putting students in the driver’s seat. This is beneficial for students across the spectrum of academic achievement.

In their book, The Disengaged Teen, Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop explore four “dynamic modes kids move through based on the environments they inhabit”: resistor, achiever, passenger, and explorer (xvii).

According to their research, when students are in explorer mode they feel deeply curious, engaged, and agentic. Students in achievement mode, while they may get high scores on exams, are more prone to burnout and perfectionism. These students may struggle to define their own goals and stay resilient in the face of setbacks. The math classroom, and the future of work, require us to create the conditions for exploration.

What Can Educators Do?

CASEL has released a set of guidelines in collaboration with WestEd to help support curriculum developers and educators build math classrooms where all students have the opportunity to feel  agentic, engaged, and curious.

We focus on the three tenets of learner identity development, agency and belonging, and collective responsibility and provider actionable strategies and sample lesson plans created by math teachers.

• Teachers support learner identity development when they convey that every student has both good ideas to offer and more to learn. They invite students to make connections between classroom math and their lives outside of school and celebrate hard work and growth over quick wins.
• Agency and belonging work together to create math classrooms where students have a “toolbox” of math strategies and feel confident applying them. Students are willing to take risks, receive feedback, and revise their thinking because they know they are part of a community of learners.
• Students feel a sense of collective responsibility when they work together to solve mathematical equations and real world problems. The practices of communicating their ideas and findings, building on the thinking of others, and disagreeing respectfully in the classroom prepares them for civic engagement out in the world.

CASEL’s guidance was created to support student’s mathematical engagement and attainment, but the classroom is a microcosm of the world outside its walls. Creating environments where students are encouraged to be explorers equips them with the skills and mindsets they’ll need to be confident, lifelong learners who tackle whatever challenges school, work, and life throw their way.

Related Posts

• Mathematics and SEL Are a Natural Pair
• Programming Trends: Integrating Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and Academics
• Powerful Ways to Integrate SEL With Academics

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