The Social-Emotional Learning Upgrade: Merging SEL and Technology Curricula to Support Young Learners

The Social-Emotional Learning Upgrade explores how today’s educators can connect two previously separated but important curricula in their schools: social-emotional learning (SEL) and educational technology. With schools’ SEL efforts pressed for time and resources and digital engagements often limited to skill development, K-12 students risk being unprepared to sustain their well-being and personal opportunities in a rapidly changing, technology-dependent world. Driven by a paradigm that synthesizes multicultural education and humanistic psychology, this book readies educators to implement SEL curricula that will support young learners as they navigate constant social and technological flux and that will nurture their unique perceptions of reality, their aspirations, and their mental and physical health. Each chapter’s novel insights will help to mitigate both student disengagement and teacher demoralization, enabling classroom pedagogies and the process of schooling to better align with the ways in which learners explore, express, and create meaning. Guiding pre-service teachers, leaders, and curriculum developers beyond common goals such as digital skills development, content mastery, or standardized testing, this volume focuses instead on complex digital literacies, collaborative experiences, problem- and project-based learning, culturally relevant pedagogies, and overall holistic growth.