Linking Social-Emotional Learning to Instructional Practices in an Urban Context

The current educational climate, particularly in urban schools, is focused on high-stakes tests. This situation creates unintended consequences of creating a context that is focused primarily on student testing, with little focus on the rest of the child. How teachers be encouraged to focus on social-emotional competencies as well as academic competencies? In this April 2013 presentation at the American Educational Research Association annual conference, Nick Yoder describes his research examining the relationship between instructional practices and student social, emotional, and cognitive development. His mixed-methods study examines the relationship between student perceptions of instructional practices and student perceptions of classroom climate, social-emotional competencies, behavioral engagement, and academic achievement and compares these student perceptions to that of an outside observer.