Five Ways to Foster Social Emotional Learning with Flipgrid

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is more important than ever before. If you follow our work, you may know how passionate we are about SEL and its implementation in the classroom. We truly believe SEL should be taught in every school around the world to contribute to the holistic growth of students.

Creating a safe environment where students feel welcome and have a voice to express themselves and how they are feeling is crucial for their future. Students need to learn how to identify their emotions, how to handle them and how to communicate those to others that can help them in challenging moments.

When we talk about giving a voice to students the first word that often comes to our minds is Flipgrid. This video discussion platform is the perfect tool to empower every voice in your class and, therefore, is a great way to empower students to share their feelings.

Emotions are important, both the good and the “bad” ones. We like to say that there are not bad emotions, all of them are fundamental and have a purpose. They are part of what we are and they shape our character and personality.

“Every emotion matter”

Dealing with those challenging emotions is what we need to learn to overcome difficult situations. Often, we learn how to deal with them by talking about them or by listening what strategies other people have used to overcome difficult situations. Having a voice and listening at those voices that want to support us is equally important to develop Social Emotional Skills and here is where Flipgrid becomes the cornerstone of this way to approach SEL in the classroom.

Today, we are going to share five of the many ways we use Flipgrid in the classroom to foster Social Emotional Learning:

1. Reviewing wheel of feelings

The Wheel of Feelings is a great strategy for students to reflect on their emotions and for the teacher to identify students that are at risk and need support.

Students use the digital inking feature in OneNote to fill the wheel of feelings each day. At the end of the month the student and teacher go over how the month has gone emotionally for the student.

Reviewing the wheel of feelings using Flipgrid at the end of each week is a wonderful way for students to reflect on their feelings and get to know themselves better.

2. Filling my bucket

Everyone faces difficult moments where it is so important to remember that there are also many good things in life that we should be thankful for.

In this activity, the teacher creates a topic for each of the students to record good moments that they want to remember in the future such as a wonderful experience with a friend at recess time or a great time they had during a science project.

When the student is having a difficult day, he can step outside the classroom and watch a couple videos to cheer him/her up.

Also, here is an example of how you use this strategy without using any kind of technology:

3. Social Emotional Learning FlipHunt

“A Fliphunt is a digital scavenger hunt that takes place on Flipgrid. You create the tasks to engage your students and challenge them to show what they know with video responses” from www.flipgrid.com

A FlipHunt is a powerful way to engage students and it can be used also to spark self-awareness and enhance a social emotional learning approach.

The teacher can create a FlipHunt based on feelings and positive experiences. Also, the teacher can include challenges that teach students how to show respect and understand other people´s point of view.

Developing empathy is important to spark respect and respond appropriately to each situation.

4. Flipgrid Weekly Challenges

The Flipgrid challenges are a great way to keep the social engagement going during remote learning or long vacations. The teacher can create a Flipgrid Grid full of challenges that his students need to complete. They love to complete these challenges and see their classmates doing it.

Here an example of some of the challenges that students may complete:

This is a powerful way to keep students engage and having fun. They love to see their teacher trying to complete the same challenges they need to.

Creating an environment where students feel welcome and protected to do any challenge or express themselves in the way they are is the first step for students to share their feelings and strategies with their classmates and the teacher.

Having fun together and building relationships based on trust and respect is key for students to open their heart.

5. Feelinary

Recognizing and naming emotions is one of the most important aspects of self-awareness. Sometimes, students cannot recognize what they are feeling so they cannot apply the strategies that we have taught them to overcome that feeling.

In this activity, students need to record themselves acting like they are sad, or frustrated, or happy… After all the students in the class are done recording their video, the teacher will share each video on the TV or projector stopping the video every two seconds. The student who recognizes first the feeling earns a point.

It is important to start a discussion around the ways that students can identify each emotion and how to support people that needs help to overcome certain hard feelings.

Do you want to learn more ways to use Flipgrid in the classroom to foster Social Emotional Learning? Stay tuned because this is just the beginning!