Social-Emotional Learning Teaching Principles for Creative, Talented and Gifted Students

What is social-emotional learning?

Principles 13–15 relate to the social context and emotional dimensions that affect learning.

Principle 13

Learning is situated within multiple social contexts

Gifted students are a part of families, peer groups, and classrooms that are situated in larger social contexts of schools, neighborhoods, cultural groups, communities, and society. Appreciating and understanding the potential influence of each social setting on gifted learners can enhance the overall effectiveness of learning. Grouping gifted children is one of the foundations of exemplary gifted education practice, it provides access to a peer group and eases the delivery of appropriately differentiated curriculum to learners with similar educational needs.

Tips for teachers

To meet the academic and social-emotional learning needs of gifted learners, the following should be provided to those students at every stage of development: learning situated within multiple contexts; differentiated educational experiences, including forms of grouping; adjustment in the level, depth and pacing of curriculum; and access to information about outside-of-school programs. Teachers should also:

Seek out talent development opportunities for gifted students in and outside of schools.
Assess the social context of their school and how gifted students are viewed.
Support students’ cultural strengths and should encourage them to share their strengths with others. This helps facilitate the transfer from home to school contexts.
Relate the curriculum and instruction to students’ cultural backgrounds.
Make decisions with a sense of what works for the student in relevant talent domains, in multiple, interconnected social settings.
Be culturally competent to be effective with students from cultures other than their own.
Establish connections with families and seek opportunities to participate in the local communities to enhance understanding of students’ cultural experiences and facilitate shared understandings about learning.
Provide effective programs and services for gifted students at multiple stages of development have been documented in the literature. Schools could replicate all or parts of these programs within their own context rather than try to reinvent the wheel.

Principle 14

Interpersonal relationships and communication are critical to both the teaching-learning process and the social-emotional development of students.

Relationships are critical not only to an effective teaching-learning process but also to establishing successful peer and adult relationships, and facilitating the healthy social-emotional development of students.

Tips for teachers

Given the interpersonal nature of pre-K to 12 teaching and learning, teachers can attend to the relational aspect of the classroom by:

Providing a safe and secure environment, both physical and social, and shared classroom culture for healthy teacher-student and peer relationships.
Being emotionally supportive and ensuring appropriately rigorous lessons for all students that can set the stage for the development of positive interpersonal relationships.
Minimizing social comparisons by decreasing attention to differences of ability among students.
Avoiding referring to the academic hierarchy in a class. Holding gifted students up as examples for peers makes them the target of upward comparisons.
Encouraging positive social strategies that help gifted students fit in.
Monitoring group work by ensuring all members are contributing appropriately in cooperative learning tasks.
Providing peer tutoring as a voluntary activity for students who express a desire to help or be helped.
Providing opportunities for students to practice socially skilled communication in both academic and social contexts.
Modeling effective verbal and nonverbal communication.

Principle 15

Emotional well-being influences educational performance, learning and development.

Gifted children experience the same social and emotional needs as other children, but they also face some unique psychological issues. Some gifted students may have self-critical, evaluative concerns that cause them anxiety. Twice-exceptional children often have more emotional difficulties in school due to frustrations arising from balancing their disability and abilities. Similarly, gifted children may struggle with social self-esteem, loneliness, and isolation due to the differences between their own interests and abilities and those of their age mates, especially in situations where services are not available or provided.

Tips for teachers

The teacher is key to establishing a classroom climate in which all students are accepted, valued and respected; have opportunities to achieve at a level of challenge appropriate to their abilities; and have opportunities for positive social relationships with adults and peers. Teachers can facilitate emotional development by:

Helping students cope with peer relations, uneven development, perfectionism or challenges to self-esteem.
Acknowledging that all gifted children do not have the same emotional needs. The emotional needs of twice-exceptional children are likely to be more pronounced.
Realizing that grades and achievement behavior are not reliable indicators of gifted students’ stress levels or coping, as they are often able to maintain high achievement even in the face of considerable psychological distress.
Occasionally inquiring about students’ feelings and how they are managing higher stress periods in the academic year.
Helping gifted children who struggle with overly critical, self-evaluative concerns to reframe their expectations.
Monitoring students who are achieving at very high levels in multiple domains. These students may feel overextended, pressured and burdened by the heavy expectations from themselves and adults.
Being careful about encouraging ultra-competitive attitudes or classrooms. These can add to students’ stress and unhappiness.
Promoting emotional understanding of others.