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SEL With Intention
The five SEL skills in high school content classes
Learn what the five skills look like in Chemistry, Spanish 2, or US History, why naming them out loud matters, and what the research actually says. Built for high school teachers, by a high school teacher.
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Why this exists
Most of us have sat through an SEL training. We heard the five skills, saw the colorful wheel, maybe did a breathing exercise, and then went back to teaching our content the next morning with no clear picture of what to change.
That gap is not a feeling. It is what 12 California high school teachers described in a 2026 doctoral dissertation study (Mathy, 2026). Teachers said professional development raised their awareness of SEL but was episodic, low in instructional specificity, and lacking follow up. They were already doing a lot of SEL through relationships and routines. What they rarely did, because nobody had shown them how, was name the skills on purpose inside their content.
By the end you will be able to:
- Explain what SEL is and what CASEL's framework is (and is not).
- Define the five skills in your own words and recognize them in a high school content class.
- Turn an implicit SEL moment into an intentional one using four teacher moves.
- Summarize the major research findings, including their limits, accurately enough to explain them to a colleague, parent, or administrator.
- Plan one 20 minute activity for next week.
What SEL and CASEL are
CASEL is the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, a nonprofit founded in 1994 that introduced the term "Social and Emotional Learning." Its framework is one of the most widely cited SEL frameworks in the United States and is widely used in state and district SEL guidance.
Three things in that definition are worth slowing down on:
- "A process." SEL is something people develop over time through practice, not a unit you finish.
- "Young people and adults." Teachers are included. Your own skills shape the room (Module 8).
- "Build and apply." Knowing the word "empathy" is not the goal. Using it while disagreeing about a primary source is.
The framework places the five skills at the center, surrounded by the settings where they grow: classrooms, schools, families and caregivers, and communities. Your classroom is one of those settings, and for many teenagers it is the one where they practice these skills with the widest range of peers.
CASEL shows this as its framework wheel. See it on CASEL's site.
The five skills in a high school content class
CASEL calls them competencies. We call them the five skills. Each one below starts with what the skill means in CASEL's framework, summarized in our own words (CASEL's exact definitions are on casel.org), then the plain version we use everywhere, then one example from a high school content class.
Self-Awareness
Understanding your own emotions, thoughts, and values, and how they shape what you do in different situations.
- In plain words
- Knowing what I feel, what I value, and what I am good at
Self-Management
Managing your emotions, thoughts, and actions in different situations so you can reach your goals.
- In plain words
- Calming down, sticking with it, and planning
Relationship Skills
Building and keeping healthy, supportive relationships, and working well with many different people and groups.
- In plain words
- Listening, working together, and working through conflict
Responsible Decision-Making
Making caring, constructive choices about your own actions and how you treat others, in many kinds of situations.
- In plain words
- Thinking a choice through
Intentional, not implicit
In that study, practices aligned with all five skills were present in teachers' classrooms but were rarely named. Teachers built them through relationships, routines, and modeling. That is valuable. It is also implicit: students may be practicing a skill without knowing it, so they cannot name it, notice it, or carry it into the next class.
Implicit SEL is what happens around the content. Intentional SEL is planned, named, practiced, and reflected on inside the content. Here is the same moment, both ways.
Implicit
"Turn and talk with your partner about the source."
Students talk. Some listen, some wait for their turn. The skill being practiced is never named, so nobody can tell whether it went well.
Intentional
"Today we're practicing social awareness, specifically taking someone else's perspective. When your partner shares, your job is to restate their idea before you add yours. At the end, you'll rate how well you did that."
Same content, same two minutes. Now students know the skill, have a clear way to practice it, and reflect on it.
That shift takes four teacher moves. Every RoseThread Connect activity is built around them.
Name it
Say the skill and what it looks like today out loud, and why it matters for this content.
Activities: the read aloud introduction
Show it
Model what it looks and sounds like. Give sentence frames so every student, including English learners, can do it.
Activities: frames at three ELD levels
Practice it in the content
Students use the skill while doing real academic work, usually with a partner or group and clear roles.
Activities: the talk structure and student task
Reflect on it
Students think about how it went and how they could use it elsewhere. Sharing is invited, never required.
Activities: the reflection and share
These moves line up with what researchers call the SAFE practices, identified in the largest early review of SEL programs (Durlak et al., 2011): Sequenced (a connected set of activities), Active (students practice, not just listen), Focused (time is devoted to the skill), and Explicit (a specific skill is targeted, not "positive development" in general). Programs that used all four produced significant effects on all six outcomes the researchers measured. Programs that did not use all four reached significance on only three.
What the research says
You will hear many numbers about SEL. Here are the three studies that matter most for a high school content teacher, and what they do not show, so you can speak about them accurately. The full list is in the references.
The landmark review
Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger (2011), Child Development
school based SEL programs
students, K through 12
percentile point gain in achievement
- Compared with control groups, students in SEL programs showed better social and emotional skills, attitudes, behavior, and academic performance.
- Programs taught by classroom teachers were effective across all six outcomes. Academic performance improved significantly only when school staff led the program.
- Programs using all four SAFE practices did better (Module 4), and implementation problems weakened results.
Teachers' own skills shape the room
Jennings & Greenberg (2009), Review of Educational Research
- The "prosocial classroom" model proposes that teachers' own social and emotional competence and well being influence their relationships with students, how they manage the classroom, and how well they teach SEL, which in turn shapes classroom climate and student outcomes.
What high school teachers told us
Mathy (2026), doctoral dissertation, Grand Canyon University
A qualitative study of 12 high school general education teachers in California, using in depth interviews, on how well professional development supported SEL after the return to in person school.
- Professional development was necessary but insufficient: it raised awareness without the depth, coherence, modeling, and follow up teachers needed to change practice.
- Teachers navigated implicit expectations: they were expected to "do SEL" with little direct work on the framework, so each teacher made sense of it alone.
- Teachers judged SEL by what they saw: emotional regulation, belonging, engagement, reflection, and persistence.
- Practices aligned with all five skills were present in classrooms but rarely named explicitly.
- Recommendations: name and operationalize the five skills, make professional learning ongoing and job embedded and connected to content specific instruction, and build teachers' own SEL and self-efficacy.
- High school is underrepresented. Only about 13% of the studies in Durlak et al. (2011) involved high school students. Most SEL evidence comes from elementary school.
- Averages hide variation. The effects above are averages across many programs. Quality of implementation changes results.
- SEL is not mental health treatment. Classroom SEL supports every student (Tier 1). Students who need more support should be connected with counselors and your school's MTSS process.
- RoseThread Connect has not been evaluated. These studies describe SEL programs in general. Our activities are built on these principles, but no study has yet measured their effects. RoseThread Connect is not affiliated with or endorsed by CASEL.
Teenagers are different
Psychologist David Yeager (2017) reviewed SEL programs for adolescents and found that programs that directly teach skills and ask teenagers to rehearse them over many sessions "have a poor track record with middle adolescents." His explanation is that teenagers care deeply about respect and status. A program that implies "you have a deficit we need to fix" feels condescending, and they tune out.
We think this is a strong reason for teaching SEL through content in high school. What it means for your class:
- Treat students as capable. Frame the skill as something experts use ("Scientists plan for surprising data"), not something students lack.
- Keep the academic work real. The skill is how they do meaningful work, not a break from it.
- Give voice and choice. Let students choose the frame, their role, or whether to share aloud.
- Never require private disclosure. Every reflection should be answerable without sharing anything personal.
- Keep it short. One named skill and one reflection beats a long lecture about feelings.
Start with you
CASEL's definition includes adults, and the study recommends that professional learning build teachers' own social and emotional skills and confidence, not only students'. Students learn these skills partly by watching how we handle a class period that falls apart, a frustrated student, or a disagreement. Take two minutes with these questions. They are for you, not for anyone else.
Plan one activity
There is no card to fill in. Open RoseThread Connect, answer three quick questions about what you teach, and this week's activity appears with the skill already named and the script already written. Unlock it, pick the day you will teach it, and your plan is saved.
Earn your certificate and badge
Every module ends with a quick check, with two tries on each question. Sign in with Google and your answers save to your free account, so you can stop and come back on any device. Get 80% or better (14 of 17) to earn your certificate, signed by Dr. Jessica Rose Mathy, and a digital badge to share on LinkedIn or social media.
Pocket card
- Self-AwarenessKnowing what I feel, what I value, and what I am good at
- Self-ManagementCalming, persisting, planning, and setting goals
- Social AwarenessUnderstanding what others think, feel, and need
- Relationship SkillsListening, working together, and working through conflict
- Responsible Decision-MakingThinking a choice through: options, impact, fairness
- Name it. Say the skill and why it matters for today's content (30 seconds).
- Show it. Give a sentence frame or model it yourself.
- Practice it. Use it inside the content task, with partners and roles.
- Reflect on it. One question. Nothing private required.
- Self-AwarenessKnowing what I feel, what I value, and what I am good at
- Self-ManagementCalming, persisting, planning, and setting goals
- Social AwarenessUnderstanding what others think, feel, and need
- Relationship SkillsListening, working together, and working through conflict
- Responsible Decision-MakingThinking a choice through: options, impact, fairness
- Name it. Say the skill and why it matters for today's content (30 seconds).
- Show it. Give a sentence frame or model it yourself.
- Practice it. Use it inside the content task, with partners and roles.
- Reflect on it. One question. Nothing private required.
References
Belfield, C., Bowden, A. B., Klapp, A., Levin, H., Shand, R., & Zander, S. (2015). The economic value of Social and Emotional Learning. Center for Benefit Cost Studies of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. Journal version: https://doi.org/10.1017/bca.2015.55
Cipriano, C., Strambler, M. J., Naples, L. H., Ha, C., Kirk, M., Wood, M., Sehgal, K., Zieher, A. K., Eveleigh, A., McCarthy, M., Funaro, M., Ponnock, A., Chow, J. C., & Durlak, J. (2023). The state of evidence for Social and Emotional Learning: A contemporary meta-analysis of universal school-based SEL interventions. Child Development, 94(5), 1181–1204. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13968
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2020). CASEL's SEL framework. https://casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel/what-is-the-casel-framework/
Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students' Social and Emotional Learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405–432. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x
Jennings, P. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). The prosocial classroom: Teacher social and emotional competence in relation to student and classroom outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 491–525. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654308325693
Jones, D. E., Greenberg, M., & Crowley, M. (2015). Early social-emotional functioning and public health: The relationship between kindergarten social competence and future wellness. American Journal of Public Health, 105(11), 2283–2290. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302630
Mathy, J. R. (2026). Professional development and Social and Emotional Learning post-COVID: High school teachers' perspectives [Doctoral dissertation, Grand Canyon University].
Taylor, R. D., Oberle, E., Durlak, J. A., & Weissberg, R. P. (2017). Promoting positive youth development through school-based Social and Emotional Learning interventions: A meta-analysis of follow-up effects. Child Development, 88(4), 1156–1171. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12864
Yeager, D. S. (2017). Social and Emotional Learning programs for adolescents. The Future of Children, 27(1), 73–94. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1145078.pdf
Our five SEL skills are informed by CASEL's SEL Framework. CASEL's definitions are summarized in our own words; the exact definitions are on casel.org. RoseThread Learning is not affiliated with or endorsed by CASEL.
Social Awareness
Understanding other people's points of view and feeling empathy for them, including people whose backgrounds and cultures differ from yours.