Teach Prosocial Skills: Definition and Key Features
Definition: Infuse opportunities to teach and model prosocial skills throughout the day.
Key Features for Supporting All Students:
Key Feature 1: Teach prosocial skills in a way that honors diversity, strengths, and needs across and within students.
Key Feature 2: Help students use prosocial skills to create a welcoming and inclusive classroom community.
Key Feature 3: Teach prosocial skills grounded in core values of empathy, compassion, and connection.
Key Feature 4: Teach prosocial skills proactively and in response to challenging social interactions in the classroom.
Purpose: To give all students opportunities to build skills that help them thrive academically, socially, and emotionally, and contribute to a welcoming, cohesive, and inclusive classroom community.
Tips:
- Teachers can have an identified time for social emotional learning (SEL) and try to seize learning opportunities throughout the day when events or behaviors happen, as well. Reinforcement, corrective feedback, and repetition are all critical for skill development.
- Meet students where they are in the moment by acknowledging that students may be exposed to significant stressors in their lives or at home. This can help you decide which social skills to prioritize.
- Model the use of prosocial skills for students and provide opportunities for students to respond and react to each skill.
- Create a classroom culture where any moment can be used as an opportunity to learn or practice prosocial skills. Such a culture can communicate the values of embracing challenges, understanding different perspectives, and developing trust.
- Try to create a classroom culture where making mistakes is “okay,” Try to help students learn from their mistakes. Communicating the importance of skills can be improved with effort, persistence, and the inspiration of others.
- Communicate with caregivers about the prosocial skills they are trying to promote at home; ask for their input to enhance comfort and engagement for all students.
- Keep in mind that teaching prosocial skills should be developmentally appropriate. For example, emotion recognition must precede emotion regulation. Give students scripts or offer guidelines for problem solving discussions (e.g., use “I statements”; wait for the other person to finish speaking before you speak) and assist with more advanced skills over time (perspective taking skills, advocacy skills, leadership skills, relationship skills, helping, sharing, complementing others, and mindful practices).