Integrating STEM and SEL: 5 Benefits For Your Students

*This post was previously published by Carly & Adam. 

A first grade teacher welcomes her students back to the classroom. She is excited to have a busy space, full of learners talking, working, and playing. Her excitement is balanced with concern as she knows that many students are nervous to return to school and some may be coming for the first time in a long time. She has planned fun icebreaker activities, reading lessons, and cooperative learning tasks. Not only does she want to build a sense of classroom community, but she also wants to welcome students into a safe, collaborative, and enjoyable learning environment. 

She plans to do several read alouds with a focus on starting a new school year, making new friends, and how to work together. She shares the book The Name Jar and other stories that help students develop self-awareness that is important at the first grade level. She has planned some getting to know you activities where students communicate with one another and share their interests. She understands that building relationships are critical in school and in life. These students work together on some problem-solving tasks.

These activities will help students develop and learn together, fostering collaboration skills along with building new knowledge. When combined, these activities also connect two important instructional ideas, teaching STEM and providing a foundation for social emotional learning in school.

STEM education and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) have many common components that align including: 

• Teamwork: the importance of working as a team but also recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses. 

• Relationship Skills and Self-Awareness: the challenge of developing an awareness of others while continuing to build confidence in yourself. 

• Social Awareness: the reward of having positive relationships and the hard work that goes with creating them. 

• Responsible Decision-Making: the understanding that the choices you make have consequences for yourself and those around you.

It makes sense to provide instruction that can build skills in both STEM and SEL. These two paths may seem different in some ways, but they have many strategies in common. STEM and SEL can work together to accomplish similar goals. When taught in alignment, students can reap the benefits of this integrated approach. 

Here’s a closer look at the 5 benefits of integrating STEM and SEL:

 1. Promotes Academic Growth

Students who are struggling with their own social emotional development may be coming to school, but they aren’t necessarily ready to learn. When we find ways to address social emotional needs in the classroom, we can remove those barriers to learning and promote academic growth. If we can fill some of their social and emotional needs through teaching social skills, then students can begin to attack the content in STEM and other subject areas.

In the classroom: The first grade teacher used read alouds to engage students in the topics of empathy, reputation, and growth mindset. In turn, when she planned a read aloud STEM challenge for her class after reading The Bad Seed, she hoped that she would see students activating those skills. Since the students have also discussed working together and solving problems, they were able to use that knowledge when the teacher challenged them to design, build, and test a seed home for The Bad Seed. This challenge has allowed students to recognize their strengths and limitations with a well-grounded sense of confidence and purpose. Because the students learned the skills to be self-aware and effective in small group settings, they were able to succeed in the challenge.

2. Offers Hands-on Connections
When hands-on opportunities are embedded in content learning, students are more engaged and can better grasp the information. As we provide social emotional learning strategies for communication and organizational skills, students can practice them within the STEM learning tasks we design, in turn giving them a hands-on experience connected to their social emotional development.

In the classroom: In a kindergarten classroom, the teacher talked with her students about self-management. She read the story My Magic Breath. The story teaches students to use mindful breathing strategies when they need to calm down. The class made their own pendulums with markers, string, and tape to practice different breathing techniques. Now the students have a physical tool to help them to practice their breathing with something they designed and built themselves!

3. Provides Practical Application

We can equip our students with skills to communicate, collaborate, and make responsible decisions, but if we don’t give them the chance to practice these skills, we are missing a big opportunity. Engaging in a science experiment or a building challenge requires teamwork. Problem-solving can provide practical application for students who are developing their social emotional learning strategies.

In the classroom: A class of 4th graders has been working on responsible decision-making skills and their teacher is encouraging them to utilize different strategies to stay focused to meet their goals. In a small group, they create a plan for cleaning up and improving the school grounds. The students work together, using their personal strengths, to increase the success of the group as a whole. Their project requires STEM skills like design, innovation, and engineering, but also self-awareness, social awareness, and responsible decision-making.

4. Increase Positive Interactions

Part of social emotional wellness means being able to connect with others in a positive way, communicating, and building relationships with those around you. Students need to practice navigating these interactions and using the right language to engage with others. These are a natural part of work in STEM and makerspaces, as students work with others to design, construct, and give feedback to one another.

In the classroom: The second-grade class is trying their first engineering design challenge. The teacher has assigned each student a role (team captain, materials manager, head architect, and testing supervisor). The students embrace their roles and work collaboratively to accomplish their challenges. Once teams have completed one iteration of their design, they move around the room and provide feedback to their peers, building positive communication skills and deepening understanding in the classroom. 

5. Build Skills For Life

As students learn social emotional skills alongside skills in science, technology, engineering, and math, they are preparing for daily interactions with others, but also for potential careers. While some careers may function in isolation, most require positive interpersonal skills and working with a team. Opportunities in STEM offer the chance to build the skills which will help them in school, career, community, and beyond. 

In the classroom: Within the STEM lab, you’ll rarely hear anyone say, “Why do I need to learn this?!?” Students understand that solving problems and working together are a part of life. They see it in action when they are challenged to construct new living spaces, design new contraptions, and take steps toward coding. STEM learning experiences allow them to better understand themselves and others which will benefit them during all stages of their life.
STEM and SEL are building blocks. When stacked together they can create a strong foundation for our students. The benefits of incorporating these two instructional areas exist for both students and for teachers. SEL isn’t something extra that we need to teach. It’s not the latest “add-on.” It is the foundation on which we have been planning STEM learning all along!