1st Edition
The Social-Emotional Learning Upgrade Merging SEL and Technology Curricula to Support Young Learners
The Social-Emotional Learning Upgrade explores how today’s educators can connect two previously separated but important curricula in their schools: social-emotional learning (SEL) and educational technology. With schools’ SEL efforts pressed for time and resources and digital engagements often limited to skill development, K-12 students risk being unprepared to sustain their well-being and personal opportunities in a rapidly changing, technology-dependent world. Driven by a paradigm that synthesizes multicultural education and humanistic psychology, this book readies educators to implement SEL curricula that will support young learners as they navigate constant social and technological flux and that will nurture their unique perceptions of reality, their aspirations, and their mental and physical health. Each chapter’s novel insights will help to mitigate both student disengagement and teacher demoralization, enabling classroom pedagogies and the process of schooling to better align with the ways in which learners explore, express, and create meaning. Guiding pre-service teachers, leaders, and curriculum developers beyond common goals such as digital skills development, content mastery, or standardized testing, this volume focuses instead on complex digital literacies, collaborative experiences, problem- and project-based learning, culturally relevant pedagogies, and overall holistic growth.
Introduction 1. Upgrading the Process of Education 2. Rise of the Cyber-Student 3. Upgrading Multicultural Humanistic Psychology 4. Invisible Essentials: Social and Emotional Intelligences 5. Lost in the Void of the Internet 6. Algorithms: Writing the Rules of the Present and Programming Friends 7. The Obligatory Transformation of Perception for Young Adults 8. Discovering the Meanings of Perception in Young Adulthood: A Phenomenology 9. Presentation of Data 10. Conclusion
Biography
Christopher J. Kazanjian is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at El Paso Community College, Texas, USA, and Program Director for the after-school program Kidz n' Coaches-El Paso.
"The Social-Emotional Learning Upgrade offers a timely exploration of the intersections among technology use, well-being, and social-emotional learning. This thought-provoking book offers a critical assessment of the benefits and detriments of advanced technologies for learning while emphasizing the importance of social and emotional intelligences as essential skills for young learners. With its insightful analysis, it is a must-read for educators, parents, and leaders who are concerned about the well-being of the next generation in the midst of an ever-evolving technological landscape."
—Leanna Archambault, Professor of Learning Design and Technology in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, USA
"Christopher Kazanjian builds a foundational understanding of the societal matrix that twenty-first-century young adults navigate. Educators will benefit from the critical lens used to reveal young adults' virtually lived experiences. The Social-Emotional Learning Upgrade pushes current thinking related to the world that emergent adults navigate mostly in digital spaces."
—David Rutledge, Associate Professor of Educational Design and Learning Technology at New Mexico State University, USA
