The primary reason I began to transition my Humanities classes to a Project-Based Learning program was to improve student engagement. I was struggling to keep my students motivated and working hard on the tasks at hand. With the implementation of a PBL classroom, students had more agency and purpose, leading to an increase in intrinsic motivation and engagement. What I didn’t realize until later was the important role SEL played in making my students much more successful. 

Shortly after I attended PBL World and began using PBL and Guided-Inquiry in my classes, I attended a workshop on the relationship between neuroscience and education. I read books such as Make it Stick, How We Learn, and Neuroteach, as well as designing, in collaboration with Six Seconds, two OESIS PD Pathways on Social Emotional Learning. I was surprised to discover, during all of this research, that student engagement (or Hot Cognition, as Six Seconds calls it) is a fundamental piece of the SEL equation and an integral part of making learning stick.  Having previously thought that SEL only concerned the “soft skills,” such as self-regulation and conflict-resolution we worked on in our advisory program, I had missed all of the important aspects of relationships, engagement, intrinsic motivation, and self-management that are foundational pieces of effective PBL work. Why is SEL an integral part of a PBL classroom in which competencies are scaffolded and explicit? Let’s take a look. 

Six Seconds talks about the importance of the Emotional Quotient (EQ), and scaffolds this concept into three different segments, identifying them as EQ for You, EQ Relationships, and EQ Classrooms. The work they have done which is most relevant to classrooms, and specifically the PBL classroom is, of course, EQ Classrooms. One of the most interesting ideas I have come across over the past few years is that a brain that is bored is a brain that is stressed. This has many implications for our work in the classroom, and gets at the concept of Hot Cognition that Anabel Jensen of Six Seconds talks about: “a highly activated brain state where optimal learning can occur.” By using practices such as those described in the document link above, “educators can improve retention and strengthen students’ ability to process information — and make learning a more positive experience for everyone involved.” We want our students to be fully present and engaged…