Matilda Contreras' ID Portfolio

Navigation links: ETAP 623 Fall 2024 | Social Emotional Learning at the Elementary Level | Final Project

About Me

My name is Matilda Contreras, I graduated from SUNY Oneonta in 2022 with my Bachelor's in Childhood Education with a concentration in Liberal Arts. I am currently in my third year of teaching first grade at my alma mater. I am in my last semester of my graduate program, Educational Psychology, at SUNY Albany. I started my graduate program at the University of Saint Rose before they ultimately closed their doors. As for now, I am content in the classroom but I do foresee myself leaving eventually and using my degree in Educational Psychology to further expand my career.

I currently reside in upstate New York with my fiance and our dog, Toby, and cat, Blue. Aside from teaching, I spend my time reading, scrapbooking, travelling, and planning my 2025 wedding.

My Topic and Purpose

My mini-course, Social Emotional Learning at the Elementary Level, hit close to home for me. Being in the classroom everyday, I have first-hand witnessed that children are struggling to regulate and understand their emotions. Students are struggling to communicate how they are feeling and what they need that it is showing to negatively affect their educational experience. My mini-course will highlight many different teaching strategies for educators or people heavily involved in the educational field, to add to their teaching toolbox. My goal for this mini-course would be that after completion, participants would walk away feeling confident in assisting students with their SEL skills and finding positive and effective outlets.

Scope of Learning Outcomes and Content

This mini-course's targeted audience are those who actively work with children who need assistance in improving their Social Emotional Learning skills. Although this is primarily based on those children at the elementary level, the skills and strategies discussed can be changed and modified to fit any targeted age-level.

In this mini-course, there will be five main units:

Self-Awareness
Self-Management
Social Awareness
Decision-Making
Relationship Skills

At the end of this mini-course, participants final project will be creating their own SEL lesson to apply in an elementary classroom that they currently work in to apply the knowlege that they have learned in this course.

Needs Assessment

Educational Problem/Opportunity

The educational problem I am addressing in my mini-course is that more and more children are showing signs of struggling with social and emotional skills. Many children are suffering from mental health illnesses at far younger ages than before. In fact, 1 in 6 children aged 2-8 years old in the US had a diagnosed mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder. Educators growing their knowledge in SEL skills and strategies is an educational opportunity and has potential to better the mental health of our children.

Learners/Participants

This mini-courses targeted learners/participants are educators of all academic levels. There many need to be some alteration to some of the activities to better suit high school aged students.

Analysis of Gaps

Reality - Childhood and adolescent years are foundational years for children to develop strong mental health characteristics. However, in today's society children's mental health is at a critical low standpoint. The National Library of Medicine reported that from 2008 to 2020, suicide deaths among children aged 12 and over increased 16%. Just alone, in the years 2016 to 2020, the number of children aged 3-17 years old who were diagnosed with depression grew by 27%. Another SHOCKING statistic reported by the NLM was that in 2020, suicide was the second leading cause of death in children aged 10-14 years old. Suicide was the twelfth leading cause of death overall that year.

Ideal - In order to fix this gap in our children's mental health, we need to recognize that mental health is an essential part of one's overall health. It contributes to all life's functions and plays a huge part. Educators can help youth and their families to recognize signs of difficult emotions. Providing beneficial SEL skills and strategies to children is the first step in guarenting they are receiving competent mental health care.

Existing Efforts

The National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of 2019
- This act states that 988 is the universal number for a national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline. This number became available to everyone across the US in 2022.
HRSA’s Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant
- This supports the health and well-being of all mothers, children, and families.
Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program
- Mental Health and behavioral health services can be covered by Medicaid.
MentalHealth.gov’s Parents and Caregivers page
- Provides help in starting conversations with children or teens about mental health.

Intent Statement

This mini-course will help participants address their needs by learning the importance of social emotional learning. Participants will gain a multitude of different skills and strategies to apply in their daily teaching to support student's social emotional learning in the educational setting. Those who participate in this mini-course will also be able to identify red flag areas in students who need immediate help in SEL skills and provide tools to help students regulate those emotions.

Analysis of the Learner and Context

Participants are elementary educators (PK-6). Participants should actively be working with school-aged children in order to properly apply the knowledge they are gaining from this mini-course. Participants should have experience working with children who demonstrate significant areas of need in social, emotional, and mental health. Participants should find interest in SEL and believe that it will positively impact a student's education if properly implemented.

This mini-course will be done asynchronously at the participants own pace. Participants will need access to reliable WIFI and a trustworthy computer.

Performance-Based Objectives

After completing this mini-course, learners will be able to:

Define the definition for self-awareness through the lens of being a unique and person specific definition.
Design and implement multiples of different teaching strategies and activities to help support SEL in the elementary classroom.
Understand the development of self-management skills and how they are beneficial to a students' mental health and academic success.
Reflect on upon the participants learning journal throughout this mini-course by answering ten reflective questions in a collaborative journal.