This brief first appeared on the American Institutes for Research website and is posted here with permission. 

To elevate ways in which SEL is embedded in regular instruction, educators need culturally and linguistically sustaining scaffolds to integrate SEL into existing instructional practices and educator professional learning systems.

Integration of SEL allows educators and students to move away from the traditional compartmentalized “SEL time” to an understanding that SEL is a core ingredient to teaching and learning in identity-affirming spaces.

Produced by Harmony SEL at National University, Transforming Education, the Center for Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety, and the American Institutes of Research, this brief refines pioneering work on the integration of SEL with academics and specifically addresses 10 educator practices that promote social, emotional, and academic development.

The authors have updated the 10 practices to be more inclusive of the multiple spaces in which students learn and develop and to reflect recent learnings on culturally responsive practices, trauma-informed instruction, and the science of learning and development.