The most effective social emotional learning efforts are the ones that happen in real time in the classroom (more so than the ones that are taught as lessons to the class). Use these routines to help students learn about and apply skills in common classroom situations—in real time— or when emotion rises to a high level and it is best to reset the situation before moving on. The resetting process is a reminder process and a way for students to return to an established skill set and established way of doing things in the classroom.
Reset Routines Below:
Reset for Patience • Reset for Neatness
Reset for Listening • Reset for Kind and Polite
Reset for Calm and Settled • Reset for Focus
Repairing a Communication Breakdown
Please also see:
Social Emotional Learning: Soft Skills for School and Life
Soft Skills Proficiency Criteria
Soft Skills Programming
Using Classroom Routines to Create a Therapeutic Brain Settling Effect
Important Things to Remember about Routines
Guidelines for Using Routines
Comprehension Guides Directory
Reset for Patience
Patience is a very important life skill and it is consistently embedded in social emotional learning efforts in schools.
Reset for Neatness
Use this routine spontaneously throughout the day (when the area becomes messy or disorganized or too chaotic) to settle and ground the students with a task of organization that also improves their surroundings.
Reset for Listening
Use this routine spontaneously throughout the day when you find that students have become too relaxed about their learning habits and they need repeated reminders to use their listening skills.
Reset for Kind and Polite
Establish the culture in the classroom that prioritizes and values being kind and polite. For this culture to be established, it is essential that teachers practice it and model it themselves.
Reset for Calm and Settled
This routine should be led and modeled by the teacher. Watching an adult follow the routine will help to activate the students’ mirror neuron network to assist in bringing about the feeling of calm (provided that the teacher is actually achieving a calm state).
Reset for Focus
Use this routine when the class is under responsive to repeated reminders to stay on track, or
when the students are too easily distracted by extraneous and unimportant activity.
Repairing a Communication Breakdown
Use this routine to help students who get frustrated with explaining or asking for help or become agitated and sometimes jump to the wrong conclusion with teacher explanations.
