Elementary education changed drastically during the spring of 2020. Classrooms moved online and many concluded the school year virtually. Students and teachers struggled to adapt to the “new normal” of remote learning as students spent more time at home and online using social technology.
In July 2020, two programs of the Wellesley Centers for Women — the social and emotional learning (SEL) program Open Circle and the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab — collaborated to host a webinar that explored the roles of social technology and SEL in remote learning.
Kamilah Drummond-Forrester, M.A., CAGS, director of Open Circle, discussed the ways Open Circle supported teachers as they incorporated SEL instruction into their virtual K-5 classrooms.
Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., director of the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab and senior research scientist at WCW, shared findings from her studies of middle school students’ social media use. She discussed when and why students use social media, the social media-related topics that teachers most frequently discuss with students, and parents’ beliefs about schools’ role in monitoring social media use.
Sarah Wong, a Wellesley College student in the class of 2019 and an intern with Open Circle, shared her observations on the transition to remote learning from her perspective as a student teacher in the Wellesley Public Schools.
The webinar was recorded and can be accessed on the Open Circle website.
July 31, 2020
