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Chapter 2

Theory and Research on Social-Academic Skills Training

What kind of teaching nightmares scare you in the middle of night? Nancy wakes up in a cold sweat attempting to escape the class from hell: kids who won't stay in their seats, ignore her stimulating lesson plans, swear when asked to put their phones away, and storm out of the room whenever they feel like it. Smokey quakes at the very real memory of John Ross, who jumped out of his second-story classroom window after being rebuked for misbehavior by his rookie teacher. (It turned out to be a well-planned prank, no injuries.) So, when it comes to teaching, we've seen (or dreamed) it all.

Students with SEL skills perform better academically. Students with such training averaged 11 percentile points higher on achievement tests than did students without training.

Teaching is hard, hard work, and often the kids are predictable in their unpredictability. And what seems like a best practice lesson to us can be rewarded with loud yawns, blank stares, and an intense and exclusive conversation with the friend in the next row. Once in a while we try groups, and those same kids who disrupted class before are now merrily leading whole groups of kids off course, off task, off lesson. In response, we retreat to whole-class instruction because it just seems safer. But now this whole Social and Emotional Learning movement is breathing down our necks. Like it isn't tough enough just to teach our content without now having the responsibility of teaching the kids how to be civil, thoughtful human beings as well!

Though programs and practices in the SEL movement range from exemplary to dubious (see pages 12-14), the conditions warranting SEL are inarguable:

• The Common Core State Standards define College and Career Readiness in both academic and social terms. While all students must be able to defend their arguments with supporting text details, they've also got to be able to listen carefully, add to ideas, show respect, and disagree civilly (CCSS,2010).

• More and more states are adopting SEL standards, which typically include three skill elements: Self-Awareness and Self-Management, Social and Interpersonal Awareness, and Decision-Making and Responsible Behaviors (Performance Descriptors, 2003).

Research shows that the most effective social skill training for kids is not gigantic, school-wide programs, but simple classroom teacher-led programs.

• While schools place great importance on academic skills, employers place equal emphasis on communication, collaboration, critical and creative thinking, ingenuity, innovation, and risk taking (Carter, 2013).

• When polled, year after year, around 66 percent of high school students report they are bored at school every day (Yazzie-Mintz, 2009).

• Students with SEL skills perform better academically. Students with such training averaged 11 percentile points higher on achievement tests than did students without training (Durlak et al., 2011).

• Improved social and emotional skills decrease disruptive classroom behavior (Weissberg & Cascarino, 2013).

Hey, did you catch those last two items? When kids are socially skilled, they can learn better and behave better. So maybe some form of SEL is a way for us to begin living our alternative teacher dream, the one where the kids follow directions, treat others with respect, and take ownership of their learning.

Now, here is the really interesting part: research shows that the most effective social skill training for kids is not gigantic, school-wide programs, but simple classroom teacher-led programs (Durlak et al., 2011). We repeat: what we teachers do in the classroom can have a bigger positive impact on our students' behaviors and their test scores than many mandated, packaged programs.

Research Base

We have known all this for a long, long time. Reflecting over 1,200 studies, cooperative learning—which is to say, the explicit teaching of social skills in group settings—is probably the single best-researched and most effective innovation in education in the last half-century (Johnson & Johnson, 2009). It is based on social psychology research dating back to Kurt Lewin's 1940 discovery of a phenomenon he named group dynamics. Lewin defined group dynamics as the way small groups and individuals react to and interact with one another. His key insight was that groups were not just a combination of their component individuals, but a different, far more complex entity. In trying to explain the power and potential of human groups, Lewin actually coined the phrase, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

Morton Deutsch continued Lewin's research by examining how the behaviors of people within a social group are interrelated. What both Lewin and Deutsch discovered is that no human group is ever static. Members can change the dynamics by changing their individual behaviors. This revelation sparked attempts to harness the positive power of groups in school settings, resulting in a model called cooperative learning. Led by researchers like Schlomo Saharan, David Johnson, Roger Johnson, Robert Slavin, and others, early cooperative learning models were able to prove how the efforts of people working in groups— like students studying school subjects—could be maximized. (For more about the seventy-five-year research base on social skills development in schools, see the reading list at the end of this book.)

While cooperative learning is significantly more effective than individual or competitive learning approaches (Johnson & Johnson, 2009), it is also challenging to implement: it requires teachers to reframe their own roles. When we set out to teach social and collaboration skills, we need to be not just tellers, but models and coaches—we really do need to become a “guide on the side" versus a “sage on the stage.” Very predictably, when teachers first introduce cooperative learning to their kids, the initial student groups don't always work very well. Why? Well, we can blame the kids' bad upbringing, but in actuality, collaborative work can flop because learning anything new takes time to master. We teachers can be pretty impatient when it comes to an imperfect lesson—and we feel under a lot of pressure to deliver quick results, especially these days. So we may bail out before we've given kids enough time, practice, and feedback to add new behaviors to their social repertoire. Also, as often happens in schools, our district's support for social skills training may suddenly evaporate, leaving teachers scanning the horizon for the next top-down mandate from the central office.

Very predictably, when teachers first introduce cooperative learning to their kids, the initial student groups don't always work very well.

But hey, instead of retreating from the challenges of teaching student collaboration, let's examine the obstacles. We know many of them first hand.

Recollections

Think about your first years of teaching. If they were like ours, you often felt frustrated. We both remember putting students into groups of four or five, hoping for some academic discussion that reflected deep thinking, attentive listening, and careful consideration of one another's viewpoints. Instead, we watched groups quickly careen off task, break up into subgroups, or—even worse—completely ignore one member. Superficial but dutiful conversations would ramp up when we entered a group's gravitational field, about four or five feet away. But when we orbited further out, topics reverted to soccer, music, and who's dating who. It seemed like every time we tried a great group activity it somehow fell flat. Some groups clicked and others clacked. The net benefit felt nil. Disappointed yet again, we would return to what “worked": teacher-directed, whole-class instruction.

Only later, through our study of group dynamics as well as the Johnson brothers' model of cooperative learning, did we understand the planning and decisions that must be made ahead of time in order to get groups to truly collaborate. And hey, guess what? The research almost immediately addressed one of our mistakes: we were making the groups too large! That's why you'll notice that most of our lessons in the beginning part of this book focus on pairs: pairs are easier for students and teachers to manage successfully.

Our guess is that you've experienced the same student collaboration frustrations that we did. If you think more broadly about your own development as a teacher, your comfort and agility increased as your experience enabled you to anticipate potential problems and then prevent them. You found ways to build a more positive classroom community. You became increasingly adept at managing the unforeseen, right on the spot. Perhaps you found a mentor teacher, someone who affirmed your efforts and offered some caring assistance in solving the problems that stumped you. Along the way, most of us attended at least one cooperative learning or collaboration workshop. However, once the training was over, we needed more tangible implementation support than a certificate of attendance. We hope that this book and its accompanying slides will provide the classroom follow-up that most of us never got.

Back in the 1990s, Nancy became a high-level trainer in the Johnson and Johnson cooperative learning model. She attended advanced training in Minnesota with the Johnson brothers, and became a teacher-leader back home in Chicago. Besides offering colleagues a full week of teacher training in the summer, Nancy also provided monthly follow-up workshops that focused on problem solving, strategizing, and celebration. From all of those staff development encounters with peers, Nancy grew to anticipate the predictable problems those moving from sage to guide would encounter. Today, from our almost-too-many decades of working with kids and educators, we want to offer you the full support you need to bring friendly, supportive, interactive, and collaborative behaviors to life in your classroom.

Starting With a Partner

The simplest way to keep students on task is to put them in pairs. That's the reason why all of the lessons in our first three families use partners. Why are pairs so productive? First, when students are working in partners, the overall engagement level is high; 50 percent of the group members are talking about the material at any given moment. Second, it's easy for students to manage working in pairs, even if they have little collaboration experience. In a pair, all you have to do is pay attention to one person. You don't have to skillfully include others. You don't have to listen carefully in order to combine various ideas. You are less likely to completely monopolize a conversation. Plus, pairs can work quickly. Think about your own committee work: the bigger the committee, the longer everything takes.

If you notice student groups getting distracted by others, look at how the furniture is arranged, how close the kids are sitting, and where the members are facing.

The other great thing about pairs is that they are easy to monitor, particularly when partners are sitting side by side. We like to call this arrangement “shoulder partners," as opposed to “face partners,” who are sitting across from each other. The very first lesson (page 40) focuses on forming shoulder partners. Though this lesson only takes a couple of minutes, it's critical for classroom management. When students pair up correctly, the furniture is neither impeding interaction, nor is it blocking your ability to get around the room easily and quickly. A cornerstone of on-task behavior is teaching groups how to sit as close together as possible. The closer that partners sit together, the better they can focus on each other and ignore other students in the room. So here's a quick tip: if you notice student groups getting distracted by others, look at how the furniture is arranged, how close the kids are sitting, and where the members are facing. Students with a goal of talking to members of other groups will position their bodies at angles that make off-task conversations easy and convenient. Incorrect seating also sends this message to a partner: “I'm not interested in you or what you have to say."

By now you are probably wondering, “Don't you ever use groups larger than pairs?” Yes, we do, but before we choose a group larger than a pair we ask this question: Why do we need to use a larger group? Of course, there are lots of good reasons: the text is jigsawed, the discussion needs multiple voices, or the project is multifaceted. We're certain you can think of others. However, if we can't think of a really good reason to use a larger group, we stick with pairs.

When you do choose larger student groups, we don't recommend a size above four unless you have a high absence rate and can reliably count on that fifth member being absent. The same set-up rules apply whether using pairs or larger groups: members need to move the furniture so that they can sit as close together as possible, fully face one another, and screen out visual and auditory distractions from other groups. As we mentioned earlier, chairs turned only partway and sideways seating are purposeful off-task conversation postures. Don't hesitate to help members of a group stand up and reposition the furniture so that you can monitor them more easily and so that they will stay better focused on one another. Learning how to form groups correctly with inhospitable furniture and tight conditions is another skill to master. In addition, you'll notice that we save larger groups for later lessons because they require a greater repertoire of interpersonal skills—skills that will have to be explicitly taught and then practiced regularly.

Building a Community of Acquaintance

Our core belief is that kids must get to know each other deeply and personally. The second lesson in this book is the Partner Interview, which invites pairs of kids to take turns sharing personal experiences, interests, and opinions. And later, when larger groups meet, we use a version of this acquaintance-building activity called the Membership Grid. For the first five minutes of a group meeting, students share their experiences and stories on a low-risk topic. This peer chitchat may sound superficial, but those short conversations enable students to build working friendships. Think about a group you belong to that has high productivity and high morale. Chances are, people enjoy friendly relationships and regularly share personal information and stories with each other (think wedding pictures, movie recommendations, district gossip).

These icebreaking conversations also give students the simple license to get to know more classmates. Most kids aren't good at spontaneous mingling, and we think they become increasingly reticent and self-conscious as they get older. Friendship circles can get ossified for years, and kids don't actually expand their networks. Nancy remembers her sophomore year in chemistry. She had the same lab partner all year, but never had a single conversation with him. They did the labs and completed the work, but following the lab instructions never provided an opening for them to get to know each other.

Building acquaintance is important for many reasons. First, it's harder to be mean to people you know. Why do you think all of those trolls feel free to scutter around the Internet, spewing their bile? The reason is simple: anonymity. Few students truly want to be considered mean, but when you don't know someone, it's a lot easier to ignore them or disregard their feelings. Plus, we are more accountable to those we know. Many times, a group member's off-task behavior stems from a lack of acquaintance. It is easy to let strangers down without feeling very guilty. Second, students need to function in a diverse world. Given a choice, kids will stick with their friends. And you know what? Adults do the same thing. Go to a conference and see how many friends split up at the door in order to meet new people. They don't. Changing partners frequently gives kids permission to talk to people who are different than they are, which in turn helps them realize that those people aren't really so different; they just thought they were. Finally, when you get to know people, you are a lot more interested in what they think. Any discussion is only as good as how interested the members are in one another's ideas. And the corollary of this is that students who are interested in each other's ideas will be more likely to take the risk and share their own thoughts.

Changing partners frequently gives kids permission to talk to people who are different than they are, which in turn helps them realize that those people aren't really so different; they just thought they were.

Building a Community of Respect, Inclusion, and Gratefulness

Other lessons in the beginning of this resource focus exclusively on how students need to treat each other. The first lesson that bridges this concept is Home Court; its goal is to help curtail put-downs that students thinly disguise as humor. The next lesson explicitly teaches the social skill of Friendliness and Support. Though this seems like a skill everyone should enter school knowing, it is often absent. Students may offer friendliness and support to their closest pals, but even then much of it is implied versus spoken. We want kids to use friendliness and support much more vigorously and widely. When someone in your group comes up with an interesting idea you never thought of, you tell them! Explicitly expressing appreciation for the unique skills and ideas of others shows members they are valued. When members are valued, respect and inclusion are part of the package.

Something else you will notice in our lessons is that most of them end with group members thanking one another. Though some might view this as being prescriptive and artificial, our classroom experience shows that kids don't often thank people for their efforts; nor do they get thanked for their own. We think students do often appreciate the work of their classmates—and their teachers— but it never occurs to them to voice it. That's something we want to change. Thanking people for their efforts builds a positive community. People who feel appreciated want to return to a group and work together again. Just the other day, an article on gratefulness appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Titled “Raising Children With an Attitude of Gratitude: Research Finds Real Benefits for Kids Who Say “Thank You,” the article pointed out that kids who thank others and feel grateful have a more positive attitude toward school and life, and—wait for it—higher GPAs (Kapp, 2013). On the flip side, kids who spend their time inventorying their gripes have lower grades and higher rates of depression, envy, and general dissatisfaction. The article also pointed out that kids need to be taught to be thankful; it needs to be modeled and practiced. According to the article, “Gratitude works like a muscle."The more you flex it, the more grateful you feel. That means we teachers are personal trainers!

Taking Personal Responsibility

When students meet with their groups, they need to be consciously assessing themselves at the three different junctures. First, prior to a meeting, a member needs to actively decide:

• What do I need to do in order to get ready for this meeting and be a full contributor? And how am I going to make sure this preparation gets done in time?

Thanking people for their efforts builds a positive community. People who feel appreciated want to return to a group and work together again.

Sometimes, members have the opportunity to complete the work right in class directly before a meeting. (We've structured this book's lessons this way, so that they can mostly unfold in one class period or less.) However, as students move up through the grades, this responsibility for preparation takes the form of homework. If students are in literature circles, each member needs to read the chosen chapters and prepare discussion notes. If students are in writing circles, each member needs to come to the group with a piece of writing ready to share. If students are working on a research project, each member needs to take responsibility for completing certain components by the time of the next meeting.

The second responsibility juncture occurs during the meeting. At this point, a proficient collaborator is asking three questions:

• How are my contributions going to make an academic difference to this meeting?

• What skills must I use to help the group function on a high level?

• How can I learn from the other members of this group?

And then, when a meeting concludes, each individual must begin to plan for the next meeting:

• How can I be more skillful in my contributions and my interactions?

• What might I do differently so that I can learn more from the rest of my group?

• What do I need to do in order to get ready for the next meeting?

As students work together, we use the occasion to develop a culture of personal responsibility. Students need to be able to articulate how they are contributing to the group and how they are helping others to contribute as well. They also need to understand the negative impact of not being prepared, not thinking ahead, or not setting goals for improvement. That's taking personal responsibility.

Whenever people groan at the mention of groups, it is probably because they have been trapped in groups whose members didn't take responsibility. Every so often, you'll run across articles deriding teamwork as a useless waste of time prone to circular brainstorming, unimaginative thinking, and collaborative inhibition. However, when you read these articles carefully, it turns out that these teams are failing because the personal responsibility expectations are unclear. For any high-level group to fully function, members need to come with their best contributions in hand and their best interpersonal skills at the ready. This means that a work group must have clear goals and expectations for individual members, just as a student group would.

Teaching Interpersonal Skills Explicitly

Most students do not come to us equipped with all the skills they need to function in a group. However, since we are teachers, we can teach them those skills and then have kids practice them every time they work together. But sometimes teachers feel reluctant to explicitly teach interpersonal skills. Some find it a little too “touchy-feely” Others cling to a romantic view of their content: engaging curricular material by itself should be enough to generate good small-group interactions. And then there are those who are waiting for the right kids to come along, the ones who already have the skills when they show up in September.

Students need to be able to articulate how they are contributing to the group and how they are helping others to contribute as well.

If you feel any of these types of reluctance, we recommend that you push them all aside and try a few explicit social-academic lessons. Once you've begun, this will feel like smart classroom management, not a squishy sidetrack. You'll no longer be waiting for the right kids to show up, because you'll be making sure you have “a good group” every year. And, thanks to that training, your highly engaging curriculum material will create great discussion, because the kids are going to have the skills to work with it!

Stages of Learning Social Skills

If you look over our interpersonal skill lessons, you'll notice that they all follow a similar format. Getting kids to buy into a skill starts with getting them to recognize a need for it. Then we ask students to imagine the following: How would a group function if they used that skill? What kind of body language might an observer see? What would members say to one another? Finally, students get to practice the new behavior with their partners or groups. This practice is what takes some time. Learning a new skill moves through four predictable stages (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008).

1. Discomfort and Avoidance. Actually saying things like “That was a great answer; I didn't think of that” will feel weird and unnatural to students who have never before vocalized friendliness and support to their peers. At first, students will attempt to avoid using a skill and may even argue about it because it makes them uncomfortable. Keep in mind, the harder kids resist, the more they need that skill. In response to that resistance, just smile patiently and insist that you're not leaving until you hear some specific skill statements from the group. At that point the members will give in because they want to get rid of you. Once you've heard the skill, compliment them enthusiastically and move on.

2. Phony Use. If you have persevered, your students have given up the fight. Now, when you drop by the group, they collectively go, “Uh-oh, better whip out that skill she wants us to use.” As you observe, members will say the same rote phrase every time anyone says anything. It would be nice if they could expand their repertoire, but the kids are still a bit uncomfortable. But at least you didn't have to prod them this time! Celebrate their improved skillfulness and move on.

3. Overuse. At this stage, group members have finally bought into the skill. As a matter of fact, now it's kind of fun—sort of an in-joke. They challenge one another to see who can use every phrase on the class list. They high five every other minute. To the outsider this might all appear kind of goofy, but the group members have discovered that they really do have more fun and enjoy one another when they use these skills. Be happy when they mock the process. High five the groups and compliment them on their extreme skill usage!

4. Integrated Use. When students reach this stage, they are using the skill appropriately and automatically. They don't need to stop and think, “I'd better use this skill." Instead, when they hear another member say something really interesting, “Wow, I didn't even think of that!” just pops right out. It takes a long time for students to get to this final stage. But the more opportunity students have to work together and the more you encourage their practicing the skill, the quicker they'll achieve proficiency!

After the initial introduction of a skill, the best way to shepherd its mastery is to keep insisting the kids use it, day after day, meeting after meeting.

Positive Interdependence

Students should only be working in groups if it will enhance the task and the learning. Never put students together if a task could be completed just as well individually. That's one of the reasons why we insist on students preparing their discussion notes individually. We want them to take the time to think deeply and gather their own unique thoughts about the content. When students prepare for a discussion together, face-to-face, they often end up bringing fewer new ideas to the group. Plus, working together at this stage often produces the kind of “collaborative inhibition" that teamwork naysayers frequently cite. Rather than disagreeing or challenging ideas, the less confident (or hitchhiking) student will typically respond, “That's a good question. I'm going to put that down too. What else did you think of?” Remember, for groups to function at a high level, personal responsibility must also run high, and that begins with bringing your share of ideas to the group. Groups will thrive when everyone feels like all members are doing their share of the work.

Students should only be working in groups if it will enhance the task and the learning.

How does positive interdependence occur when a group does meet face-to-face?

First, the group's task cannot be completed alone. Members need one another to get the job done. It's hard to have a discussion with yourself.

Second, the group is responsible for specific learning goals. Toward the end of a meeting, our lessons often include each group sharing its most interesting discussion item. We always recommend that you call on members at random rather than having groups designate a member to report back. Groups need to understand that everybody must be able to articulate the information to others.

A group discussion is a chance to share observations and challenge ideas, but it is also an opportunity to rehearse the presentation of the group's learning accomplishments.

Third, groups must work together in order to refine their interaction skills. These are the skills that you've explicitly taught and are now reminding them to use.

Reflection and Celebration

At the end of a discussion, students need to stop and assess their interactions. When groups are first meeting, we like to emphasize what went well. We ask, “What were three things your group did that got the job done and enabled you to get along?” Groups that explicitly and regularly highlight their successes look forward to the next meeting and bond more quickly because this celebration enhances friendship and the common desire to work well as a team. After a couple of meetings, we continue to inventory the positives, but we also begin asking, “What's something you could do better the next time?"

At first, when you have just added a new skill to their repertoire, you might direct the goal setting. “As I watched your discussions today, I noticed that most members are still forgetting to ask follow-up questions. Turn back to your group and think of three ways your group can remember to include more of those the next time.” When you ask each group to report its plan to the rest of the class, you have built in yet another layer of positive interdependence that continues into the next meeting, when members review their plan and execute it in their discussion. Later on, as students become more familiar with the skills necessary for a good meeting, they can begin discussing what skills their particular group needs in order to fine-tune it. For example, our lesson on Table Cards (page 143) teaches students how to do this.

The Bottom Line

It's rare in teaching that so many factors coalesce into the kind of opportunity we enjoy today. We have a clear national mandate to reengineer our classrooms into more friendly, supportive, and productive places. We have the research, the knowledge, and the tools to make it happen. If we accept this challenge, we can make even bigger contributions to students' college, career, and community lives. And here's what is really cool: creating a sociable, supportive, hardworking community makes our classroom an even better place to spend an hour, or a day—or a career. What's not to love?

We have a clear national mandate to reengineer our classrooms into more friendly, supportive, and productive places.