By: Morgan Macklin
introduction
Self-management is one of the 5 core social-emotional learning competencies that help guide students' thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Implementing SEL programs is proven to enhance students' mental health, classroom atmosphere, teacher practices, and ability to succeed. Therefore, it is essential for educators to understand each SEL competency and how to deliver it to their students effectively. This blog will define self-management as well as ways to communicate it to students.
what is self-management, and why does it matter?
Self-management is the ability to effectively control one's thoughts, emotions, and behaviours across a broad scope of situations. This covers behaviours such as delaying gratification, managing stress and anxiety, self-discipline, and motivation to accomplish goals. Self-management helps build on the competency of self-awareness by promoting enhanced emotional intelligence. This is because it helps evaluate and respond to social cues while also remaining mindful of personal needs.
Self-management is an essential skill because it helps build leadership qualities that will extend into the future success of any individual. These skills include goal setting, having the courage to take initiative, utilizing planning and organizational skills, and managing emotions. While having a strong sense of self-management can be challenging at times, it can be much more attainable with the right tools and practice. Through reiteration, teachers reinforce their self-management skills making them more competent leaders that can, in turn, guide youth to be successful members of society. Teaching self-management is proven to improve academic performance, gain productivity skills, encourage independence, and reform problematic behaviour.
self-management practices to use in the classroom
time management
Time management is an important skill that coincides with this SEL competency. The integration of time management methods is a simple tool to be utilized in the classroom to identify the layout of the day. The reason to add this resource for students is the fact that it increases engagement and helps to avoid procrastination. This is almost second nature for teachers, however, the simple act of providing a daily schedule can help mirror effective practices for students to carry into their future.
To put self-management into the hands of students, a time management log could be utilized. This allows students to track their own behaviours by tracking the time it takes to complete certain tasks, assignments, and collaborative work. This can be used for a specific project, a day, a week, or more. Through this practice, students gain a better understanding of the time they allocate to tasks and can identify gaps where they can work more efficiently.
flexible workspaces
When gaining a better understanding of self-awareness, it becomes evident that each student has different ways in which they can flourish in an academic atmosphere. Therefore, it is essential for students to have different workspaces to suit their needs. These can look like exercise balls for some students and standing desks for others, quiet spaces, or collaborative circles, just to name a few. This gives students the opportunity to become adaptive to different scenarios and better manage their productivity. Furthermore, it lets them gain a better understanding of themselves, and manage their personal needs when it comes to learning.
The best tool for self-management practices is for students to be engaged. This encouraged better recollection of practices and inspires integration into their own daily practices. In this scenario, allowing students to take ownership of where they complete their work is a good way to integrate the key learning outcomes of self-motivation, discipline, and goal setting. So as long as students are not taking these opportunities for granted, some autonomy is highly beneficial in getting these skills to stick.
positive self-talk
Positive self-talk is the act of encouraging and motivating one's self either aloud or mentally in a way that triggers problem-solving. This involves shifting negatively framed language like “I can’t do this”, to optimistic language like “I can do this once I reach out for help”. For teachers to implement this, they must practice utilizing it as much as possible and be mindful of their expressions and pivot when needed. This can be practiced in mini-lessons as well as everyday language in order to hold students accountable.
For students who struggle with their self-awareness, this can be an asset in helping them reach their goals. It requires constant management to reframe a mindset from a negative to a positive outlook. However, the effort is worth it as students who practice silent positive self-talk that encourages hard work are rewarded with improved academic performance in a recent study. This helps students hold themselves to their goals and sustain their level of performance, especially in those who lack a strong belief in their competencies.
closing
Overall, self-management and self-awareness go hand in hand when it comes to internalizing and controlling thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. However, by implementing strategies to practice building this skill set, students can reap the long-term benefits that lead to a successful future.
impact society takes the guesswork out of sel lesson planning
Impact Society has a mission to give everyone the opportunity to live a flourishing life. Therefore, we utilize SEL in our Heroes programs and are working to deliver it in schools across Canada. Heroes a life skills program that creates a foundation for entire groups of children to become more courageous and has increased self-efficacy. Self-management is integrated throughout the program from positive self-talk to navigating reactions to certain scenarios. Learn more on how to integrate our SEL programs into your school today!