The Problem
For many kids, summer camps are an opportunity to have carefree days where swimming, engaging in sports, singing, and reveling in freedom, much in the absence of the demands of the school schedule. Summer camps often mean that kids will not have any form of homework, studying, or even teachers. It dines not mean that at summer camps present zero opportunities to learn, but rather, they present a rich ground for learning that is different from what is normal.
Social-emotional learning (SEL) encompasses a number of practices. According to Cohen (2001), a child with high SEL skills has the following core competences, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision making, and relationship skills. These skills are critical for success in both school and professional environments that kids are expected to soon be part of. It is a reality that school does not effectively teach these competencies due to time and resource constraints. Schools have a priority for curriculum and student academic achievement and thus Tampa Bay Watch Summer Camp is a stellar opportunity to impact these competencies on kids.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Research Plan
Data Collection
To effectively demonstrate how effectively the program should be conducted, important literature will be considered. For instance, Cohen, J. (2001b) expresses the various skills that need to be learned for SEL to be effective. The literature provides the ‘how to teach’ the skills required. Yoder (2014) provides important insights on how to teach the whole child and how to evaluate the success of the same. Haggerty,Elgin, and Woolley (2011) provides important information that is critical to informing how the proposed solution can be evaluated from the perspective of the teacher, and the youth themselves. Haggerty,Elgin, and Woolley (2011) further provides the necessary tools, child behavior checklist, behavioral and emotional rating scales, youth survey, means of strength assessment, and a number of other assessment tools. Other kinds of literature will be reviewed to provide sufficient activities, skills, mode of delivery, and mode of assessment to the researcher.
Data Analysis
The study, in most instances, will result in qualitative data. Data analysis will be conducted in a stepwise fashion. The first step will be data validation where it will be determined whether the collected data was done procedurally and without bias. It will be checked for accuracy, procedure, and completeness. The second step will involve editing and checking for outrageous data points (outliers). The third step will involve developing a framework where broad ideas, concepts, and labelling the data. The last step will involve identifying patterns and connections in the data where themes and other common aspects of the data will be evaluated.
The study will be carefully conducted to ensure that its recommendations are in consistence with the political, legal, social, and ethical dimensions of the host state, Florida. This will ensure that there are no resultant civil/criminal cases or controversies that are likely to bring the program into a halt or significant headwinds. To achieve this, the researcher will work closely with individuals conversant with the ethos and social realms of the host community. Further, the legal and political dimensions of the intended project will be evaluated beforehand to remain within the acceptable limits.
Historical Implications of Policies involving the Identified Issue
The State of Florida recognizes SEL as a concept that is important in early learning. According to the Committee for Children (2020) SEL is a legislated issue in Florida among other states. The concept, as it can be seen in the Local Funding Initiative Request for the Fiscal Year 2019-2020 that was presented to the Florida Senate, was a key issue that informed the budget request (The Florida Senate, 2019). The Office of Early Learning (2019) outlines SEL as a statewide initiative that the department of education has been supporting over the years.
The issue of SEL has been determined to be critical in Florida’s educational institutions and this informs why it is factored in during the public budgeting process. Schools in Florida are expected to provide the important skills building trainiang (SEL) and also provide the normal curriculum. It has not been demonstrated how the two concepts have been interacting and how the results of the same are. Given that the state of Florida recognizes SEL and even advocates for the teaching of the same in public schools, it is expected that much of the issues that would arise from the program should it be a new idea, have been ironed out. There is a legislation that provides guidance for the same and eliminates legal doubts or barriers facing the program. Further, since the program is recognized locally, it is expected that much of the political ground work has been done and what remains to make the program socially acceptable is to work within the established protocols.
Conclusion
The Tampa Bay Watch Summer Camp is a brilliant idea on part of Tampa Bay Watch as an organization. to add more value to the organization’s summer camps, it is proposed that learning in the form of Social-Emotional Learning be incorporated in the program. This will impact the kids who become part of the organization’s summer camp with important knowledge for their school and professional lives. The school system has been identified as ineffective in delivering this program due to resource and time constraints and when offered exclusively, it will make a difference. Important research will need to be undertaken to ensure success. The education history of Florida supports this idea.
References
Committee for Children. (2020). Social-emotional learning bills. Committee for Children . https://www.cfchildren.org/policy-advocacy/bills-we-track/social-emotional-learning-bills/
Cohen, J. (2001a). Caring Classrooms/Intelligent Schools: The Social Emotional Education of Young Children. Series on Social Emotional Learning . Teachers College Press, PO Box 20, Williston, VT 05495-0020 (hardback: ISBN-0-8077-4058-6, $54; paperback: ISBN-0-8077-4057-8, $24.95).
Cohen, J. (2001b). Social and emotional education: Core concepts and practices. Caring classrooms/intelligent schools: The social emotional education of young children , 3-29.
Haggerty, K., Elgin, J., & Woolley, A. (2011). Social-emotional learning assessment measures for middle school youth. Social Development Research Group. University of Washington: Raikes Foundation .
Office of Early Learning. (2019). Social-emotional learning | oel . Florida Department of Education; Florida Department of Education. http://www.floridaearlylearning.com/statewide-initiatives/head-start-state-collaboration-office/social-emotional-learning
The Florida Senate. (2019). Local Funding Initiative Request Fiscal Year 2019-2020 . The Florida Senate. https://www.flsenate.gov/PublishedContent/Session/FiscalYear/FY2019-20/LocalFundingInitiativeRequests/FY2019-20_S1515.PDF
Yoder, N. (2014). Teaching the Whole Child: Instructional Practices That Support Social-Emotional Learning in Three Teacher Evaluation Frameworks. Research-to-Practice Brief. Center on Great Teachers and Leaders .
