Lessons learned teaching social and emotional learning in physical education teacher education: a self-study

Background: Social and emotional learning (SEL) has emerged as a political and educational priority worldwide. Numerous academic and non-academic benefits of effective (well-designed and well-implemented) SEL programmes within educational contexts exist. Not surprisingly, SEL has been acknowledged as one of the most prioritised educational agendas to support students’ holistic growth and success across different subjects in schools, health and physical education is no exception. Yet, while SEL continues to progress as a global education priority, there is limited literature on SEL in physical education, and even less which seeks to explore teaching SEL in a physical education teacher education (PETE) programme. Purpose: Framed by Loughran’s conceptualisation of developing a pedagogy of teacher education, this study explored lessons learned from one teacher educator’s first experience teaching SEL in a health and physical education teacher education programme. Method: A self-study of teacher education practices methodology supported one teacher educator to interrogate their experience, decisions, identity, and practices teaching SEL in a PETE programme. Data includes written reflections (n = 10 pages, single-spaced), transcribed critical friend discussions (n = 112 pages single-spaced), and teaching artefacts. Data analysis involved a collaborative reflexive thematic analysis approach to facilitate the inductive identification of themes and patterns. Findings: Results are grouped into three categories: lessons learned about my practice as a teacher educator, lessons learned about my pre-service teachers, and lessons learned about teacher education. The three lessons include: (1) the importance of SEL being taught not caught, (2) students lack content knowledge, and (3) once is not enough. Results confirm teaching SEL requires a programmatic approach. Each lesson represents an ongoing process of making sense of self in practice. Conclusions: The results of this research provide pedagogical considerations about teacher education programmes and those who teach in them. Teaching about teaching is a complex process. Teaching about teaching SEL may be an even more complex process as teacher educators rarely have developed these competencies themselves.