Posted: April 24th, 2025

EDF 621 Week 1 Discussion

 

According to Heller, over the past two decades, researchers have gathered a wealth of evidence showing the critical roles that emotional intelligence plays in education, work, and life. But what does it look like to translate that research into practice? In this interview, Yale University’s Marc Brackett takes stock of recent efforts to help K-12 educators address the emotional side of teaching and learning. 

After reading  “On the science and teaching of emotional intelligence: An interview with Marc Brackett” in

Module 1: Lecture Materials & Resources

, please answer and discuss the following.

1. What is the mission the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence?
2. Brackett indicates that a large percentage of high school students surveyed experience negative emotions much of the time they’re in school. Tell how this fits or does not fit with your school? What are the consequences to students? 
3. What does Brackett mean by “RULER” and how does it promote emotional and social learning?
4. Describe the “Mood Meter” discussed by Brackett and how it is used? 
5. Describe how you would apply either “RULER” or the “Mood Meter” in your school?
6. Use one additional citation of Brackett’s work (either an article or a video in addition to the current article), cite it, and give a brief description of it.

Module 1: Lecture Materials & Resources

 

Challenges & History, Using Science, & Social-Emotional Development

Read and watch the lecture resources & materials below early in the week to help you respond to the discussion questions and to complete your assignment(s).

(Note: The citations below are provided for your research convenience. Students should always cross-reference the current APA guide for correct styling of citations and references in their academic work.)

Read

· Durwin, C. C., & Reese-Weber, M. J. (2020). 
EdPsych Modules (4th ed.). SAGE Publications.

· Chapter 1: Using Science to Inform Classroom Practices

· Chapter 2: Contexts of Development

· Chapter 3: Social-Emotional Development

· Heller, R. (2017). On the science and teaching of emotional intelligence: an interview with Marc Brackett. 
Phi Delta Kappan, 
98(6), 20-24.

·

On the science and teaching of

Download On the science and teaching of

· As part of your readings in this Module, please also review the following:

·

Syllabus

·

APA and Research Guides

 

Watch

·
Comparing descriptive, correlational, and experimental studies (10:44)
Miller, B. (2014, June 6). 
Comparing descriptive, correlational, and experimental studies [Video]. YouTube.

Comparing Descriptive, Correlational, and Experimental StudiesLinks to an external site.

·
Quasi-Experimental Designs (3:13)
Miller, B. (2014, June 6). 
Quasi-Experimental Designs [Video]. YouTube.

Quasi-Experimental DesignsLinks to an external site.

·
Inside Chicago Public Schools: SEL at Marcus Garvey Elementary (4:47)
CASEL. (2013, January 11). 
Inside Chicago Public Schools: SEL at Marcus Garvey Elementary [Video]. YouTube.

Inside Chicago Public Schools: SEL at Marcus Garvey ElementaryLinks to an external site.

·
Daniel Goleman introduces emotional intelligence (5:31)
Big Think. (2012, April 23). 
Daniel Goleman introduces emotional intelligence [Video]. YouTube.

Daniel Goleman Introduces Emotional Intelligence | Big ThinkLinks to an external site.

Supplemental Materials & Resources

·

Robert Gagne Hierarchies of Learning PDF

 

Download Robert Gagne Hierarchies of Learning PDF 

 

Module 1 Discussion

 

 

Emotional Side of Teaching & Learning

According to Heller, over the past two decades, researchers have gathered a wealth of evidence showing the critical roles that emotional intelligence plays in education, work, and life. But what does it look like to translate that research into practice? In this interview, Yale University’s Marc Brackett takes stock of recent efforts to help K-12 educators address the emotional side of teaching and learning. 

After reading  “
On the science and teaching of emotional intelligence: An interview with Marc Brackett” in 

Module 1: Lecture Materials & Resources

, please answer and discuss the following.

1. What is the mission the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence?

2. Brackett indicates that a large percentage of high school students surveyed experience negative emotions much of the time they’re in school. Tell how this fits or does not fit with your school? What are the consequences to students? 

3. What does Brackett mean by “RULER” and how does it promote emotional and social learning?

4. Describe the “Mood Meter” discussed by Brackett and how it is used? 

5. Describe how you would apply either “RULER” or the “Mood Meter” in your school?

6. Use one additional citation of Brackett’s work (either an article or a video in addition to the current article), cite it, and give a brief description of it.

 

Submission Instructions:

· Your initial post should be at least 200 words, formatted, and cited in current APA style with support from at least 2 academic sources.  Your initial post is worth 3 points.

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emotional life and learning

20 Kappan March 2017

kappan: What’s the mission of your organization, the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence?

bRackeTT: In the broadest sense, our goal is to use the power of emotional intelligence to create a
healthier and more equitable, compassionate, and productive society. More specifically, we study the develop-
ment, measurement, and real-world significance of emotional intelligence. We also do a lot of training and
program development, taking the science of emotional intelligence and making it accessible to everybody
from preschoolers to educators to CEOs.

The majority of our work focuses on school systems. The approach we’ve developed is called RULER,
which stands for the five skills of emotional intelligence: Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Ex-
pressing, and Regulating emotions. But it’s important to note that RULER isn’t a program, exactly, or
a one-size-fits-all intervention. We prefer to describe it as an approach for infusing emotions into the
DNA of a school. It includes various tools and resources, but the heart of it is the training we provide to
school administrators, teachers, staff, students, and families, helping them to understand and apply key
lessons from the research.

kappan: How does RULER fit into the larger movement to promote social and emotional learning (SEL)?

bRackeTT: We’re an evidence-based approach to SEL, recognized by the Collaborative for Academic,
Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). We come at things from a slightly different angle from many of
the other SEL models in that we put emotional skills development of adults at the core of building students’
social and emotional capacities.

Everything we do is based on years of research into the important roles that emotions play in edu-
cation. The evidence points to five roles in particular: First is the way that emotion affects human at-
tention, memory, and learning; it’s critical that educators and students understand that how they feel
when they’re in (and out of) school informs the way they think, their ability to pay attention, and their
ability to retain information. Second is the role that emotion plays in decision making; how we feel

RaFael helleR (rheller@pdkintl.org) is managing editor/content of Phi Delta Kappan magazine.

On the science and teaching of
emotional intelligence
an interview with Marc Brackett

Students will struggle in and out of school unless they feel emotionally
safe and have the skills and language to manage their emotions. A key
researcher explains how schools can help in that effort.

by Rafael heller

Join the conversation

facebook.com/pdkintl
@pdkintl

MaRc bRackeTT
age: 47

poSiTion: Director, Yale Center for Emotional
Intelligence and professor in the Child Study Center at
Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

educaTion: Bachelor’s degree in psychology from
Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in psychology from the
University of New Hampshire.

ReSeaRch: Brackett has published more than
100 scholarly articles on topics such as emotional
intelligence in teaching and learning, decision making,
relationship quality, well-being, bullying prevention,
and school climate. His research is featured regularly
in news outlets such as the New York Times,
Time, and National Public Radio, and he serves on
numerous research advisory boards, including the
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional
Learning (CASEL) and the Greater Good Science
Center.

pRogRaMS and ouTReach: Brackett is the lead
developer of RULER, an evidence-based approach
to social and emotional learning that has been
adopted by more than 1,200 public, charter, and
private schools across the United States and in other
countries, including Australia, England, Italy, Mexico,
and Spain. RULER infuses emotional intelligence
into the fabric of a school through training for school
leaders, educators and staff, students, and families,
and has been shown to enhance well-being, academic
performance, and school climate. Brackett regularly
consults with school systems around the world, and
for the past four years he has worked with Facebook
to develop tools that help adults and children develop
emotional intelligence and resolve online conflict.

peRSonal: Brackett has a 5th-degree black belt in
Hapkido, a Korean martial art.

V98 N6 kappanmagazine.org 21
Photos courtesy Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

influences the choices that we make. Third is the
role of emotion in driving our social relationships;
what we feel and how we interpret other’s feelings
tells us whether to approach or avoid, for example.
Fourth is that emotions are the driver of much of
our health; strong feelings, especially unpleasant
ones, can lead to anxiety and depression so, if we
don’t have strategies to manage intense emotional
experiences, our mental and physical health tends
to decline. And the fifth has to do with creativity,
effectiveness, and performance; in other words,
in order to achieve big goals or even to complete
a class project, we have to be able to manage the
disappointment we feel when our plans don’t work
out, the anger we feel when we get negative feed-
back, and so on. Unless we have the emotional
skills to manage the emotions we feel when we’re
trying to accomplish something and there are ob-
stacles, we’re liable to give up.

Building momentum
kappan: Do you find that K-12 educators are

hungry for information about the emotional side of
learning, or are they reluctant to discuss it since it
could mean adding yet another big responsibility to
their plates?

bRackeTT: I’m seeing more and more interest
in our work and SEL more broadly from all kinds
of educators, and I suspect that’s because the recent
research findings have been so powerful, both in
highlighting the challenges we face and in pointing
toward effective solutions.

Last year, for example, we conducted a survey
of 22,000 high school students across the coun-
try. We found that, on average, they’re experienc-
ing negative emotions 75% of the time they’re in
school — 75% of their time, they’re feeling tired,
bored, and stressed. If you work in education, you
have to wonder: What does this mean for teach-
ing and learning? If students are tired, bored, and
stressed out so much of the time, then how’s their
mental health? What does this mean for their rela-
tionships? How much attention are they paying to
their school work? What kinds of decisions are they
making? How effective can they be in completing
projects and working toward goals? Once you see
these kinds of research findings, it becomes impos-
sible to sweep them under the rug.

But at the same time, research is also showing that
schools can respond in effective ways, and that also
gets educators interested in our work. When schools
adopt RULER or other evidence-based practices
and implement them with fidelity, they tend to see
positive outcomes. Academic performance goes up,
social-emotional skills become enhanced, school cli-

22 Kappan March 2017

developing the emotional skills of individual educa-
tors and students, and to what extent does it focus
on improving the climate of the school?

bRackeTT: We aim for both. Our theory of
change asserts that for real improvement to occur
in a school you have to do two things: You have to
build the skills of each stakeholder, and you have to
build a positive emotional climate. So it happens si-
multaneously. You want to give people language and
strategies they can use to manage their emotional
lives, but you also want to make sure there is a com-
mon language and that the environment allows for
people to talk about feelings.

That’s where the Mood Meter has been really
helpful. It’s a tool and an app that we developed that
lets individual students and teachers keep track of
their own emotions over time while also suggesting
words they can use to describe their feelings precisely
(making, for example, nuanced distinctions between
feeling calm and feeling serene or between frustra-
tion and anxiety). Over time, that gives everyone a
common vocabulary, which makes for richer teach-
ing and discussions about emotional life. We want
to make sure that we’re giving people language to
articulate the entire range of emotional experiences
they can have: from contentment, tranquility, and
peacefulness to ecstasy, joy, and excitement to bore-
dom, sadness, and despair.

kappan: Other than the Mood Meter, what
other tools have you developed?

bRackeTT: When educators begin to imple-
ment RULER in schools and classrooms, the first
step is to build what we call an emotional intelli-
gence charter, which is like the classroom contracts
that you see in a lot of schools. What’s different
about the charter is that we ask people to consider
how they want to feel each day, to agree on how
they want to be treated or what sort of emotional
climate they want to create, and what kinds of be-
haviors will be useful to manage conflict. We do
this with everybody from preschool through high
school and even in corporations. The charter is a
foundational tool, describing the norms that people
have agreed to follow.

Then we teach people how to use the Mood Me-
ter, which is high tech but really is just a simple
tool to help people keep track of and describe how
they’re feeling and learn strategies to manage the
full range of emotions. We also introduce a tech-
nique called the Meta-Moment, which is a way of
dealing with emotional triggers (for example, those
times when you’re tired and cranky, and somebody
starts whining at you) by stepping back and con-
sidering how to respond through the lens of your

mate improves. . . Emotion science is still fairly new
since it didn’t really take off until the 1990s, but al-
ready it has produced a lot of findings that support
the infusion of this work into the schools.

kappan: So does this mean that RULER is
catching on and reaching scale? What kind of re-
ception have you been getting?

bRackeTT: It’s been overwhelming, honestly.
Right now, we have hundreds of public, private, and
charter schools asking for training each year, and a
number of big school districts are putting together
plans to introduce the work systemwide.

But keep in mind that people don’t get as excited
about RULER as they do when, say, a new Star Wars
movie comes out. After all, it’s work to implement
the approach. We require a lot from people. We’re
not asking educators to hang a chart on a wall or do
a little check-in every week. Rather, we’re asking
them to make emotional intelligence part of the im-
mune system of the school and to look at teaching,
leading, and learning through an additional lens.

Strategies and tools
kappan: RULER seems different from many

other SEL programs in that you start by focusing
on the adults in the school rather than working di-
rectly with students. For you, professional develop-
ment comes first, right?

bRackeTT: Right. That’s a big deal in our work.
We want emotional intelligence to be central to
teaching, leading, and parenting.

kappan: When it comes to emotional intelli-
gence, do K-12 educators stand out in any way? Do
they tend to be any more or less emotionally intel-
ligent than members of other professions?

bRackeTT: I’ve found teachers to be like every-
body else, with a normal variation in their emotional
intelligence. But I do think that teachers have unique
stressors and challenges, especially when it comes to
regulating their emotions. I mean, it’s hard for teach-
ers to walk around all day with a smile when they might
be feeling frustrated or stressed. They’re frequently
engaged in what’s technically called “emotional la-
bor.” Often, they make themselves appear to be in
a pleasant place in order to be the role models they
should be. “I’m really disappointed or angry,” they
might say to themselves, “but I have to be careful how
much of that I show to my students.” But that can take
a toll on them. Unless they have effective coping strat-
egies to manage their own emotions and strategies to
help students manage emotions, it’s easy to burn out.

kappan: To what extent does RULER focus on

V98 N6 kappanonline.org 23

support he needed. That kind of thing happens
pretty often — the tools end up surfacing ur-
gent issues that otherwise might get overlooked.
Also, a lot of people tell us that using the Mood
Meter has helped them have greater home/work
balance. For example, a teacher recently told me
that she checks in on the Mood Meter before go-
ing home at the end of the day, and it helps her
shift her feelings so she can be the best possible
mom to her own children.

Creating emotionally healthy schools
kappan: How important is it that everybody in

a school buys into this process? If some people are
resistant or don’t want to participate, does that throw
a wrench into the larger effort?

bRackeTT: This is why we make it a priority
to get school leaders — especially principals — on
board early and why we give them a lot of training
up front. There will always be some teachers and
staff who don’t take RULER seriously. But we find
that principals tend to have a lot of power to build
commitment to the work. Again, that’s why the first
year of implementation focuses mainly on adult de-
velopment rather than starting in right away with
efforts to reach students.

I’m reminded of a principal in Connecticut who
was part of a districtwide rollout of RULER. On
Day One of the training, he seemed pretty disen-
gaged. When I approached him at lunch, he said he
just couldn’t imagine the successful integration of
emotional intelligence in his school. But at the end
of the second day, when I checked in with him again,
he told me, “I realize now that I just didn’t know
what I didn’t know.” I asked him to stand and share

“best self.” And we have a Blueprint tool, which is
a conflict management protocol that helps people
develop better perspective-taking skills, empathy,
and problem solving.

So RULER includes these four main, research-
based tools. And then we offer advanced training for
all grades. The Feeling Words curriculum provides
teachers from preschool to middle school creative
ways to incorporate language and concepts from
emotion science into their existing lesson plans in

language arts, social studies, and other subjects. Of
course, we adapt everything to fit the given context
— for example, the elementary materials don’t look
anything like the high school materials. The under-
lying concepts may be similar, but the conversa-
tions and activities get more advanced over time. In
kindergarten, for example, we‘ll ask questions like,
“What can you say to yourself to help you feel less
angry or sad?” Then in the middle grades, we might
ask, “What strategies could you use to help your
friends feel less alienated or sad?” Our advanced
high school approach is discussion based and de-
signed to enhance emotional intelligence, creative
problem-solving ability, and critical thinking in the
service of helping students achieve their goals.

kappan: Can you give us a couple of examples
of ways people use these tools in their daily lives?

bRackeTT: Sure. What keeps me going
are the stories I hear from teachers about how
RULER has helped them and their students. For
example, a teacher was just telling me that a stu-
dent’s Blueprint revealed a long-standing bul-
lying problem, and she was able to get him the

For real change to
occur in a school
you have to do two
things: You have to
build the skills of each
stakeholder, and you
have to build a positive
emotional climate.

24 Kappan March 2017

are ready immediately to start thinking about ways
to improve their emotional intelligence and cli-
mate, and at other schools it will take a while for
people to become comfortable talking about emo-
tional issues at all. That’s why part of the training
that we offer is designed to help school teams figure
out an implementation plan that will work best for
their needs.

kappan: How do you sustain your work in
schools that have a lot of teacher and administrator
turnover or in schools where the student population
is constantly shifting, due to absences and student
mobility?

bRackeTT: It’s not easy. But we’ve found that it
helps to be able to provide resources through the on-
line portal that we built. When a new teacher or prin-
cipal comes on board, they can access the RULER
community, do a crash course on emotional intelli-
gence, and catch up to their colleagues. It also helps
that we require each school to have at least three
RULER trainers on hand, people who’ve completed
our summer institutes at Yale. That ensures some
continuity at least.

kappan: What do you think the coming years
will hold for the SEL movement in general, for
RULER in particular?

bRackeTT: Right now, educational practice
is still catching up to the emotional science. But
more and more people are coming to recognize
that unless kids feel emotionally safe and unless
they have the skills and language they need to man-
age their emotions, they will struggle in and out
of school.

I expect this to continue. More people will come
to see that students need emotional skills to scaf-
fold other kinds of learning. Further, it looks to me
that teacher preparation programs are beginning to
infuse more of the research on child development
and emotional intelligence into their work. So I’m
optimistic that our work will continue to expand.
Even from the corporate sector, we’re getting more
and more requests for training. Increasingly, em-
ployers are recognizing that workers need more than
content knowledge and skills. A lot of people are
smart enough to succeed at work, but they fall apart
when they get tough feedback, when someone dis-
agrees with them, or when they have to run a team
and someone challenges them. None of these skills
were included in our schools’ traditional emphasis on
readin’, ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic. But it’s becoming clear
to most people that we need to integrate emotional
skills into the curriculum in order for youth to reach
their full potential. K

one takeaway with the group. He looked around the
room at his colleagues — about a hundred in all —
teared up and said, “Thank you for giving me the
permission to feel.”

kappan: Does RULER get much resistance from
educators or parents who have cultural or religious
objections to your approach? For example, has any-
body rejected your assistance because they believe that
boys should be taught to be assertive and stoic or that
girls should learn to be passive and obedient?

bRackeTT: We haven’t faced that kind of whole-
sale rejection of emotional intelligence, but we do
struggle to ensure that RULER is being imple-
mented in culturally responsive ways. In our train-
ing for educators, we try to make sure they under-
stand the need to be careful in how they interpret
emotional cues — if a student tends to gaze off into
space, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re sad or
distracted or disrespectful; perhaps, for example,
they’ve been raised in a culture where it’s consid-
ered appropriate to avert one’s gaze when talking
with authority figures. People are always tempted
to make assumptions about each other’s motives, but
at least we can encourage them to think of them-
selves as emotional scientists — doing their best to
observe and understand — rather than rush to judg-
ment about people’s emotions.

Planning for the long term
kappan: How long does it take to implement

RULER fully? Do you expect to work with a school
for six months or closer to six years?

bRackeTT: It varies. At some schools, people

We require a lot from
people. We’re not
asking educators to
hang a chart on a wall
or do a little check-in
every week. Rather,
we’re asking them
to look at teaching,
leading, and learning
through an additional
lens.

Robert Gagne

About Me

I am an education psychologist best known for my “Conditions of Learning” which identified the mental conditions of
learning and was published in 1965. I was born in North Andover, Maine in 1916 and died in 2002. I earned my
Ph.D. in psychology from Brown University in 1940. I went on to work as a professor for Connecticut College, Penn
State University and Florida State University. I also served as Director of the U.S. Air Force Perceptual and Motor
Skill Laboratory were I began developing my principles of my learning theory.

I am considered to be a major contributor to the systematic approach of instructional design. My learning theory is
summarized as The Gagne Assumption and consists of five types of learning (each requires a different type of
instruction) and nine events of instruction. I’ve also identified a hierarchy of eight conditions to learning.

Five Types of Learning – learning is similar to processing it is sequential and builds on prior knowledge.

1. Verbal Information
2. Intellectual Skills
3. Cognitive Strategies
4. Motor Skills
5. Attitude

Nine Events of Instruction – these events apply to each of the 5 types of learning but not necessarily in the same
order for each type.

1. Gaining attention – pique the learners interest
2. Informing learners of objectives – discuss what will be taught
3. Stimulating recall of prior learning – ask questions to call upon what they already know
4. Presenting the stimulus – teach the lesson
5. Providing learning guidance – allow teacher facilitated student practice
6. Eliciting performance – have learner complete a task on what was taught
7. Providing feedback – let learner know how they did on the task
8. Assessing performance – evaluate learner on their knowledge of what was taught
9. Enhancing retention and transfer – provide activity to help learners remember what was taught

Eight Conditions of Learning – the hierarchal structure is listed lowest to highest, you must master each step
before reaching the next.

1. Signal learning: the learner makes a general response to a signal
2. Stimulus-response learning: the learner makes a precise response to a signal
3. Chaining: the connection of a set of individual stimulus & responses in a sequence.
4. Verbal association: the learner makes associations using verbal connections
5. Discrimination learning: the learner makes different responses to different stimuli that are somewhat alike

http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/spechtp/575/learningtheorist.html#assumption

http://classweb.gmu.edu/ndabbagh/Resources/Resources2/gagnetax.htm

http://www.e-learningguru.com/articles/art3_3.htm

http://hagar.up.ac.za/catts/learner/smarks/constructivist-Gagne.htm#_Toc416343051

6. Concept learning: the learner develops the ability to make a generalized response based on a class of
stimuli

7. Rule learning: a rule is a chain of concepts linked to a demonstrated behavior
8. Problem solving: the learner discovers a combination of previously learned rules and applies them to solve a

novel situation

The Gagne Assumption ~ is for each of the different types of learning (learning goals) that exist different
instructional conditions are required.

© 2008 Patrick Specht, Boise State University, College of Education