Social and emotional abilities are emerging larger by demand in the job market with successful companies necessitating these skills alongside academic knowledge from apposite employees. In today’s context, students spend qualitative and quantitative time in schools and schools play a significant role in imparting social and emotional learning to students. Good teaching and learning takes cognizance of the process of study, which includes group work and collaboration, while quality co-curricular and extra-curricular activities reinforce these skills in intangible ways but more effectively.

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Social and Emotional Learning and its role
in Collaborative Problem Solving
 Social and emotional abilities are emerging larger by demand in the job
market with successful companies necessitating these skills alongside
academic knowledge from apposite employees.
 In today’s context, students spend qualitative and quantitative time in schools
and schools play a significant role in imparting social and emotional
learning to students.
 Good teaching and learning takes cognizance of the process of study, which
includes group work and collaboration, while quality co-curricular and
extra-curricular activities reinforce these skills in intangible ways but more
effectively.
“How on earth do you wake up your son in the mornings?” This tweet was from my son’s
teacher who accompanied him on an educational trip. The message bolstered my views on the
key attributes of school trips, mainly Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).

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Social and emotional abilities are emerging larger by demand in the job market with successful
companies necessitating these skills alongside academic knowledge from apposite employees.
In 1995 Daniel Goleman, the leading expert in the field of emotional intelligence, stated “IQ is
only a minor predictor of success in life, while emotional and social skills are far better
predictors of success and well-being than academic intelligence. Aristotle puts it succinctly: “the
rare skill to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right
purpose and in the right way.”
There exists an extent of fallacy that social and emotional skills are consequential to one’s
upbringing. Whereas, the good news is, “emotional literacy” is not fixed early in life. Just like
developing rational and thinking skills, these metacognitive skills which include higher-order
thinking that enables understanding, analysis, and control of one’s cognitive processes, can be
cultivated in children – in our homes, classrooms and institutions.
In today’s context, students spend qualitative and quantitative time in schools. Hence, schools
play a significant role in imparting social and emotional learning to students. Good teaching
and learning takes cognizance of the process of study, which includes group work and
collaboration. Quality co-curricular and extra-curricular activities reinforce these skills in
intangible ways but more effectively.
This winning formula is well-integrated into Dubai’s education landscape, through the well-structured
school inspections framework by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority
(KHDA). School inspections in Dubai measure schools’ provision towards students’ personal and
social development alongside attainment and progress in core subjects. Quality extra-curricular
and co-curricular activities are catalytic to embedding self-awareness, moods management,
developing team skills, empathy and self-motivation – which are outlined by Goleman as
essential attributes to emotional intelligence. Certain that these five competencies power social

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and emotional learning, and gaging this provision in schools, the KHDA endorses a contented
parent community in the region.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a global education body
that administers international benchmarking assessments, has announced emphasis on
parameters including social and emotional intelligence to measure students’ success criteria. It
identifies Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) as a basic necessity and a critical skill in
educational settings and the workforce. In conjunction, it is important to note that the
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) used worldwide as an international
benchmarking test will use CPS approach in its 2015 assessment. PISA assesses 15-year-old
school pupils’ scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and on their reading skills. PISA
results provide information about participating schools on two scales, at the national level and
the global level. Benchmarking an individual school’s scores against national averages provides
volumes of information on the impact of the curriculum offered at the school vis-à-vis the next
level of preparation it extends to 15-year-old pupils. The national averages against the global
averages perfunctorily highlights the quality of education framework in the country as against
the best-achieving global counterparts.
Rightfully so, DSIB has stressed the need for private schools to work towards meeting
international assessment benchmarks outlined this year by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice
President and Ruler of Dubai, as part of his National Agenda. The targets call for the UAE to be
among the 15 highest performing countries in Trends in International Mathematics and Science
Study tests, and in the top 20 countries in Programme for International Student Assessment
exams.
We are thus moving towards a system of learning, which emphasizes on the conglomeration of
cognitive and metacognitive skills. Social and emotional learning apart from accruing to an

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individual’s success, given the momentum that the process garners contributes to the very
fabric of a prosperous society.
Let us deem it necessary to advocate the fact, as rightly stated by David Caruso: ‘It is of the
upmost importance to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of
intelligence, neither the triumph of heart over head nor the soul over the body, but the unique
intersection of all three…”
The article is written by Fatima Martin for Arab Business Review
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