Reducing Student Overwhelm in the Classroom: Navigating the Hidden Struggles

This conversation explores the challenges teachers face in supporting students who feel overwhelmed. Experts discuss the importance of understanding emotions as data, the need for emotional education for both students and teachers, and practical strategies for navigating the hidden struggles students bring to class. The discussion emphasizes the significance of co-regulation and the necessity of addressing adult emotional skills to foster a healthier learning atmosphere. Follow on Twitter: @marcbrackett @jonHarper70bd @bamradionetwork @mrswendymturner Dr. Lori Desautels has been an assistant professor at Butler University since 2016, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate programs at the College of Education. Lori was also an Assistant Professor at Marian University in Indianapolis for eight years, where she founded the Educational Neuroscience Symposium, which has now reached thousands of educators and is in its 16th year. Lori’s passion is engaging her students through social and relational neurosciences, which apply to education. She does this by integrating the tier one trauma accommodating Applied Educational Neuroscience framework, and its learning principles and practices into her coursework at Butler. Lori is the author of 4 books with more to come. Her most recent books are: Intentional Neuroplasticity, Our Educational Journey Towards Post Traumatic Growth, Connections over Compliance: Rewiring our Perceptions of Discipline. Her newest book will be a manual coming out in 2024 titled Body and Brain Brilliance: A manual to cultivate Awareness and Practices for our Nervous System. Wendy Turner is not just a teacher. She is an experienced elementary educator, author, and teacher leader with a passion for social-emotional learning. Wendy currently teaches 3rd grade in Wilmington, Delaware, and regularly contributes to blogs, podcasts, and other education spaces with the goals of sharing ideas and supporting everyday educators. Her first book, Embracing Adult SEL (December 2023). Marc Brackett, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the Child Study Center at Yale University. His research focuses on the role of emotional intelligence in learning, decision-making, creativity, relationships, health, and performance. He has published over 150 scholarly articles, received numerous awards, and is featured regularly in popular media outlets such as the New York Times, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, and The Today Show. Marc serves on a number of boards, including the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the nonprofit that founded the field of social and emotional learning (SEL). Marc also regularly consults with corporations, including Facebook, General Electric, Google, Microsoft, and Pinterest, on integrating emotional intelligence principles into employee training and product design, and is co-founder of Oji Life Lab, a digital emotional intelligence learning system for businesses. Marc is the author of Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help our Kids, Ourselves, and our Society Thrive, published by Celadon (Macmillan), which is being translated into 15 languages.