The Research to Practice Gap
As a special educator, I struggled to find truly effective ways to support my students. I joined professional organizations, but didn’t have the time to sift through journals or navigate lengthy resource pages. I attended required professional development, yet it wasn’t always engaging—or useful.
Welcome to The Research to Practice Gap, a podcast created to bridge exactly that divide. Each month, I sit down with a researcher in the field of education to translate research into practical, evidence-based strategies and activities you can use in your classroom right away.
The Research to Practice Gap
Beyond Behavior Management: Using SEL to Transform Your Classroom
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In this episode of The Research to Practice Gap, I sit down with Dr. Sharde Theodore to discuss how social emotional learning (SEL) can transform classroom culture and improve outcomes for students.
National Center for the Elimination of Educational Disparities
Resources for Teachers:
Critter Coin (like Class Dojo but more appropriate for secondary students)
Brain Breaks for Middle & High Schoolers
Encouraging Students to Become Independent Learners
Research Articles & Background:
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports
Multi-Tiered Systems of Support
SEL Interventions Discussed:
Peer Mediated Instruction and Intervention
Artwork and logo by The Interior Gaze
Welcome to the Research to Practice Gap, a podcast that bridges the research to practice divide in education. Each episode, I sit down with a researcher in the field of education to translate research into practical, evidence-based strategies and activities you can use in your classroom right away. Today with me is Dr. Sardet Theodore. She is an assistant professor at Morgan State University in the Department of Teacher Education and a faculty affiliate of the National Center for the Elimination of Educational Disparities. Previously, she taught for five years in Title I schools across Miami-Dade County as a general and special education teacher. Her most recent position was serving as an education program specialist at the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs, where she supported national initiatives to improve outcomes for students with disabilities. A proud HBCU alumna, she earned her bachelor's from North Carolina AT State University and went on to complete her master's, specialist, and PhD degrees in special education at Florida International University. Dr. Theodore strives to amplify marginalized voices through impactful community-based applied research projects and to prepare the next generation of educational leaders and disability rights advocates. Come. What problem in education does your research aim to address?
SPEAKER_01My research interest centers around the issue of the educator pipeline, all the way from early education all the way to colleges and universities and the lack specifically of diverse personnel within special education, within those fields of early intervention and special ed faculty. I um am really interested in students with emotional behavior disorders. So I focus on SEL as a strategy to support students. I also focus on faculty recruitment and retention, specifically Black women, in faculty roles and what can we do to better recruit them and support them in doctoral programs, push them into faculty positions, and how does that also enhance teacher preparation programs?
SPEAKER_00That's great because we've talked a lot about in the first three episodes the mismatch of K-12 teachers to the diverse student population that exists in this country. And so that's interesting, expanding it up to higher ed and teacher preparation programs and how that would then, in effect, affect K-12 education and teachers as well. That's great. And Sardet, what first drew you to this line of research? Mostly for the practitioner part of this, we're gonna focus on SEL. But for all of this, was there a specific moment that sparked it? What drew you to it?
SPEAKER_01SEO was like my first love when I started my doc program. I was thinking both as a practitioner and in my personal experience that I feel like has always been a challenge for me, it is classroom management. And then witnessing the students who had behavioral challenges, struggled with their emotions, struggled with socializing, whether it be the students with EBD, the students at risk for EBD, or even like students with autism. So how can I better support them? And I didn't feel like even when I was at charter schools where it was supposed to be a restorative practice type school, we were supposed to know how to do restorative circles and SEO groups and all that. I still didn't quite know how to manage that. And I know the um the ramifications, specifically for students who are already identified for EBD, if we're not supporting them with uh proactive and equitable and culture responsive practices for them. And like I said, it's also personal. My brother deals with mental health issues. He was diagnosed when he was in school. And I remember my mom asking me, probably in the beginning of my doctor program, as I've become a special educator, as I learned the things we will talk about her from the parent side and her experiences. And I remember one time her expressing that she kind of felt guilty because she didn't know what to do, but also the school, he was more isolated. And that's why I like SEO because it not only addresses what I feel like we often spend too much time focusing on when it comes to behavior and how to target behavior and manage behavior and behavioral interventions and target externalized behaviors. But my brother was dealing with bipolar disorder, but also he was isolating, he was withdrawing. He was he was um showing more of those internal signs. And I remember my mother saying, you know, the school would say, Hey, we're not necessarily concerned, but they would, you know, talk to me about his behavior, but they would just say he doesn't participate or he's always quiet. And I'm thinking that's a good thing. At least he's not shouting out you isn't a problem if he's quiet. I didn't take that as that something to look for. And I mean, we went to counselors and all the things, like she tried her best, but in the school, in the terms of that school-related support, I have heard from her being a parent how she didn't feel like the school did enough for him. So for me, being able to like do research, that is really important for me. And then later on, my own experiences and doctoral programs and again me going into a faculty line, how the doctoral programs impact my intentions, but also other Black women that I've met, our intentions to go into faculty lines and the ramifications in teacher ed programs. But we're here for SEOs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, and I think I think that's important too, because you know, we were both K-12 teachers and then got out of public education for, I'm sure a whole bunch of different reasons and a whole bunch of the same reasons too. And I'm sure that there are other people out there who might at some point want to navigate higher ed. But yeah, I guess we will focus on SEL, which is social emotional learning. I don't think that either of us said what that stands for yet. And in education, as we all know, there's like seven million acronyms. The beginning you mentioned you struggled with classroom management as an early teacher, maybe throughout even as an EBD teacher myself, um, and having specialized training kind of in behavior. I struggled with behaviors as well. And a lot of what we've talked about so far on this podcast have been school-wide or class-wide, sort of universal things that teachers can do that can help eliminate some of these more severe behaviors or more severe problems or even placement into specialized programs or settings for students. So I'm really excited to jump in. My next question was about who should really care about this research, like teachers, administrators, teacher educators, policymakers. I think you really answered that with your answer because everybody at different levels should care about various aspects of all of it.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And I want to add something too when I think about, like you said, the lack of training. When I think about even before that, I came from a teacher prep program from an HBCU and studied both elementary ed and special ed. And my one course on behavior management was online, like fully online. And this is before Zoom. I was very unprepared. And I think I like took it either junior or senior year, like right before I was about to enter the classroom. Very unprepared. So all of my training came from real world experiences, but also that means that I was practicing on students, right? And not to say I feel like behavior management is something that you do learn best from training. But I will say also with that, and again, bringing kind of bringing in that teacher education piece and why that's important to me too, especially me again being in a faculty role and now I can like make sure to fill those gaps that I had. But also did a master's program at FIU and it was focused on behavioral interventions for students with autism and ADHD. And we got to learn about daily progress reports. We got to we got to learn about real behavioral interventions versus just these are best practices. What does that mean? We actually got to learn what the process of what to do or actual tools to use to actually implement like SIPO and things like that. What does that actually look like? Um, and it really changed the dynamic of classroom, totally shifted even the power dynamics and just empowering students like to take ownership in their behavior and like the class community. Cause then I had like class jobs, and that was tied to like, you know, the way I use class dojo, just all the different things, it was way more targeted and made more sense. But again, it it wasn't until I had to enroll into a master's program to learn those things that helped.
SPEAKER_00Um that I teach in, we sort of force everyone to get a bachelor's degree in special education. We don't have only an elementary ed track. And even with that, there's still only one classroom management class, and it is very basic, like proximity control, consequences for playing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I love anything that has to do with behavior. And so we know that behavior is taught just like academics, like any other skill. And classroom management is really about managing, like, okay, the 85% of students that are good most of the time, but not, like you're saying, interventions for teaching more direct behavior as well as building classroom community and intentionally creating restorative environment or even one where we're teaching social emotional skills. What are two to three practices or strategies that practitioners can use?
SPEAKER_01This research really targets different levels, including like school-wide systems like the SEO piece, BIS. How are you doing the multi-two system support? And again, how are you doing specific interventions to support students with disabilities? Well, how can that be used, like SEO? For anybody who doesn't know, social emotional learning is not even just a special ed uh practice, it's more of a general ed practice, which is why I push it because it's useful for all students, it's useful for teachers. Um, and it like I said, it changes the dynamic, not only SEO, but just those types of positive behavioral supports, right? That's what PBIS is positive behavioral interventions and supports. If you know how to do it and do it right and do it fidelity, it's transformative. And that's important for districts, that's important for school systems, let alone just teachers in their classrooms to use this. And then, like I said, that's also important for teacher prep programs to embed within their practices and even alternative programs as well. I gotta include that as well, because again, a lot of teachers at this point are coming from different alternative tracks. Or so many of our folks are like paraprofessionals or teachers' assistants or, you know, in other roles in the school, but now getting the licensure to be in the teaching role.
SPEAKER_00And I think in the change in I know each, you know, state is different and has their own issues, but in Florida, we're seeing a really big movement into charter schools. And so what that means is what's left in typical classes are kids that don't necessarily meet the standard for charter schools post-COVID. I think we're seeing a lot more behaviors, a lot more students coming in with trauma. Yes, yes, but can you what are the main points like that you would want practitioners to know about social emotional learning? You you started going into it a little bit that it's really for everybody, but what else are the important things to know about SEL?
SPEAKER_01I think sometimes it could be too vague, but there are many different strategies or specific intervention, like programs that you can implement to shift the whole dynamic of your classroom. And it doesn't it doesn't have to be like a it doesn't have to be something that is hard. Make it as feasible and that's the the UDL piece. And I push SEO because it not only supports students, but it's one a life skill. Like we all need social emotional competence, we all need to be self-aware, we all need to regular our emotions, we all need to be able to um appropriately socialize with our peers, right? So, as a teacher, again, going back to me when I didn't have the proper tools to react to students' challenging behaviors or even be proactive about it, and then I'm reacting to their behaviors. I'm also stooping to their levels with nine-year-olds. I'm also shouting and yelling and losing my voice, right? I'm also, you know, like threatening them and I'm gonna, you know, I'm also getting to that point where I'm exhausted versus doing something and beginning to set a tone in a different community. So, for example, little things that I did at a like a universal everybody could benefit were brain breaks. And if you're not familiar with brain breaks, it's like five minute tops because teachers don't have time to add anything else, right? Five minute tops where I would take the time to, and I taught lower elementary, K through third grade. So I would take, let's say, every 15 to 20 minutes of my lesson, we would do a five-minute break where we would get the wiggles out. But in terms of SEL, Go Noodle has some great YouTube videos where it's like guided meditation, guided mindfulness. And I'll tell you, one of my students, second grade at the time, I think, Devin, he had autism and he loved those videos because, again, it's a moment to reset to calm ourselves in the classroom. Like I said, similar but different restorative practices, restorative circles. That's a good way to read to respond to something that's happened. And again, a way that's not traumatic to students or exhausting for the teacher. It's just a way to resolve conflict in a healthy way that also teaches students a uh more productive, more safe way to resolve conflicts. So, say two kids got in a fight instead of sending them punishing them, all of that, have them sit down and actually mediate and facilitate that mediation for them so that again, they can learn how to mediate conflict for themselves. It just changes the whole dynamic and helps build the community as well.
SPEAKER_00And it seems so obvious when we're talking about it, right? But I remember the same thing, like getting into power struggles with students and then later learning about all of this and thinking, why did I have to have the last word in what was essentially an argument with a child? Yes. Why did I have to assert my authority so much that I I couldn't just let it go? I do think we get sort of uh like tunnel vision as teachers when you're with kids all day long.
SPEAKER_01I think sometimes it's it's hard to view them as the children that they are sometimes, you know, just taught for five years and I feel like my third year I got it right. But again, that was also after I did my master's programs, I started implementing daily progress reports for all my students. But that was another easy way, and I I attached that to dojo. So now dojo means more than just I'm taking points in it also when I talked about empowerment, you know, because dojo it's a way to track behavior. So old school days, we have that clip chart. You you know, everybody starts on green, you either go to yellow or red, you had a bad day. Now there's dojo, you can set up different behavioral expectations for your class. Like everybody needs to stay in their seat, no calling out things like that, and you can take away points. And that was something that the school did. So it was mandated. But once I started attaching their daily product reports and I'm tracking their behavior for each period that I had them, and it's tied to reward at the end of the week. So they're collecting points. And I'm also teaching them, I'm not taking points from you because I didn't like students saying, you know, you took a point, but I'm not taking away. You are telling me that you want to lose it. You know, you you have to take accountability. Your actions, you know the rules. We went over it. I told you I'm gonna give you a warning after the warning. It's point I'm not talking about it, but also helps them understand, and again, this is first grade, second grade, that my actions have consequences. And that's how you also being firm, but also affirming and letting them know I care so much about you that I'm giving you this consequence because it's important for you to know that your actions have consequences. Like, I don't want to take this from you, but you kept talking, and I told you three times, but now I got to take the dojo away, and now we're gonna put it on your daily privacy port. Your mom is gonna have to sign. There's a process, so now I don't have to fight about it. There's a way students can learn, take accountability, and it's something again that was very feasible for me to do. But yes, that power struggle is real and it only escalates things, it does not very seldomly right.
SPEAKER_00Because then you're teaching them that when something happens, we're going to fight about it. There must be some room for negotiation because we're still talking about exactly.
unknownExactly.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And so, how would you do the progress reports then? Because I know I had to do those as an EBD teacher, but they were extensive and took a lot of time.
SPEAKER_01I was a resource teacher. I had 14 first and second graders. So I um it it was very useful, and I'm so glad that I started implementing because that became something that I did all the time. But at on all the students would have to keep track of their daily prox report. Since I was a resource teacher, they all came from like different homeroom classes, and I would pull them out for reading, math, and writing. So they would stay with me and then I would take them back to the homeroom. It's just like they're coming in for that and they're going out. So because all that traffic, I would keep them and we would just pull it up at the end of the block, and you know, I would put the little face, you know, the happy face. How did I do basically the clip chart idea? And at the end of the week, I also tied it to a different reward system than Dojo. I called them dolphin dollars because the school mascot was a dolphin. So I I created these little dolphin dollars, probably got it from Teacher Pay Teacher, printed out laminated it. So they had to keep up with it, but they did keep up with it because I also had a little wallet system, so they would keep their little dollars. And then at the end of the week, I had a class store. So through daily privacy reports would go home and parents would have to see it. They were tied to the dolphin dollars that they would keep, and then they could buy different stuff. And that was also an extra bonus lesson on economics because on Fridays I would open the class store, which was a little shoe organizer on the back of my closet. I would just put like Dollar Tree wheels cars. I think there would be different brackets. So like a dollar, you could get a cool eraser, a nice pencil, 20 dolphin dollars. You can get a race car, good stuff from the Dollar Tree. So also on Fridays, if you had $30 and you were bowling, you might want to get the $20 and the $10. But I'm like, hey, why don't you save like 10 of that for next week and just get one? So I'm also teaching them that. And one more thing. They also had class jobs. So I had somebody who managed the class store. I actually had a kid, first grader, who managed my class dojo. I'd be like, hey, can you go ahead and take one point? You know, they love that. Yeah, I'm sure. To give and take away points. So again, it added also that autonomy in the classroom, that empowerment. Because I was trying to get to the point where the kids ran the classroom. And in order to get to that point, especially in first and second grade, I had to have a strong behavioral system in place. That again, it's a process. I'm not arguing about it. It's no vagueness. This is what it is. I'm teaching you what it is. We're all agreeing to it, right? So you know what it is. But I understand you're six. So when we have to revisit this tomorrow because you you already violated the agreement. So I'm gonna just pull it up. That's it. Matter of fact, I'm not even doing it. Justin, go ahead and hit that. Go ahead and hit that ding. Yep, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00I love I love that you had the six and seven-year-olds sort of running the classroom because I think a lot of times when we think about making students independent, we exert a lot of control over them.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Like I want you to do it this way because that's the right way, and I'm trying to teach you to be independent. But sometimes by exerting more control, I think it has the opposite effect. I think if you had told me that when I was a teacher, I would have been terrified to let my EBD students run my class like that. But it would have turned out just fine. It would have been awesome because most of them were very rules-oriented and could judge others' behavior if not always their own. And I think that could have worked out great in my classroom. And so it sounds like a lot of what you were doing in your classroom. I don't know if your whole school did it, was PBIS, right? How is SEL different from that? Does it also include like explicit teaching of emotions? So, did you also do that in your classroom? You only had a very short amount of time with them. How did you manage to incorporate that with being a resource fallout teacher?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And like I said, the and all of these things are things that evolved. Even in the in the group that I was talking about with the first and second graders, I feel like that was my best year that I finally felt like I had it. And after that, I felt like I was good at behavior management too. But I just felt like I really because I changed schools after this, you know, I felt like I was most in control of my environment. But um I always look at it as PBIS being kind of the umbrella of all these different strategies, tools, interventions, practices like SEO, including restorative practices, all different ones where social emotional learning SEO is a specific type of practice or a specific type of um intervention. And I mean, there are programs like Strong Start and Coping Power, like are our actual programs that you can purchase to do SEO. There's five competencies self awareness, self management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. So there's different interventions that target that. Um, so if people work with students with autism, a popular tool that you can use is social skills training. And you can do like social stories. That is a type of SEL practice where you're explicitly Teaching students how to understand their own feelings, how to understand other people's feelings, what to do in social situations. You can do explicit modeling of different situations. It includes a lot of peer collaboration, peer media coaching, peer media mentoring. But basically, and this was for students with autism, they had other students in the school who signed up to be a peer coach. And they had the PECs or they had the augmented language around their neck to help communicate. And they were just assigned to support, be friends, socialize, help the students with autism learn more social behaviors. And of course, it benefited both sides, but those are just examples of specifically SEL-targeted practices or interventions.
SPEAKER_00That's great. Cause I will again link to all of this information. And so based on the examples you gave too, even with just class dojo and the student autonomy, it's neat that you can hit sort of those five components just by structuring your classroom in a way that supports the development of those five components. Yes, absolutely. I don't have any more questions about SEL. I don't know if there's anything else you want to add to it.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I am a huge proponent of a proponent of SEO because there's so many broad little and big things. Like I said, you can implement mindfulness videos during your five-minute break break. There's very easy things, and you can do that or all the way up to this other side of actually purchasing an intervention that's built by publishing company. There's such a spectrum of ways that you can implement SEO strategies and interventions. So that's why I definitely advocate it. But again, also it's just a bigger part of PBIS. So the bigger thing is making sure you're being proactive, making sure that you're using posit and culture responsive practices in the classroom.
SPEAKER_00Various teachers work in various states where maybe certain named things aren't allowed to be used. But then knowing those five components and just universally having them in your classroom as things you are supporting within students is SEL without the name.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Exactly. Talking to kids about how to regulate when they're stressed out or they're upset. A lot of students deal with testing anxiety. Another quick strategy you can do is check in with them before have them write down how they're feeling, come up with coping strategies. Like you said, we don't have to call it SEL. We don't even have to call it culture responsive, but it's just best practices, period, whatever you call it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you. My last few questions are really just about you. You mentioned your what sparked this. Has your own thinking as a researcher or educator changed because of the research you've done or the work you've done on this? Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01It's because I realized that SEL is important, but it's not perfect. And that's why I'm also pushing for culture responsive SEL. And one thing that I was surprised at when I first started researching culture-responsive SEL is it's not an operational definition of it yet. There's a lot of researchers adopting and adapting interventions to make it culture responsive, but we're not quite at the point. What are the competencies of culture responsive SEO? So that's something that we're still working towards. Yes, I'm a pro proponent of SEO, but it's not a one-size-fits-all, it's not perfect. There's great research about how it's effective, specifically for black students with disabilities, but not enough yet. Not enough. So the it keeps going and you still have to, as a practitioner, use your best practices and build on those relationships that you're making with students instead of just trying to find a one-size-fits-all solution.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think you kind of answered my next question is which was what questions remain unanswered for you and what are you studying next? Is it that? Culturally responsive SEO?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Currently I'm doing a systematic bit review, which is just a um kind of like a comb through of all the research articles out there that focus on interventions that have been done around cultural responsive SEO. And there's still not many. And like I said, this is work that I've been doing that I've done before, and I'm doing it again to see if there's anything new. And there has, especially since COVID, and the the greater awareness around mental health, especially in schools, there are a lot more, but still unsurprisingly not enough, as you would think. So so yeah, the work definitely still continues.
SPEAKER_00And where can educators or anyone go to learn more about your work? Do you have anything published, recently published? What's going on?
SPEAKER_01I do. I do. I'll be at a few conferences. Like I said, I have a new systematic lit review coming out. I have a few things that I've published, a practitioner piece as well. So I'll share that with you so you can share it out to your listeners. I am an assistant professor at Morgan State University, but I'm also a faculty affiliate of the National Center for the Elimination of Educational Disparities. And I do a lot of work specifically in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, but also at a national level to try to just collaborate and make partnerships and identify ways that Morgan reduce national disparities in education.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. I will I will link to everything you send me so that people can look into it. Thank you. Thanks for joining and sharing all your knowledge on SEL.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. It was a pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for listening to the Research to Practice Gap. If this episode challenged your thinking or gave you something practical to try, share it with a fellow educator. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook at the Research to PracticeGap and subscribe anywhere you listen to your podcast so you never miss an episode. If you have any questions, feedback, or would like to be featured on the podcast, you can reach out to us at research to practicepod at gmail.com. Research doesn't change classrooms, educators do. Until next time, keep reflecting, keep questioning, and keep bridging the gap.
