How Moo Deng the Viral Baby Hippo ties into Social Emotional Learning

Moo Deng, the viral baby hippo from Thailand has officially landed in the Kikori Platform. Moo Deng may be a cute viral meme, but facilitating check-ins like this one have deep benefits! Check-ins are a great way for students to express how they are feeling using their knowledge of common symbols in their life.

eSEL themes and skills for this activity:

• I can identify how I am feeling.

• I can listen and empathize with how others are feeling.

• BONUS:  I can recognize that my feelings change throughout the day.

Get the Moo Deng Check In Here

The Brain Science

Although simple, there are great benefits to using check-ins with your class:

1. Fostering Safety: Psychological safety is the shared belief between you and your students that the class is a safe place to take personal risks, such as introducing a new idea or sharing bad news. Decades of social science research has shown that groups that have high levels of psychological safety are substantially more creative, more likely to achieve their goals, learn faster, and suffer less groupthink.

2. Cognitive Offloading: Using the “check-in” to offload a concern students have coming into class can reduce the cognitive demand it has on them, and increases focus and performance for tasks at hand.

3. Anticipating Miscommunications: Taking the time to hear where others are coming from helps everyone reflect on how they communicate with others. For example, if a student shares that they're upset from an issue at home last night, you might not call on them in a particular lesson you know they are not confident in.

4. Priming Contributions: The healthiest classes encourage “equality of voices.” Creating a moment at the start of the day for your most introverted students to contribute will set the expectation that everyone speaks up.

5. Saving Time: Check-ins take the place of the usual free-form chit-chat that happens, and by giving it structure, gives students an outlet to "get it out of their system".