“I Trust You”. Fostering Social-Emotional Skills of Pre-Service Teachers Through Cooperative Games

Transformative education requires the participation of teachers with social-emotional skills. Examining the central role of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and the educational value of cooperative games (following the holistic approach of the Find-horn Foundation), the present contribution explores the emotions experienced and described by 157 second-year students from the Primary Education Master’s programme at the Free University of Bozen (Italy). The students engaged in one or more sessions of cooperative games, involving body and non-verbal communication. The main categories relating to SEL which emerged from the Grounded Theory (GT ) data analysis will be presented, namely: “experiencing relational well-being”, “discovering self-other”, “opening up to diversity”, and “growing professionally”. Finally, the educational relevance of cooperative games within a holistic approach to promoting social-emotional skills in initial teacher training will be discussed.