Read Mays Imad’s article, “Leverage the Neuroscience of now,” about trauma-informed practices, and review Trauma-Informed Teaching and Learning Examples, from the Columbia School of Social Work.
Given the readings and conversations we’ve had about trauma informed pedagogy and culturally sustaining pedagogy, what are some specific ways that you could incorporate these and open pedagogy into your course?
Post your reply in the comments below.
Bonus Listen: For more information on trauma-informed pedagogy, Tea for Teaching has a terrific interview (48 mins) with Karen Costa, an educator who’s been working in this area for several years.
19 thoughts on “Reflection on Asset-based Pedagogies”
-I hope to incorporate more low-stakes assignments where I can give feedback without grades (right now, I grade everything, but I see how the numerical score can induce stress and overshadow the feedback so vital for scaffolded assignments–also, it makes me miserable to grade every little thing, so this would be mutually beneficial).
– I could invite guest speakers from the LRC, including writing tutors, who might break down what it means to utilize the academic resources at BMCC.
– Last semester, my students formed their own group chat to remind one another about deadlines and to clarify assignments. They did this without my knowledge, but I eventually learned about it and I was pleased to discover the support system the students had built for one another. I wonder if there is a way I can encourage future groups to (optionally) form a similar support network with one another. Maybe by simply telling the students about what the last group did and continually making space in the classroom for community-building (group work, peer review, collective storytelling exercises, etc.)
Give students space to talk about their trauma whenever they are comfortable to do so.
Practice empathy, be flexible with assignments’ deadlines.
Suggest students to listen to their bodies- explain to them the importance of bodywork activities and social connection for a healing process.
One way I will incorporate open pedagogy is to allow more drafts with comments rather than grades. Students can opt to write as many as four and as few as two drafts before submitting for a grade. I will also add an ungraded discussion board where students will be encouraged to vent, question, and comment on the class, the assignments, and upcoming projects. Students will be encouraged but not required to join peer study groups which I will facilitate through Blackboard, Students will be allowed and encouraged to choose their own literature projects from a curated list that will have choices from every ethnicity and sexual orientation represented in the class. This will be possible as students will have had the opportunity to self-identify.
Each class is like a support system of sorts for our students. I had a student last semester whose six-month-old baby was taken away by the father to another state, complicating court proceedings, and as if that wasn’t enough, my student was even more distraught because her baby had to see his doctor because of his heart murmur and she couldn’t miss his appointment. This was my student’s fourth child and yet she still showed up to class because the students got to know each other and depend on each other.
The class was called Change Management and we talked a lot about how organizations learn to pivot. As it turns out, organizations can’t pivot without their employees and if their employees are experiencing the kind of difficulty my student was going through, they need to support them somehow. And so, we explored ways organizations can provide that kind of support to employees and they brought their own stories to the discussions.
For example, Best Buy changed its benefits to cover transgender employees through their entire transition because one employee asked for the coverage. As a result, they included coverage for pectoral implants and facial feminization that they didn’t previously cover because they realized the impact of not doing so and because they valued each and every employee the way we value and listen to our students.
A quote attributed to Einstein comes to mind: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”.
I jotted down a bunch of ideas over the course of the past semester for how to edit the case studies that are a major component of my course, for the semester ahead. All of the editing ideas I had ended up falling pretty neatly into 2 categories: they either remove some complexity that does not serve my learning objectives well, or they add some clarifying language where my students were confused. I didn’t think of it at the time of making these editing plans, but all these edits seem to be stress-reducing tools, now that I am focusing on trauma-informed teaching. Good!
I’ve also simplified and will continue to simplify my grading, while keeping feedback pretty robust. I plan to pay more care to make my feedback language more forward-looking (Next attempt of this assignment can be improved if you do A, B, C…), rather than negative feedback that nothing can be done about.
I am also rethinking my deadlines in a major way. One reason I decided to ditch the expensive textbook was because McGraw-Hill’s “Learn Smart” reading assignments have a hard deadline. So, I am either traumatizing the students with these hard deadlines with no wiggle room, or I am traumatized myself when I need to spend the time to extend deadlines manually (I have about three dozen ideas how I could spend my time wiser).
Questioning complexity, and eliminating it where I don’t have a good answer to the “WHY?” question has been a major liberator for me, and hopefully for my students, and still holds some potential to improve things going forward.
Great article!
I would invite students to share their stories during the pandemic, how they are handling anxiety, encourage students to form a study group via any platform, and help each other.
I would invite students to co-create assignments (problem-posing activity).
These are all great ideas to adopt as an intentional approach to facilitating trauma-informed pedagogy. It appears that I have been doing this without formalizing the process until having read the prescribed articles. I also realized that it is easier to teach in-person to stay consistently connected to the students to identify when they behave differently from how I know them to be.
Presently, I keep weighted assignments open one month beyond the due date so they can have the flexibility to make up missed assignments without penalty.
In the future, I also want to use the survey to find out what I can do to help them learn during difficult times.” Also, explain how each assignment connects to the learning objective explicitly.
In my experience, all human beings are characterized by idiosyncratic ways to learn under either “normal” circumstances or emergencies (like the 2020) pandemic.
As such, my attitude over the years has been to engage, provide flexibility, encourage peer interaction and accommodate the needs of individual students so to attain the learning objectives of a particular course but also to provide a broader perspective to students about the importance of education and its overwhelming contribution to the future individual and overall social welfare. The only challenge I can see is that, depending on individual circumstances, some students may be less inclined to engage with the instructor and therefore their distraction and isolation may be reinforced.
In order to double check that students know key parts of the material, I create quizzes that can be taken multiple times (until they are 100% correct) and work as a self-check system. I also build in numerous low-stakes assignments that build on each other to lead up to the main assignment — plus including a few extra credit options that expand the low-stakes assignments and can take the place of a missed assignment. My syllabus includes a statement on the importance of inclusivity in my classroom and “treating people like people.” I have even revised the structure of my syllabi by moving the three-sets of Learning Outcomes to the end of the syllabus and moving the classroom community information to the front (after the required title, course info, contact information, etc.)
I often think about what is required for students in my courses to feel like our class is a safe-space for learning. Listening is important to me, but I am also leery of opening up a situation that I am not prepared to handle (since I am not trained as a psychologist or a counselor); is this a concern for others? When we are on campus, I can walk a with a student to the people on campus who can help; but online, I can only make suggestions and give referrals.
Many students find public speaking daunting. I try to make the class casual, fun and relaxed but purposeful. I put more emphasis on improving skills than achieving grades. We start simply with introductions and interviews (“Interview with a Stranger”). Then move on to short assignments with a straightforward criteria: “something your classmates will enjoy listening to.” Students are totally free to choose their own material and often select really interesting, unusual topics. As we go through the semester, we use PowerPoints to review textbook chapters to gain an understanding of speech terminology. This is shared and collaborative: students read, question, paraphrase, summarize. I turn control over to them. The course culminates in two longer projects: an informative and a persuasive speech. Again, students decide the topic; I help when necessary. I encourage them to draw from their background and support each student individually in their preparation. After each speech, students again play a leading role, providing feedback and analyzing strengths and areas for improvement. During the semester, students take four quizzes and two exams, based on the PowerPoint reviews. There are no hard deadlines but rather a date-range for completion. The last several classes each semester, when we are deep into the persuasive speeches, are lively, spirited debates. I plan to continue to teach the same curriculum but I think now I will have an even greater awareness of student diversity, cultural differences, native languages, gender identity, and so on, as well as a greater sensitivity regarding the impact of the pandemic and a greater empathy for students when they encounter struggles with daily living. Public speaking is a valuable skill, useful in many professions and walks of life. Being open-minded to new ideas and methods of teaching will improve my interaction and relationship with my students.
Some of the suggestions for applying trauma-informed pedagogy, CSP, and open pedagogy are already present in my classroom but others need to be included or improved. One way to capture aspects of all three for my class is to create an intentional space or dedicated time for students to share more about themselves and their concerns. Naturally, students share their background and experiences through prompts during the lecture but I can maybe create (or have them create!) a structured event or assignment where we can share additional knowledge, experiences, or perspectives. I can also work on including the reason why I have designed the course assessments in the format that I use (exams and paper) and create a more detailed rubric to share with them for the paper. I am considering changing the topic of the paper to one that is more aligned with student experiences as they relate to any topic in the course but I haven’t thought it through completely (maybe the students can frame it from themselves) or maybe use quizzes in lieu of exams.
I enjoyed the article too! I find the attention to the impact on the brain and the suggestions useful. Before the Spring semester began, Dean Berg held a two-day event which featured a student panel. The students described what worked best for them such as professors staying after class to talk to students, more interaction and group work, culturally relevant material, and real-world applications of the material. So, I incorporated some of their suggestions and I think it really helped me have a very successful semester. Students were more engaged and participated more. The main thing–listen to students and show compassion. Show that we value them. Simple as that!
That line from Rumi’s poem “Friends, we are traveling together,” moved me greatly. I approach the coming semester where I will teach in person and my students will learn/study in person for the first time in a year and a half with great excitement and trepidation. It’s clear to me from this article that the first thing I will do when we begin will to use this poem to discuss/air out/presence ourselves into the room. This first day of class will be a very big deal for all of us; students, teachers, administrators, school guards, custodians. Everyone. The other things discussed will take me more time to digest; I am in the midst of constructing THE 100 and reviewing my SPE 100. All of the Trauma Informed Pedagogy is useful but I must look carefully at both I have accomplished and what needs further work.
My hope is that including a trauma-informed pedagogy would be a process. My hope is that I could listen to my students’ experiences and needs in how the assignments of creating OER resources impacts their lives and could adapt assignments over time to find a “sweet spot” for how to focus the work.
In terms of the actual benefits, I would hope that having students create the documents for other students would both consider and implement some of the experiences of students dealing with trauma. As the cohorts go through the course and interact with the material I would hope it would evolve into an accurate depiction of the material through the lens of our students.
As a part of my approach to teaching I try to establish inclusivity in all my classes. As the article stated, I also think it’s extremely important that everyone feels seen and heard. I work to involve the students in as many areas as possible when it comes to setting the tone of the class. Normally on the first day I allow the students to share individually what they think the class is about, one goal they’d like to accomplish in the class and a personal strength they possess that can help them accomplish that goal. And from there I can ask what classroom norms do we need to establish or what needs to happen that will help us all reach our individual and team (in my Blackboard announcements I often refer to the class as “team”) goals? I have found Discussion Board quite somewhat effective in helping to build community. The way it works is: The students are required to do a weekly post on various topics related to each module; it’s called “Building Community Through Sharing”, a title a borrowed from a colleague! I’m considering making a huge adjustment to the grading and topic/s of each post; shift it to Credit/No Credit and give more focus to the students choosing their own topics to discuss as long as it supports their individual and overall team goals. Needs more tweaking but we’ll see how it goes!
I feel that the content I present does incorporate many of the ideas around trauma informed pedagogy (teaching intro to pysch means trauma and it’s effects is a topic we cover); but what I would want to do moving forward is try to find assignments/ class activities that include input from the students on their design, as well as asking the students to find some of the material/content for the class. I would also like to add peer review in some way.
I have been incorporating more design and creative work to enable students to express how they feel. My thought was for the student to channel their energy to something creative. For MAR100 it was creating marketing ads and digital story telling and for SBE 100 it was through creating podcasts. The tools were easily accessible and I would supply all content via blackboard and through and app called Discord. I wanted to create many ways to access information and to reach me. I tried a discussion board and it flopped but the discussion board on discord was very active. I remember seeing the comments where the students were hoping that I would keep it open so that they could go on communicating. I kept reinforcing them that I no what I’d be proud and I want it to be a reflective of them and how they were feeling. Additionally I created 15 minutes meetings that were not just office hours but you can talk about things. Some students felt at first that it was a chore but others found that it helped alot. I guess because other professors asked the same of them the first response was “I gotta do it” But I was soften the experience and they would feel better in the end. I also would be transparent as to my feelings as well to let them know they were not alone. I would reference points of tough times in my life as well. To another professor’s point I also was aware that students created their own chat groups in Whats App and I thought that was great.
I thought the seven factors in Mays Imad’s article was interesting reading. Everyone has to deal with some type of trauma in life, including going to college or school in general. I try to know my students to some extent in all my classes. I start by letting them know that I am available to them if they have problems in class. If there is something that is creating trauma in their life that is affecting their school work, they can talk to me and we will try to resolve the problem. If I can not help I can send them to someone in the college that may be able to provide some direction or additional help.. I always increase the communications will students to let them know and understand that they can reach out to me if necessary. I have found that has worked in many situations as I always get students contacting me at the end of the semester stating thank you for all your help. I also discuss the types of mindsets that can provide them with purpose in all of their endeavors. We cannot be everything to everyone but we can be a support if they need it and provide positive direction while increasing their knowledge base. I believe that increasing the communication factor between teacher and student can work wonders. It works for me. At the end of each course I distribute a survey for students comments on what could have been better in the course design, assignment, or team project. I review the comments and make changes where possible to enhance student involvement
(Tea for Teaching was very informative).
1. What OER and other no-cost materials have you found and/or plan to use in your course?
As at the end of the seminar, I had not located any zero-cost textbook to replace the current book. However, through google search for open materials, I found a number of relevant articles that are available to students for no cost.
The primary focus of LIN 140 is to critically examine the spread of English to all parts of the globe and the development of different varieties of English influenced by the new socio-linguistic, cultural, political, and pragmatic contexts. Moreover, the course examines the implications of the study of Global Englishes for teaching and testing.
As Global/World Englishes is a relatively new field of study, most of the materials available may not be accessed at no cost to the users. I’ll continue to utilize the current text and supplement it with other no-cost materials from the web. I intend to work with the BMCC library staff to obtain electronic and print copies so as to make them accessible to all students. Furthermore, I intend to search for open articles and compile them into a course pack to replace the current textbook.
2. How do these materials support the incorporation of asset-based pedagogies (e.g., trauma-informed pedagogy, culturally sustaining pedagogy, open pedagogy) into your course?
The OER seminar introduced me to a variety of asset-based pedagogies that will inform my choice of materials and learning experiences for students in my linguistics courses, including Global Englishes, Language and Culture (LIN 100), and Introduction to linguistics (LIN 101). As a result of my encounter with asset-based pedagogies, such as Open pedagogy and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, I have started revising the learning experiences so as to accommodate the diverse needs of ny students. For instance, to address the diverse literary needs of LIN 140 and LIN 100 students, the final product of the research project will be diversified. Students will be presented with a number of options, such as submitting a written report, presenting in class, or submitting a video. Especially for the Language and Culture course, I’ll incorporate examples that are representative of the linguistic backgrounds of my students. Such background information will be gleaned from the first week personal introductions.
3. How do the materials address these two principles of universal design for learning (UDL)?
multiple means of engagement
multiple means of representation
As I’ll be supplementing the course textbook with no-cost materials from the web, such as YouTube videos, articles, and lectures, students will be engaged in multiple ways. Moreover, I will vary the content for different topics. For example, there will be a lecture for some topics, and for others students will watch a video and discuss in groups.
With respect to multiple means of representative, the redesigned or revised research project will address that need.
For the Global Englishes and Language and Culture courses, students will be given options to present the final product, including submitting a written report, creating a video, or presenting it in class.