For our session on January 18:
- Read Mays Imad’s article, “Leverage the Neuroscience of now,” about trauma-informed practices (written near the beginning of the pandemic, the ideas here remain relevant, especially the seven principles).
- Review Trauma-Informed Teaching and Learning Examples, from the Columbia School of Social Work, and Alex Shevrin Venet’s Principles of Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education.
Respond to the following in the comments below:
- In what ways do you see trauma (your own, your students, our community) impacting or manifesting in your courses, as well as in the larger BMCC community?
- What trauma-informed practices are you currently using in your courses?
- What other trauma-informed practices might you include?
20 thoughts on “Trauma-informed Pedagogy”
In today’s society, we are experiencing more heightened sensitivity where people have this mentality of “canceling” people out, better known as “cancel culture.” There’s this perception that if you don’t agree with others, they immediately want to “cancel” you by not supporting you, or eliminating you from your position or significant role that you play in society. I remember the New York University professor who was fired after his students complained that his class was too hard. Students protested the chemistry professor by signing petitions and complaining about his teaching style and grading methods.
Ultimately, this raised the question: does this termination of this NYU professor “undermine faculty freedom and weaken proven teaching practices?” I also learned that these complaints were compiled during the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking at this topic of trauma-informed pedagogy, I can’t help but now evaluate the situation a little bit more differently. The professor was 84 years old and I’m sure that he had a learning style that was very strict, as he is a “baby boomer.” However, would it be different if he had trauma-informed pedagogy training? If he adopted a method that could be potentially supportive in the classroom, and acknowledged that, as the article said, “Teaching is a radical act of hope…” perhaps his outcome would be a better one.
The trauma-informed practices that I have incorporated consist of scaffolding, modeling, patience and teaching with empathy. As an educator, I understand that my students have a lot of outside stressors and I do my best to make sure the classroom is a safe community that is conducive to learning. Years ago, I conducted a workshop on contemplative pedagogy, and how to teach mindfulness in the higher educational classroom. Contemplative pedagogy and trauma-informed teaching and learning correlate because both of these practices prioritize creating a safe and supportive learning environment for students.
Hi Crystal,
I’d love to hear more about how you have been teaching mindfulness in your classes.
Great! Feel free to e-mail me and I can send you some more information.
I have been pursuing what might be labeled trauma informed practices for many years because so many of my students seemed to be uncomfortable in the college environment. I often found that this discomfort was rooted in the fact that teachers in the primary and secondary institutions had pigeonholed them. While some students were clearly encouraged to seek higher education others were in subtle but painful ways discouraged. Being in college created a sense of fraudulence. I emphasized that there was one stupid question, the one not asked. That no one should be embarrassed offering a very different perspective, and that their opinions were as valid as mine.
Admittedly, I was blind to a great deal of Covid induced stress. The one area where I was conscious of trauma informed teaching was in dealing with returning vets. Compared to the “average” student, their feeling of isolation staggered the imagination. Having back to back classes I was, in one semester, able to create a four man study group which seemed to help reintegrate each one. Alas, I was not always successful. Over the years, two promising men dropped out, and one was lost to suicide. He was, of course, the A student, who seemed to have it all together.
It is far easier to deliver reinforcement on a one to one basis. I have yet to learn how to make that more generalized.
I appreciate the recognition that our students have come with trauma well before the pandemic. I also acknowledge that it is sometimes difficult to then be taught by folks who are from social categories that have contributed to the trauma and reaped the benefit of the privileges derived from those traumas.
Trauma impacting/manifesting.
STUDENTS: Disappearing from face-to-face courses, actually online asynchronous courses as well. Super stressed – trying to juggle seemingly more than before, and prioritizing paid work over academic responsibilities, more so than before the pandemic.
I did have a student who was enrolled in a fully online course who had disappeared and come back asking for help making decisions on how to pass the course. They informed me of the circumstances of their falling behind/non-participation, and we tried to identify a way for the student to utilize the support services at BMCC, particularly counseling, to make the best decision for their academic progress that term. Catching up seemed too overwhelming. In the course of email conversation (they did not want to speak on the phone), the student made statements that sounded suicidal.
This statement is interesting to me “First, because we are social beings, our brains view social isolation as a threat — in fact, prolonged social isolation negatively impacts our physical and mental health. “ (Imad, 2020, Leveraging the Neuroscience of Now, para 5.). While online courses allowed for convenience previously, it now continues to exacerbate some degree of isolation from a range of experiences, comradery and services offered in the brick-and-mortar college setting. SO, have we prolonged negative the mental and physical aspects of the pandemic by continuing to offer online courses and experiences, saying that students “want” it? What if they want the convenience of it at the expense of the negative effects of isolation from the academic experience? This may contribute to the “disappearance” of students at the rates we are seeing post pandemic. Are we responsible for redirecting the disconnect from campus? I do not think we do a good job of creating an online cohort experience. What trauma-informed practices are you currently using in your courses?
PERSONALLY: This was magnified: “No. 6: Pay attention to cultural, historical and gender issues.” (Imad, 2020, Leveraging the Neuroscience of Now, para 25.) I am single and have no family in NYC, I stayed in the city and in the LES. I taught a subject fraught with social and political trauma (policing) as a white professor to students who were almost all Hispanic or Black. It was extremely stressful to balance elf care, growth by exploring an acknowledging privilege (even more than I had previously addressed). I also come from a policing family, and one that supported the last administration. I had tremendous rifts and no support on that side of the family. I felt like I was in a silo, and all of the language was about helping our students – with no seeming concern for the stress of dealing with course content that was triggering on a daily basis, more so than usual. I dreaded teaching, for fear of not being in full awareness of my privilege. That has remained.
Current and potential trauma-informed practices.
In an effort to address this item presented by Imad (2020), “No. 6: Pay attention to cultural, historical and gender issues” (para. 25) I began to “No. 7: Impart to [my] students the importance of having a sense of purpose” (para.30). I did this by connecting them to the “why it may be important” to learn the course material in CRJ, and ask them, through writing intensive in class exercises, why they think it may be important, in light of their own social identifies and future goals.
I address this: “No. 1: Work to ensure your students’ emotional, cognitive, physical and interpersonal safety” (Imad,2020, para. 18) by calling out trigger warnings for videos and some topics, particularly in policing. I also try to do this: “No. 2: Foster trustworthiness and transparency through connection and communication among students.” (Imad, para. 20) I always note that I am aware that I am white and that comes with privilege. I also acknowledge that what I say may not be fully trusted. I tell personal stories about my upbringing in a police family and how I came to new understandings about race, crime, police practices, as well as my relationship to privilege as we discuss the material. I do ask students to do the same, particularly through in class writing exercises (ungraded, but used to develop topic essays). I tell them that what they write is a springboard for addressing the subject in the coming essay.
Regarding other trauma informed practices I might include, I think I should be more clear about how I can/will include each of the Principles of Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education (Shevrin Venet, 2021) I believe that I address or include PRINCIPLE 1: ANTIRACIST, ANTIOPPRESSION; PRINCIPLE 5: UNIVERSAL AND PROACTIVE; and PRINCIPLE 6: SOCIAL JUSTICE FOCUSED. But I could do so with greater consistency and integrate the remaining principles in my classroom and in my participation in service and administrative tasks for the college. I could create more ways for students to participate in their recovery and engage the principles for themselves, increasing agency and the ability to connect to life outside the classroom differently, rooted in knowledge of how their own experiences (including trauma) are assets.
I found these readings to be very interesting. In my short time at BMCC, I have seen that many students are facing financial difficulty (due to inflation and rising housing prices), mental health issues, and/or caregiving of family members (young children, parents, grandparents).
Current trauma-informed practices:
– I try to be transparent about course objectives, assignment instructions, and student evaluation/rubrics in all of my courses. This is a work in progress and I try to refine these after every semester.
– I always solicit anonymous feedback from students about how the course is going/what I can improve after we finish our first unit (about one month into the semester). I use that feedback to implement changes for the remainder of the course (if feasible).
– I facilitate student-led discussions in almost every class session giving the students an opportunity to use their voice.
Some trauma-informed practices that I would like to include are:
– Scaffolding the final assignment to provide students the opportunity to receive feedback and learn from their mistakes.
– Providing referral information for campus resources. Although this is on the syllabus and I do promote these resources on the first day of class, I would like to have guest speakers or promote more often during the semester.
My students have written about their personal traumas that impact their learning in their personal narratives for the class and many have also been open about them with me. Anxiety, depression, homelessness, death of a loved one, being the primary caregiver for an ill member of the family, to name a few, are the hurdles that students have to face and as a consequence the following happens: distracted or a distraction in class, no attention in class (attention on their phones), excessive lateness or absence, little to no assignments submitted, poor quality of submitted work.
I get to know the individual (icebreakers and personal narrative essay) and build community in class (icebreakers and collaborative work, such as the Writers’ Workshop where they read each other’s work and become each other’s editors and share warm and cool feedback and at the same time get to know their classmates even more). I provide various opportunities for students to submit work (extended deadline and an optional revised draft), give information for tutoring and support services (Counseling Center, Writing Center, etc), and also have status checks in class (like Rose-Bud-Thorn), and I also like to DJ during appropriate work times in class (modeled by Jean!) and ask students for their favorite songs, which is how we get to learn new artists, languages, and stories.
I’d like to incorporate more student-led discussions and activities.
I often see trauma manifested as a resistance to experiment, be playful/creative, try something without the guarantee of success. These situations provoke vulnerability, and they are grasping for the sure answer. In a language class this is a problem because they must make mistakes (and will for a long time) before they can reach a point of confidence in the target language.
I try to foster community with group work and mutual self improvement, asking students to explain to each other how they approach assignments and letting students revise their work. I aim for transparency in my policies and (un)grading, as well as where my materials come from. I ask students what they want to get out of the course and do my best to adjust to their interests. I also edit materials as much as possible to eliminate gendered language and offensive stereotypes. Actually, OER is a must for this!
I would like to do better with feedback, especially the kind that highlights students strengths and talents. I would also like to be more open and receptive for students to talk about what is going on in their lives. Sometimes I am afraid to ask too many questions. I’m not a therapist or counselor, but I hope that they feel welcomed and supported in our class community.
This week’s reading materials illustrate that trauma can take shape in teaching and learning environments through diverse and often intricate expressions. A significant challenge I face is engaging with my students’ experiences with empathy and sufficient emotional comprehension. While some students openly discuss their experiences, others are understandably reticent. My key initiative is fostering a classroom environment that serves as the so called “safe space” (I should add that I realize that this term has become a buzz word, so I do mean it genuinely), where students feel they can discuss how external factors affect their academic performance without fear of judgment. This approach intersects with principles of “support & connection,” “collaboration & mutuality,” and emotional respect, all while maintaining sensitivity towards the varied positionalities of my students.
To that end, I have enhanced the mental health and wellbeing section of my syllabi, clarifying that, beyond the resources available at BMCC, students are welcome to approach me directly. They can seek support without having to reveal the specifics of their challenges, a departure from the traditional, and potentially alienating, demand for proof. This method builds a level of trust that has proven invaluable in empowering students, thereby contributing to their success. There are several real-life examples of this approach has helped my students and I would be happy to speak to this more during our panel.
In what ways do you see trauma (your own, your students, our community) impacting or manifesting in your courses, as well as in the larger BMCC community?
For me, it is working to ensure the students feel safe with me as a teacher. To that end, I give them personal anecdotes that help them relate to me and me to them. But there is one suggestion the reading offered, that I thought was interesting – and that was to create a short survey and ask students, “How can I help you learn during these difficult times”? I will use this moving forward.
Promote Collaboration and Mutuality: Day 1 we work to establish an inclusive community. We begin our first day of class by making it clear that together we will establish an atmosphere of mutual respect; teacher and student. I share the following prompts:
1. What I will expect from you.
2. What you can expect from me.
We review and discuss each prompt in Breakout Rooms and reconvene to share what each group has come up with. From there we further a class discussion involving the entire room, wherein we establish our baseline of “Expectations”.
This approach has served me well over the past couple of years by establishing clear expectations.
Impart to Students the Importance of having Purpose: This is something that I plan to incorporate going forward; beginning with my own personal journey and share my passion to teach. I think this can be a great icebreaker and can possibly generate ideas for speech topics in the class.
I’m not quite sure I see trauma in my classes. There have been a few sparse instances where students demonstrated mental stress from personal issues and events, but I directed those students to counselors. I do, however, open up my classroom for students to express their opinions on topics we discuss. I have found far too many students at BMCC shocked that a professor (me) even considered hearing their viewpoints. I do create a classroom where students feel comfortable to speak to one another and me. Since many of our classes consist of diverse educational levels, I have simplified my classes so that everyone could be on the same page. I do create as one of the articles stated “support and connection” and “support and effort.” I now assign small group assignments and ask students to report to the class what their groups discussed. Many students have managed to make friends with other classmates in my classes which I find satisfying since the Internet (I think) has managed to isolate many people and simultaneously bring them together. I’m convinced (and I tell my students as well) that in this country it’s not only what you know, but who you know and that college is the best place to network since you may end up relying on a classmate in the future for a link to employment.
This first question is a hard one which is why I’m late submitting it. In the meetings, we have discussed students having difficulty concentrating (and me too) and focusing. I think too that the way I have taught before won’t work anymore; not just because of Covid but also due to ChatGbt, etc. I’m also noticing students lashing out and struggling in general…. we all are.
In my classes, I give students opportunities to talk about their Covid experience using the AR Covid memorials students did in 2020-2021 and collect stories from others. At this point, some don’t want to talk about it an ymore but then they find out that they do have stories to tell and that others want to hear them and share theirs. I don’t think I can do this much longer though. People want to move on even as some are getting sick. It is different now and more like a flu.
I will give more choice within the course framework. I think this will also vary the course content and keep student interested because they care about what they are working on… I hope.
By creating a Sense of Belonging and Community Building: many of our students are in college for the first time. It takes a lot of energy to get used to belonging in a new environment sometimes. With all the support available on campus, it is difficult to navigate how to access and make use of them all. The classroom is a great location where besides the regular course content, instructors can open up sections of their teachings to create learning environments and learning resources that will be of value to students such as instruction to build a supportive environment addressing the course content and the many traumas that students experience and how the current course syllabus content can address some of these. Most importantly, the assignment that will be created for my Intro to Business course will be ongoing throughout the semester and students will be able to add components to their weekly BB responses and feedback to their colleague’s posts on BB and through personal reflections as they think of starting their businesses and organizations and how to address any employee or client issues. The course assignment and structure are still in their development stages and will be fine-tuned regularly by inviting students to co-create content as they see fit for their learning goals.
The dramatic changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic pushed universities around the world to switch to different modalities of teaching and learning but without the strategic, sequential, multi-stakeholder transition that has been performed voluntarily by select universities in the past causing a lot of schedule changes, life changes, enrolment issues etc. Students and faculty must learn how to effectively work on these ways of learning. To avoid drop-offs, some institutions opt for “Ungrading”, which is centered on student learning by reducing the use of traditional, quantified grading in favor of methods such as low-stakes tasks, written, and spoken feedback from the instructor and/or student peers, and various approaches to student reflection, self-assessment, and even self-grading. We envision that other new options to retain and successfully graduate students need to be created and implemented.
At the moment I am dealing with this by opening up the first 10-20 minutes of class to a general check in, discussion on how everyone is feeling. I am currently a Grad Student as well so I share some of my stresses and worries, and this usually gets them to open up about theirs. Certainly there are still students that disappear, and this is where I need to improve my methods.
I like Nelcida’s idea to allow for student feedback on projects, and I have been generally more open to student’s asking if they can resubmit work etc, though I’d like to keep some semblance of deadlines. The less students I have the more I am able to commit to guiding each one through the semester, but of course this is at odds with the industrial university system. Have any of you read the Slow Professor? I’m enjoying it so far.
1. In what ways do you see trauma (your own, your students, our community) impacting or manifesting in your courses, as well as in the larger BMCC community?
Sad to say this, but I see it manifesting all around me, and not just within the BMCC community. Speaking specifically, however, about me and the students, the fact that we are slowly coming out of a global pandemic, things seem that have changed when it comes to people’s ability to manage emotions compared to the pre-Covid era. We should also not forget that our community college is not a place where the wealthy pursue their education. While students create an incredibly rich, diverse and multiethnic environment, many are academically and economically underprivileged. This alone carries with traumas that are more deeply ingrained in our lives than the last 3 years dealing with an epidemic. Issues of racial, ethnic or gender discrimination, poverty and unavailability of opportunity often come to the fore.
2. What trauma-informed practices are you currently using in your courses?
When the course’s content allows, I place an emphasis on discourses of difference—particularly through race, class, ethnicity, gender and sexual identity—to which students directly relate one way or another, responding to the power of self-consciousness and the politics inherent in us all. I don’t have specific assignments that center on trauma-informed practices though, but trauma-informed discussions often come up during lecture time.
3. What other trauma-informed practices might you include?
I am thinking of incorporating low-stakes assignments that deal with trauma: collective (in a sense of belonging to a community) and more personal. At the same time, it’s important to note that trauma-informed practices should be approached with sensitivity. In this respect, as educators we should be aware that students have varying needs and relate to “trauma” differently. I really have to think about more thoroughly what kind of trauma-informed practices might fit best my course content. Nevertheless, the bottom line is to acknowledge trauma, celebrate diversity, promote collaboration, and foster a shared feeling of support and kindness.
I particularly enjoy these readings on Trauma-informed teaching.
I understand the context of trauma differently now. I like the historical reference and the source, the need for such pedagogy. As Brenda ,I also appreciate the recognition of trauma before and after the pandemic. I have students who come to class after a stressful weekend when they’ve witnessed a robbery, gunshots, or fights. I have students who experience personal loss or other withdrawal from activities. I agree that the closest people to their experience in some cases are us, the educators who facilitate attention to life’s issues, difficulties, and details. An important aspect of education, I’ve noticed for my students is, realizing how certain principles and categories of the subject are presented in real life. At this cross point of applying the learning our students have no choice but to express their concerns. They naturally draw from their own past and current experiences. I am thankful when they share, I find it to be very liberating for them and also elevates the sense of community in the class as a whole.
I also liked the table with examples and see that I apply most of the trauma-informed teachings shared, mostly the trustworthiness and transparency.
In my class, the impact of trauma is evident in various ways, affecting both students and the broader community at BMCC. Recognizing the diverse backgrounds and experiences that students bring into the classroom, it is essential to acknowledge the potential influence of trauma on their academic performance and overall well-being. Personally, I have observed instances where students’ past traumas manifest in their learning styles, leading to challenges in concentration, motivation, and self-esteem. Moreover, the larger BMCC community also reflects the impact of trauma, as societal issues and external factors can contribute to a collective sense of unease and stress.
To address these challenges, I have incorporated trauma-informed practices into my teaching approach. One crucial aspect involves creating a safe and inclusive learning environment where students feel comfortable expressing themselves. This includes establishing open communication channels, implementing trigger warnings when discussing sensitive topics, and being mindful of language choices to avoid unintentional triggers. Additionally, I strive to be flexible with assignments and deadlines, recognizing that external stressors may impact students’ ability to meet traditional expectations.
Looking ahead, I am committed to expanding my trauma-informed practices in the classroom. This may involve integrating mindfulness techniques, such as brief meditation or relaxation exercises, at the beginning of class to help students manage stress. Furthermore, I aim to provide additional resources for mental health support, ensuring that students are aware of available counseling services and other support networks within the college community. By continuously evaluating and adjusting my approach, I aspire to create an environment that promotes not only academic success but also the overall well-being of my students and the BMCC community at large.
1) trauma may impact on my course, if students have it and cannot `1activelly participate in the class activities
2) not yet, planning to use in the future
3) i may include the following: all students must be active in historical and cultural aspects of the course