Spring 2020 has The years when the COVID-19 pandemic began and following have not turned out the way that anyone imagined. Many of us continue to experience anxiety due to the uncertainty of the coming months. Neither you nor your students is sure what happens next. Because we collectively have lost the A variety of experiences are producing or re-activating trauma, including senseless deaths, loss of a Spring semester that we envisioned and have experienced other losses, including in 2019, loss of the pre-pandemic world, perhaps loss of loved ones. So responding to ourselves and our students using trauma-informed teaching and learning practices can help.
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Using these principles can support you as you build courses and respond to students.
As faculty think about building their courses, building in these five elements can encourage students to build resilience.
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- Tell students what outcome/skill/knowledge they should demonstrate. Offer multiple ways to demonstrate these outcomes/skills/knowledge, for example produce a poster or write a short essay. Diagram this process or provide a process narration.
- For a course content, offer a reading and a video. Students can learn the material either by reading or by viewing the video. Students may then demonstrate that they have completed the content portion of te ework the work by completing a short quiz, for example.
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- Use the "announcements" feature in Blackboard for your class. Tell your students that you plan to use this feature so that they check the announcements regularly.
- Use post-it notes for yourself. If a student asks a question that you need to check on in order to respond, write the question down. Then return to it in a future clasclass, showing the students that they can trust you to return to their questions.
- "Sandwich" your course modules. Begin with an overview; provide the content/learning experience; end with a review. Clearly connect information from overview through content to review.
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*One note of caution: a significant difference exists between material that is challenging and difficult intellectually and material that is truly traumatic for students. In an effort to avoid material that challenges long-held beliefs, students may claim trauma. Trauma elicits functional impairment, while challenging, difficult material is unlikely to impair function.
For additional information regarding trauma-informed teaching, consider these resources. Some are focused around the 2020 election; others have more general direction.