A Trauma-Informed Teaching Framework for Stewards

Jeannette Baca, New Mexico Highlands University

Debbie Gonzalez, California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt

Jamie Langlois, Grand Valley State University

Mary Kirk, Winona State University

Key Statement: A framework for educators to address personal and student trauma, provide compassionate instruction, and create a thriving learning environment

Keywords: T-I CoI, Instruction, Well-Being, Crisis

Introduction

Using the Trauma-Informed Community of Inquiry (T-I CoI) framework as a pedagogical design helped us address students’ emotional stress and facilitated cognitive growth and connection to the learning process. It also provided an opportunity to create a sense of community within an online learning environment. When we returned to in-person instruction, the model continued to be beneficial.

Note. Image courtesy of Bernard Hermant, Unsplash.

T-I CoI Framework

The T-I CoI framework was developed using existing constructs as a way to make sense of the complexities of teaching during a crisis. T-I CoI was born out of the COVID pandemic and the months of talking, reflecting, and naming our struggles while simultaneously searching for answers. In our research, we found promising constructs: Trauma-Informed Pedagogy, Community of Inquiry, and Trauma Stewardship.

• Trauma-Informed Pedagogy builds learning environments in higher education that support students’ successful course completion while acknowledging their personal experiences of trauma (Bitanihirwe & Imad, 2023).

• Community of Inquiry (CoI) names three implicit and explicit presences in online teaching: teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence (Akyol & Garrison, 2008). Regardless of course delivery, CoI challenges educators to consider how we influence and create community.

• Trauma Stewardship, which stems from professional crisis work, offers educators an effective strategy to balance care for ourselves and students while being more fully present and acknowledging what we are thinking and how we are feeling (Lipsky & Burke, 2009).

Although each construct is powerful singularly, through a process of reflexivity, we found even greater promise when synthesizing them together. We combined the primary elements of each construct to develop the T-I CoI framework (Figure 1) as a guide for teaching during singularly challenging circumstances. Details of the T-I CoI framework and our process for developing it can be found in the Journal of Excellence in Higher Education (Langlois et al., 2023). This article focuses on concrete practices to enhance the well-being of educators and students developed from the T-I CoI framework.

Note. This model depicts the relationship between the three constructs toward enhancing engaged teaching and learning. From “From Crisis to Consistency: A Steward’s Framework for Teaching During a Crisis” by J. J. Langlois et al., 2023, Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 34(2), 161 - 187. Reprinted with permission.

Relevance and Techniques

Recent data suggest approximately 70% of students are experiencing moderate distress and mental health struggles (Bryant & Welding, 2023). Moreover, educators continue to struggle with mental health, well-being, depression, anxiety, stress, and burnout (Hammoudi Halat et al., 2023). Yet, educators are expected to be leaders or stewards and help students learn despite personal or community-wide crises. Using T-I CoI to purposefully design activities that encourage students to foster relationships with one another and the instructor promotes well-being and a collaborative learning environment. Teaching stewards create and participate in intentional communities in the student-centered classroom and with colleagues to reduce experiences of isolation and stress during challenging times in higher education. We find that acknowledging and managing our own distress, while engaging in active and thoughtful support with colleagues, is beneficial to our experiences as educators.

Going forward, the utility of the T-I CoI framework remains relevant for educators as we navigate the challenges and opportunities of teaching and learning. We continue to need healthy learning environments where both students and educators are mindful of self-care techniques and exercises that enhance relationships with and among the class. Given the data, we know that a significant portion of students and educators continue to struggle. We also know that crises, trauma, compound stress, and other triggers cause cortisone to elevate, which is associated with a fight or flight response (Lipsky & Burke, 2009; Van der Kolk, 2014). Executive functioning, the ability to self-regulate, critical thinking, and the ability to learn are diminished. To create healthy learning environments that promote engaged teaching and learning, we contend that educators need regular practices inside and outside the classroom that promote well-being. For example, as educators, we found that retaining meaningful relationships with one another to support scholarship development, share teaching strategies, and foster our own well-being contributed to our motivation to be present for our students. The following sections provide techniques that fall within the T-I CoI framework that enhance well-being for students and educators and promote cognitive presence which makes engaged teaching and learning possible.

Techniques for Promoting Well-Being for Students

• Acknowledge presence at the beginning of class through a check-in - try a thumb check. Thumb up = doing well, thumb middle = could be better, thumb down = not doing well. Let everyone see thumbs. Ask if one or two people would share why their thumb was where it was.

• Play a YouTube grounding or mindfulness exercise (5 minutes or less) to increase cognitive presence.

• Give a variety of opportunities to contribute and have student’s “voice” heard - raise hand, poll, waterfall response, think-pair-share, response cards, and emoji reactions.

• Help everyone learn each other’s names and pronouns to acknowledge identity.

• Allow group work during class time to minimize barriers to connecting with classmates.

• Encourage students to develop text groups with each other to extend community outside the classroom.

• Survey students to find personal and course-related interests and share themes with the class to enhance students’ sense of being seen and their relationship with others.

• Create class-long groups based on common interests and have students share contact information with each other.

• Set tone or ground rules for class participation and engagement that respect difference.

Techniques for Promoting Well-Being for Educators

• Participate in check-in activities during meetings and in class to acknowledge your humanity and build compassion and community.

• Participate in grounding or mindfulness exercises on your own and with students to increase cognitive presence.

• Acknowledge what is burdening you and recognize that you have the ability to choose the focus of your energy and thinking.

• When reporting themes from class surveys, share how you relate to the responses to increase your connection with students.

• Recognize that you are not responsible for all the answers. Always seek to understand the concern or emotion behind questions (from due dates to death in the family) and offer to consider the question more or connect the individual with others who have answers or resources.

• Find balance by creating healthy and explicit boundaries with your time—office hours, email responses, meeting scheduling, and social gatherings.

• Create space for inquiry, creativity, and exploration to enhance a sense of thriving.

• End each workday by letting go of what you could not do for that day so you can be present in other spaces.

Next Steps

In today’s world, many students and educators experience stress, mental health concerns, and personal crises that continue to create barriers to being fully present in learning environments. Incorporating techniques that promote well-being, as described in this piece, enhances the ability to be more physically and cognitively present. This allows for increased executive functioning, self-regulation, critical thinking, connections, and the ability to learn.

Discussion 

1. Consider whether attending to student and educator well-being continues to be relevant in higher education.

2. Consider how you are currently promoting student and educator well-being. What examples in this article could enhance your efforts?

3. Consider how improving student and educator well-being might enhance teaching and learning.

References

Akyol, Z., & Garrison, D. R. (2008). The development of a community of inquiry over time in an online course: Understanding the progression and integration of social, cognitive and teaching presence. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 12(3), 3-22. https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/1680/513 

Bitanihirwe, B., & Imad, M. (2023) Gauging trauma-informed pedagogy in higher education: A UK case study. Frontiers in Education, 8(1), 1256996. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1256996

Bryant, J., & Welding, L. (2023, February, 15). College student mental health statistics. Best Colleges. https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-student-mental-health-statistics

Hammoudi Halat, D., Soltani, A., Dalli, R., Alsarraj, L., & Malki, A. (2023). Understanding and fostering mental health and well-being among university faculty: A narrative review. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 12(13), 4425. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm12134425

Langlois, J. J., Baca, J., Gonzalez, D. L, & Kirk, M. M. (2023). Crisis to consistency: A steward’s framework for teaching during a pandemic. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 34(2), 161-187. http://celt.miamioh.edu/ject/issue.php?v=34&n=2

Lipsky, L. v. D., & Burk, C. (2009). Trauma stewardship: An everyday guide to caring for self while caring for others. Berrett-Koehler.

Van der Kolk, Bessel A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.

About the Authors