Author: Emily Barber

Injustice, Elections, & COVID: Effectively Handling Highly-Charged Class Discussions

Cliff Rouder & Kyle Vitale

Highly-charged discussions around current events can make students from a variety of backgrounds and points of view feel silenced and alienated in class by other students or even by a professor. But if thoughtfully handled, they can be highly productive for students, teaching them how to listen empathetically and actively to other points of view and even collaborate across them, giving them practice in critical thinking, and creating new connections to course material.

Whether your course naturally includes highly-charged topics, or you decide to have a discussion in response to a controversial current event, preparing for these moments can ensure they are enriching rather than distressing. Preparing for difficult class discussions requires us to think deeply about our goals and teaching approaches for students in these moments, while reflecting on our own feelings, biases, and motivations so that we can model and promote desirable behaviors.

Here are some important considerations and strategies to help set class up for productive discourse

  • Note Upcoming Discussions. It will be helpful to let students know they may be engaging in discussions that elicit strong feelings, opinions, and discomfort. Clearly communicate how you will help students “get comfortable with the discomfort” and help them see the benefits of such moments for their intellectual and emotional development.  This strategy can begin with an email pre-semester or open discussion in the first week, supported by messaging in your syllabus and repeated orally throughout the semester.
  • Develop guidelines for civil discourse. At the start of the semester, have students collaboratively generate guidelines for class discussion. These guidelines can be posted on Canvas and referred to throughout the semester. Sample guidelines include: listening without interrupting; not turning the conversation into a personal attack; and avoiding inflammatory language. You’ll be surprised how much tougher students can be about these guidelines than you might be, and how much more buy-in you’ll get when they have contributed to the established rules.
  • Check your baggage at the gate. Before engaging in these types of discussions, reflect on your own biases and triggers. How might you respond verbally and non-verbally to a contrary statement / point of view about which you have strong feelings? Work on modeling desirable skills: show students what it means to actively listen and how to ask clarifying questions. Review some non-verbal skills that demonstrate caring and compassion, and compare the effects to non-verbal expressions of intolerance and anger. If anyone’s feelings cannot be managed effectively in the moment, it may be better to table the discussion and return at a later time.
  • Give students opportunities to practice. Early in the semester, start with discussion topics that are low stakes and won’t trigger strong emotional responses. This allows students to get to know one another and practice listening, evaluate another perspective, and navigate differences of opinion. For instance, you might begin with a reading that (students can evaluate through competing explanations. Whether you have in-person, live, or asynchronous courses, pair work and discussion boards can help students practice listening or reading each other’s takes on a topic. Online, you can use Zoom breakout rooms or private chat to get students speaking with one another. At the end of these discussions, remember to ask students what they learned from the process.
  • When It’s Go Time. The following active learning strategies can serve as a vehicle for practicing and engaging in civil discourse on difficult topics:
    • Start with prompting activities. Rather than throw a difficult topic wide open, lead into discussion with exercises or questions than help students warm up, sort out their thoughts, and confront their initial reactions. A 1-minute reflection paper before discussion can help students order their thinking. Questions that start with a third party, like “what did x source have to say on this topic?” or “where does this topic currently fit in the national landscape?” give students time to find their feet. A variety of other strategies exist for designing questions that engage students critically while helping them to manage their passions.
    • Consider structured discussion techniques. These strategies structure discussion to ensure fairness, inclusivity and focus. In the Circle of Voices activity, each student gets a chance to speak uninterrupted for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on class size. In Circular Response, each student is required to build their comment from the prior comment, or at least address it constructively before adding their own thoughts. In Snowballing, students debate a topic in pairs, then pairs join one another, becoming progressively larger until  the whole class reunites. This approach helps students learn that discussions can be developmental as it pivots to incorporate new ideas. Make sure that students also get opportunities to practice the skills they glean from structured discussion in more open discussion scenarios.
    • Own the difficulty by setting up a debate. Some topics may be best served through debate, where students are invited to take sides and argue, but interact through established rules. Debates work best when students are asked to reverse opinion and consider opposing views. Check out these guidelines for ensuring an effective debate experience.
    • Be prepared for tension. There is always the possibility that a difficult discussion gets out of control. In these “hot” moments, the following strategies can help: remind students of your class discussion agreement; affirm the emotions in the room while rerouting the energy through further questions; ask students to write their thoughts quietly for a moment; in the Zoom environment, remove a student who is overly aggressive or violates policies. Many other strategies also exist for managing these hot moments.

If you’d like to develop a game plan with a CAT faculty developer, or if you would like a developer to sit in on a discussion to give you feedback, don’t hesitate to book a consultation. With some thoughtful planning and some practice, incorporating difficult discussions into your course can be a highly successful pedagogical strategy and may not be that difficult after all!

Cliff Rouder, Ed.D., is Pedagogy and Design Specialist at Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching. Kyle Vitale, Ph.D., is Associate Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Designing Writing Assignments to Defeat Cheating

Jeff Rients

Designing Writing Assignments to Defeat Cheating

Although plagiarism detection tools can assist instructors to catch cheaters, a better alternative is to design writing assignments that discourage such behaviors in the first place. On top of that, each of the techniques discussed below can result in better writing from all students, not just those who might be tempted to cheat. By adopting three simple principles, not only will you find yourself dealing with fewer plagiarism cases, but you’ll also provide more opportunities for your students to become better writers!

Establish a baseline

Early in the semester ask students to write a page or two. This assignment should be low stakes, either for no grade or worth just enough points to incentivize participation. No research should be required for this piece. Instead, it can be either a response to an initial reading or an autobiographical essay describing the student’s relationship with the course content.

An assignment like this provides you with two important things. First, you’ll have some vital information on the students’ preparation for your course which can help you tailor your lessons for them. Second, you now have a sample of the student’s writing. If you find yourself investigating cheating down the line, you won’t need to analyze the suspected writing against some database. Instead, you can pull out this piece from the start of the semester to see if the grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, and other elements of styles match up to the suspected piece.

Use checkpoints

Some instructors place unnecessary focus on the final product of the assignment, as if that were the only object worthy of the instructor’s attention and feedback. Instead, cheat-resistant assignments consider writing as a process, a series of steps, each of which merits its own scrutiny and feedback.

To achieve this sequencing, many instructors will find it necessary to cut down on the total number of final deliverables. Instead of, for example, students producing three papers over the course of a semester, you might have them write only one or two final products. In turn, what previously you might consider to be “the paper” becomes the last link in a  sequence of submissions.

A typical example of sequenced assignments might be something like the following:

  1. Each student writes a very brief proposal of the topic they wish to write about.
  2. Students then create an annotated bibliography or other evidence of their research process.
  3. A rough draft of the paper, or at least a substantial portion of it, is then submitted.
  4. The final draft of the paper completes the process.

Going through each step with your students will result in better final drafts, as it allows you to intervene earlier in the process. You can, for example, warn off students who select overly broad topics in their proposal. Or you can steer students towards better avenues for research if you see that their annotated bibliography is weak.

Additionally, this method makes it easier to see when a student makes a sharp left turn. This allows the instructor to look for things like a sudden deviation from the proposed topic, the reliance on research outside what appears in the bibliography, or a final draft that looks nothing like the first draft. None of these are necessarily proof of cheating; they could be evidence that the student is taking the project seriously enough to make major revisions before the final submission. However, if this major shift also produces writing that is stylistically different from your baseline as described above, then you know that you have a situation worth discussing with the student.

Prompt explicit revision plans

Sometimes when we write feedback for our students it can feel like we are sending it out into the ether. Whether what we have to say reaches their ears and whether they actually respond to it can be a mystery, especially if we only communicate feedback to them at the end of the paper-writing process. Feedback shouldn’t be about looking back at what students did wrong. Rather, proper writing feedback looks ahead to what students can do to make sure they succeed at their next writing task.

In the case of a sequenced writing assignment as described above, the feedback from the proposal should be written with advice for the research needed for the bibliography. The bibliography feedback should be aimed at what the student does in the first draft and the first draft feedback should inform the final draft. This is the difference between condemnation and critique; your feedback should be about equipping the student with what they need to succeed in the future.

Don’t assume that the students will take up your feedback and incorporate it in later steps. Instead, the incorporation of that feedback should be an explicit component of completing the assignment. You may even want students to hand in a short narrative of how your feedback from the previous assignment was used to shape the current one. This creates a formal relationship between steps in the assignment.

With such a relationship established, it becomes much easier to spot unusual writing activity from a student. If you suggested a particular strategy for the next assignment in the chain and instead they adopted a completely different approach that also seems significantly more sophisticated than the baseline writing assignment, you may have reason to suspect something has gone wrong. Of course, your suggestion may also have sparked a new, and different, idea in your student. You’ll need to use your discretion to determine the nature and cause of any drastic changes.

Ultimately, we need to be open to the possibility that the student has made significant progress as a writer since you last checked in with them. That is, after all, the point! That’s also why open and clear communication about your expectations for student behavior is important. By adopting these three principles, you can build writing assignments that not only discourage cheating, but that also help students improve their writing skills. And isn’t that why we are assigning them papers in the first place?

Jeff Rients, Ph.D., is Senior Teaching & Learning Specialist at Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Four Ways to Cultivate Community in your Online Class

Cliff Rouder

We all know how empowering and motivating it feels when we’re part of a community working hard toward a common goal–perhaps now more than ever. That feeling of connecting and belonging; having a voice and knowing you’ll be heard; knowing you’re supported and supporting others: this is what community can feel like in an online course. But community is more than a feeling. Indeed, the research tells us that these are key ingredients to student success in your course, and by extension, to retention in the major and in college.

Understanding that community can look different depending on class size, here are some ways to build that foundation early on:

1. Make your goal of creating community transparent.

Tell your students the reasons why it’s important, what you will do, and what you expect them to do, to help build that community. You might even make this one of your course goals. By the end of the semester, what will students need to demonstrate to know whether they’ve met this goal, and how will you get them there? Perhaps it will be through successful collaborative work. Perhaps it will be through participating in discussion boards. Consider these other ideas below.

2. Build in different ways of presenting content and demonstrating competence.

If we proactively do this, then we will have met the learning needs of as many students as possible, which can reduce the need for individual student accommodation. Think about representing content via audio and visual means in addition to text. Think about alternative assessments besides exams and papers. We call this proactive approach to course design Universal Design for Learning, or UDL. As always in course design, we start with our course goals first and then work backwards to design assessments and learning activities.

3. Build in social opportunities for students.

How about creating a space where students can connect on a social level? Think of them gathering around the water cooler to talk about non-course related topics. Can you connect them to former students who are now working in their fields of interest? 

4. Personalize and humanize your online classroom.

There are many ways you can do this:

  • Welcome them into your home space. Show them your pet, your child, your environment, and encourage them to do the same. Be mindful though that some may be hesitant to appear on webcam, so encourage, but don’t require. Students can always use their audio, the Zoom chat tool, discussion boards, or photos if they don’t want to turn on their webcams.
  • Ask them to come to virtual office hours. You’ll be amazed at how a 10-minute “getting to know you” session can decrease their hesitation about coming to you for assistance. Then, check in frequently with the whole class in your synchronous or asynchronous sessions.
  • Do some interesting ice-breakers. Try on for size “Three truths and a lie,” or “What are you binge-watching?” This gets students talking about themselves, but also comparing their experiences to their peers.
  • Have them send you the pronouns they use and be mindful about using them. Everyone has a need to feel validated and this is a simple step that can greatly assist some of our most vulnerable students.
  • Create guidelines together for communicating respectfully when their points of view differ. An online course is an artificial space where the rules of interaction don’t always seem obvious. Inviting the students to participate in setting the ground rules for civil discourse gets them involved in building community from the ground up.
  • Purposefully connect course content to their lives and future ambitions. Remember, your course does not exist in isolation, but it can feel that way to students. Always look for opportunities to connect your course to recent events, their past experiences as students, and/or their personal and career aspirations.

With just a little effort–and some humanity–you can create a community of learners in your online course. As always, the CAT is here to help you in this endeavor, so don’t hesitate to book a consultation with one of our amazing faculty developers or educational technologists at catbooking.temple.edu. We’ve also compiled a great collection of resources to help you design your online course, which you can access at teaching.temple.edu/design.

Cliff Rouder, Ed.D., is Pedagogy and Design Specialist at Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Bringing Mindfulness to the Classroom

Wellness Resource Center

Mindfulness is becoming more popular in American culture. As the large body of research about its benefits continues to grow, increased attention has been paid to integrate mindfulness into educational institutions, from K-12 schools to colleges and universities.

What is mindfulness, exactly?

Mindfulness is the capacity to be aware of the present moment (rather than getting caught up in the past or future); it is both innate and a skill that can be honed through regular practice. Mindfulness can be practiced by bringing focused attention to the present-moment experience with kindness and free of judgment. The more we practice this skill, the better we can become at recognizing our thoughts, emotions, and bodies and better manage stress. Even a couple of minutes per day can help someone (especially students with busy schedules) prioritize their well-being. Mindfulness can be practiced formally through meditation exercises, and also informally during regular daily activities by bringing attention to the present moment experience. Anything can be done mindfully, from eating to moving and even washing the dishes!

Organizations and researchers have found many benefits:

How can mindfulness be useful as an instructor?

The American College Health Association found student well-being impacts how they are showing up in the classroom. By acknowledging their lives outside of academics and taking a “whole person” approach, we can cultivate a community where students feel more open to take care of themselves as a way of supporting their goals and well-being.

It is important to consider how mindfulness shows up in your own life. Having your own mindfulness practice can benefit your well-being and performance as an instructor. It can also help you integrate some of these approaches and strategies into your classroom. Mindfulness can be quite personal; how much you share about your own experience is always at your discretion.

How can mindfulness be implemented?

There are a few things to note about your approach to bringing mindfulness to your classroom:

  • Explain why you’re introducing this to your classroom and relate it back to the course (e.g. when students are well, they do better in class).
  • Make it accessible. Use simple, neutral language to avoid jargon or terms that may not feel as relevant to students. For example, students may be more receptive to the term “mindfulness” rather than “meditation.”
  • Make it optional. It’s important for folks to be open to mindfulness and approach it with curiosity. If it feels forced, it probably won’t go well. Let’s students know that it’s an invitation and not a requirement.

You can integrate mindfulness and related approaches by:

  • Taking a few mindful breaths together at the beginning or end of each class.
  • Setting aside 5-10 minutes to do a guided mindfulness practice together as a class. You can find free recordings online.
  • Including assignments that align with a mindfulness approach.
  • Acknowledging that you care about student well-being and providing periodic reminders about self-care, especially during high-stress times of the semester.
    • Remind students that grades do not define their worth and that they deserve to take care of themselves.
      • Students can take care of themselves by building routines around food and meal times, sleep and rest, movement or physical activity and leaving even a few minutes of “you” time to do things that help them feel well.
    • Spending a minute or two talking about this at the beginning of class can be a helpful way to cultivate community in your classroom. It can also serve as a reminder that self-care is important for well-being, and can benefit their academic performance.

Encourage students to access mindfulness resources on campus:

The Wellness Resource Center (WRC) is Temple University’s health promotion office. The WRC offers a variety of intentional learning opportunities to promote well-being and cultivate community. Services include peer-led workshops, campus-wide events, staff and faculty training, wellness consultations, and safer sex supply sales. Learn more about these services and how to request programming at wellness.temple.edu or connect with the WRC on social media (Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook) @BeWellTU.Image credit: “Body of Water and Sunlight” released under Creative Commons CC0 (public domain) by PeakPx.com.

Creating Brave and Inclusive Spaces for Challenging Discussions

Linda Hasunuma

Creating a space where students feel empowered to engage in discussions on challenging issues can help your students develop active listening and critical thinking skills, resulting in intellectual growth. Our students benefit from exposure to different perspectives and experiences from their own, even if they may push them out of their comfort zone. It is important, however, to be intentional about when and how you hold such discussions for them to be productive and meaningful. As educators, it is our responsibility to help them learn how to have these discussions thoughtfully and respectfully.

Just as you would not bring up controversial or difficult topics with someone you have just met, it is worth considering how we can create conditions and provide opportunities for students to practice sharing and expressing their thoughts without fear of judgment. Creating a “brave space” in which your learners feel that they can express their opinions is something that takes time to build, and you can begin that process even before classes begin. 

Planning and Laying the Groundwork 

The Syllabus

As you develop your course and syllabus, consider what controversial or challenging topics are likely to come up in your class and discipline and plan for them in your syllabus. If the election year is relevant to your course, might you create space pre- and post-election for a debrief and discussion? If COVID-19 can be explored within the context of your discipline, could including it breathe life and relevancy into your content? Be thoughtful about when to hold these conversations and be explicit about why you are having them, connecting these discussions to your learning goals. Be clear in your syllabus and in your course so that students know what to expect and are not surprised or unprepared for such discussions. You may also want to include a statement about creating an inclusive and brave classroom. This way students understand how these activities and discussions contribute to their intellectual growth. 

To help students create a sense of community and connection before having discussions, you need to be intentional about creating informal and formal opportunities for students to interact, relate, discover what they have in common, and practice some of the skills they will need for more challenging discussions. Here are some ideas to help you get started:

Start Building Community Even Before Classes Begin 

The very first interactions your students have with you and each other can help set the tone for the rest of the semester. Before classes even begin, on the first day, and during the first week or two, consider how you can create opportunities for students to get to know one another and begin building a sense of community and trust. Introductions on a discussion board and pair and small group work can help students practice sharing and considering different points of view through active listening and/or reading of posts. Before the first day of classes, you can create a discussion board in Canvas where students introduce themselves and have the option of posting a video or audio response. This way, students get to know who is in the class and discover what they may have in common with each other, and can begin connecting with one another before the semester by responding to each other’s posts. This can prime them for the first day and make it easier and less awkward to do icebreakers (for example, what is the story of their name, or what is the last movie they saw in the movie theater), and to initiate conversations with people in the class. The goal is for them to connect with one another first. Then, we can think about how to create opportunities to help students practice evaluating arguments and different perspectives. 

Create Guidelines Together

In order to have productive discussions about challenging topics, create guidelines with your students for how the class should conduct such discussions. In order to prompt students to create guidelines, you might ask about their fears towards such discussions and how guidelines and other classroom dynamics might help them feel more comfortable. We recommend doing a “hopes and fears” exercise where students can anonymously write their hopes and fears for such discussions on sticky notes and then post them to a wall. In an online environment, you can use a google doc (not anonymous) or a Padlet (which can be set for anonymous posts). This helps students to see that they are not alone in their fears and actually share common hopes. It also helps students to talk openly about the fear of saying something wrong, or being judged, shamed, or dismissed. It prepares them by acknowledging the barriers we all face in sharing our perspectives, and how we can work together to create a space in which more students feel that they can take a risk, share, or engage in a discussion that may challenge not only their own personal views but those of their classmates. These spaces, which we call “brave spaces,” encourage students to acknowledge that they can help create a classroom environment where each student feels they can be heard while acknowledging that some discussions may challenge them personally.

You might consider having the guidelines conversation on the first day of class as a way to build community, or run a pre-course discussion board to help students feel more secure and confident on their first day (alternatively you might do both: initiate the discussion in Canvas and complete it in class). Creating guidelines together also helps students learn how to listen, discuss, and debate, but work toward a common goal, and articulate what they value and expect from one another. By reminding them of this commitment, they are more likely to uphold those guidelines. If things ever get off course during a discussion, you can refer students to their guidelines as a kind of anchor or guidepost. Keep these guidelines at the ready and revise them as needed. 

Give students opportunities to practice 

Begin with discussion topics that are low stakes and won’t trigger strong emotional responses, but allow students to get to know one another and practice listening, evaluating another perspective, and then deciding for themselves how to handle differences of opinion. You might begin with a reading in your discipline where students can evaluate two competing explanations. Whether you have in-person, live, or asynchronous courses, you can use pair work and discussion boards to help students practice these skills of listening or reading each other’s posts and commenting on several other students’ perspectives. This exercise helps them to listen, read, and reflect on others’ viewpoints and appreciate the diversity of viewpoints on low-stakes issues, as well as think about how to respond to different perspectives. It reduces the stakes about having conversations where they can disagree with one another and accept different points of view, and try to articulate why they have their own viewpoints.

The goal is to make this type of discussion a part of what you do each class, whether it is a live session or asynchronous. Think, Pair, Share work and trios are great for more focused discussion, but try having different partners throughout the semester to encourage students to feel more comfortable with more people in the room. Online, you can do this in zoom breakout rooms and even with chats as students can chat with a partner privately. Rotating pairs and small groups can help students get to know each other and more of their classmates which helps promote a greater sense of community. After using low-stakes prompts, begin using topics that are more directly related to your course content and discipline. At the end of the discussion, remember to encourage reflection, –individually or as a group. What did they learn from the process?

With advanced planning and knowledge of some effective practices, you and your students will feel more confident and comfortable engaging in such conversations. 

The next blog post on this topic will deal with the unexpected disruptions and hot moments that can occur in classrooms. Even with planning, sometimes you will have an intense and unplanned emotional reaction or moment, and there are some effective practices and strategies that can help you in those “hot” moments.

References:

Rojzman’s Hopes and Fears:https://www.nsrfharmony.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Hopes_Fears-CFGWork.pdf 

Brave Space: https://www.naspa.org/images/uploads/main/Policy_and_Practice_No_2_Safe_Brave_Spaces.pdf 

Temple Resource:https://diversity.temple.edu/

Linda Hasunuma is Assistant Director at Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Teaching, Learning, Justice and Inclusion: A New Blog Series

Stephanie Fiore

As faculty and students, we may be deeply affected by what is happening in our country and across the globe. To help our students navigate these troubling times, many faculty are actively seeking ways to create more just educational opportunities and experiences. At the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, we have always had at the heart of our work a goal to help faculty create more equitable, accessible, and brave spaces of learning for our students, spaces that allow students to take risks and be their authentic selves. When we talk to faculty about inclusive teaching practices, we speak in the broadest and deepest sense: practices that help students from diverse backgrounds succeed; spaces that acknowledge and honor the cultures, experiences, voices, abilities, and realities of our students; strategies that democratize education, promote equity, and reduce oppression in learning environments; and moments of reflection in which we consider how our own identities influence our teaching practices.

We will be exploring these themes in our EDvice Exchange space through a bi-weekly blog series, Teaching, Learning, Justice and Inclusion. This series will introduce pedagogical strategies that construct a classroom in which all students’ voices are heard, controversial topics are explored and managed, and students can find their path to success.

To start us off, I would like to offer some thoughts about this semester. We are encouraging faculty to think intentionally about how to make their pedagogy more agile, that is, able to adjust to changing circumstances and situations. The three Rs of Agile Pedagogy (as we’ve defined it) are Rigor, Responsiveness and Resilience. The second part – Responsiveness –  is incredibly important in creating a semester that doesn’t crumble when circumstances change, and that accounts for the stress and anxiety our students may be feeling due to racial unrest, ill effects from COVID-19, or marginalization and therefore vulnerability to bias, misunderstanding, or a missing sense of belonging in our classrooms. Sarah Cavanagh reminds us, for instance, that anxiety disrupts student performance by hijacking working memory’s capacity with worrying thoughts, leaving fewer cognitive resources to direct to the problem at hand (The Spark of Learning, p. 184). If we remember that students’ social and emotional lives influence their ability to connect and learn, we will be more responsive to their needs.

Thinking intentionally about how to address these needs can go a long way towards helping students succeed in your classroom. Here are some ideas to consider:

  • Create opportunities for students to connect with you and each other at the outset of the semester. Icebreakers, introductions and getting-to-know-you activities can help. Ask them to send you information they wish for you to know, including any barriers that might affect their learning or help you understand how to support them in class.
  • Maintain open communication channels with regular reminders (how to reach you via email, office hours, or a more anonymous channel).
  • Depending on the size of your class, host monthly individual or small group check-ins with students.
  • Clearly post university resources (e.g. Student Success Center, Wellness Resource Center, Tuttleman Counseling Services) so neither you nor students have to search too long for support.
  • Flexibility matters! Plan for alternative assessments (flexible deadlines, different modalities) to make sure your students have accessible ways to demonstrate their learning. Plan also for alternative activities in case a student cannot attend class.

Remembering that we are not just teaching content – we are teaching students – goes a long way towards helping us all adopt a responsive mindset.

Next topic in the Teaching, Learning, Justice and Inclusion blog series:

September 14: Creating Brave and Inclusive Spaces for Challenging Discussions

Stephanie Fiore is Assistant Vice Provost at Temple University and Senior Director Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Trauma-informed Teaching: A Lens to View and Help All Students Succeed

Cliff Rouder & Linda Hasunuma

We and our students are experiencing a time of powerful social transformation amidst a global health crisis. The physical, social, and emotional toll that we all may be experiencing brings into focus the need for an awareness of trauma’s impact on learning. The Center for the Advancement of Teaching recently sponsored a three-part workshop on trauma-informed teaching in which Temple faculty and representatives with expertise in this area from Temple’s Wellness Resource Center, Office of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership (IDEAL), and Tuttleman Counseling Services helped us understand what trauma is, how it can impact student learning (and us), and the scope of our role to help students succeed. We have gathered key ideas and helpful information from these sessions in this blog post to guide you in creating spaces for learning that support student success. 

What is Trauma and Why Does It Matter? 

The classic/traditional definition is “psychologically distressing event involving “exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence…” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 261).

It involves a sense of fear, helplessness, and horror. Childhood trauma occurs whenever both internal and external resources are inadequate to cope with an external threat (van der Kolk, 1989). As instructors, it is always helpful to keep in mind that trauma can affect the students in our classroom and us, but in the time of a pandemic and an intense struggle for racial justice, this trauma can be exacerbated. 

While most people understand the effects that trauma can have on a person, they may not realize that trauma can also affect cognitive, social, behavioral, and physical functioning. Students, and you, bring all of these effects into the classroom with you.

© Amy K. Lynch and Kelly Mahler

How Might Trauma Manifest in the Classroom? 

An awareness of the ways in which trauma can manifest for students can serve us as educators in class and during office hours. These include, but are not limited to: 

  • Inappropriate interpersonal boundaries, such as demanding additional information and/or participation in processes. 
  • Emotional responses that are not typically acceptable as “professional behavior.”
  • Rigid thinking/cognitive inflexibility.
  • A loss of self-agency and coping strategies.

It is important, too, to be aware of the ways in which forces of oppression, such as anti-Black racism, can impact students:

  • Psychological Impact: attentional/focus difficulty, feelings of helplessness, chronic stress, apathy, hypervigilance to discrimination/oppression, and perfectionism/burnout.
  • Physiological Impact: somatization (e.g., headaches, rapid heartbeat), sleep difficulties, and disconnection.

What Steps Can I Take to Help All Students Succeed?

Faculty are not therapists or counselors, nor should they be. Within our scope of practice as faculty, however, here are several concrete strategies that you can employ: 

  • Be aware of and manage your own trauma response so that you don’t negatively impact the dynamics of your class. 
  • Be clear about your goals and maintain a routine and structure in a simplified and organized way in areas like your Canvas course design. 
  • Work intentionally to build trust:
    • Assess students’ needs before the semester begins to identify what learning challenges they may be facing. A simple (private) survey asking students their name and major, and if they’re comfortable, asking if there are things about their identity that would be helpful for you to know. In addition, asking them to share any barriers that might impact their learning can help you proactively meet their diverse needs.
      • Recognize ways in which our own biases (both explicit and implicit) are reflected in course content or policies and may activate a racial trauma response. Make changes accordingly. For more information about implicit bias, view this resource. 
      • Create a welcoming and supportive space where students can share and take risks to decrease the likelihood of feeling marginalized. 
      • We can also create that supportive space by setting expectations for engagement and accountability and working through strategies for meeting those expectations. Please see the section titled, “Setting Community Standards for Online Discussions” in this resource.
      • Acknowledging the impact of racism and racial stress is a critical step in creating a learning environment where students can feel heard and affirmed. One way we can do this is by addressing microaggressions (unintended things we and other students say or do that can be hurtful). 
      • Check in frequently about what’s working and what’s not; take the “temperature” of the class.
    • Offer options in your assignments and assessments as to how students demonstrate what they’ve learned. Choices support a sense of autonomy.
    • Take a team approach! Resources like Tuttleman Counseling Services, IDEAL, Disability Resources and Services, and the Wellness Resource Center can support your efforts to promote student well-being.
    •  
    • What are the Boundaries of my Role as Instructor?If a student’s behavior is proving detrimental to themselves or to the effective functioning of your class, you can speak to that student privately to empathetically express concern about the behaviors and attempt to find workable strategies to address those behaviors so they do not impact the functioning of your class. Faculty are often concerned about how to manage this type of conversation. Here is some helpful guidance to consider:  Validate student feelings “That sounds like a lot to be experiencing.” Start from a place of caring. Be compassionate as you frame the need for the discussion. Communicate that the intention of this discussion is to help rather than to punish. Appreciate the courage it took to share “Thank you for sharing this with me–I know it takes a lot of courage.” “Thank you for trusting me enough to share this experience.” If a student does share something as personal as past trauma with you, it’s likely because you have created an environment of trust and caring. So, kudos for that! You can first express appreciation that the student has shared this with you.  Refer to skills and supports  “What supports or resources have worked for you in the past?”“There are folks available who can help. Could I share some information with you?” If a student shares a traumatic experience specifically about sexual misconduct since they have been a student at Temple, let them know you must report that to the Title IX Coordinator, and that they can be a part of the reporting process. Learn more at sexualmisconduct.temple.edu. If a student shares a plan to harm themselves or others, please contact TUPD (215-204-1234) or 911. There are resources available for students in non-emergent crises, such as the Crisis Text Line, or hotlines for interpersonal violence and sexual violence.  Remember that the key to great teaching, no matter the challenge, is communication, empathy, flexibility, and the willingness to see our students as the complex, wonderful human beings they are.  We are deeply grateful to the facilitators of the trauma-informed teaching workshops:
      • Crystal Austin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Instruction, College of Education and Human Development
      • Hillary Black, LCSW, Assistant Coordinator of Sexual Assault Counseling and Education (SACE), Tuttleman Counseling Services
      • Valerie Dudley, Ph.D., Director of Multicultural Education, Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy & Leadership (IDEAL)
      • Amy Lynch, Ph.D., OTR/L, Associate of Professor of Instruction, College of Public Health
      • Aisha Renee Moore, MSW, LCSW, Coordinator of the Sexual Assault Counseling and Education (SACE) Unit at Tuttleman Counseling Services
      • Nu’Rodney Prad, M.S., Director of Student Engagement, Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy & Leadership (IDEAL)
      • Jessica S. Reinhardt, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Practice, College of Education and Human Development
      • Liz Zadnik, M.A., Associate Director, Wellness Resource Center

Cliff Rouder, Ed.D., is Pedagogy & Design Specialist for the Center for the Advancement of Teaching. Linda Hasunuma, Ph.D., is Assistant Director of Temple University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

CAT: Facilitating Connections Across Faculty For Continued Learning and Reflection

Abha Belorkar and Laurie Friedman

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As the fall semester begins, we wanted to share how Temple’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT) has impacted our teaching and learning, creating a space that fosters relationships among faculty across campus in our common goal of Temple’s mission: to educate a vibrant student body and create new knowledge through innovative teaching, research and other creative endeavors. Despite coming from different disciplines (math and social work) and having different levels of experience teaching (1 year and 1 decade), CAT’s diversity of programs affords us the opportunity to pick and choose how, and how often, we want to engage. 

Abha: Coming from a family composed mostly of teachers, I was fascinated from an early age by the positive impact of good teaching. Later, the opportunities to informally tutor my colleagues during undergraduate and graduate studies strengthened my desire to pursue a career in teaching. However, the guiding force in shaping my motivation for teaching came from the relationships I fortuitously formed with some teachers who have completely dedicated themselves to the art and science of teaching. I still did not have any formal teaching experience before I joined Temple, so there was (and is!) a lot of learning to be done.

Laurie: I had thought of pursuing a PhD since a professor had mentioned it to me my first year in graduate school, but wasn’t sure what I would focus on. Seven years later, I was supervising staff and facilitating trainings at a nonprofit and found I really enjoyed staff development and the relationships I formed with others. One of my employees encouraged me to guest speak in her class and afterwards, the professor encouraged me to think about teaching. At the same time, I was increasingly interested in studying our foster care system. Thus began my journey as an adjunct at Temple, coupled with doctoral education, to my current role as an associate professor of instruction. 

An Overview of CAT

Wright, Lohe and Little (2018) describe the different models of Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTL) that assist them in meeting their common goals of providing programs and services related to pedagogy. Temple’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT) falls within what is termed as the pedagogical/technological or distance education model. In this model, CAT is staffed by instructional designers, faculty consultants and educational specialists who jointly work towards their mission of fostering “evidence-based teaching so students learn, develop, and succeed.” 

On January 1, 2016,  the Instructional Support Center and the Teaching and Learning Center merged to form the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, formalizing the intricate connection between teaching and technology. Temple’s CAT also functions as a  hub “of pedagogical innovation, influenced by but not dependent on flashy digital technology,” as described by Lieberman (2018) who notes a national trend towards teaching centers serving to strengthen the relationships across university units. Temple’s CAT does just this, collaborating across the University’s 17 Schools and Colleges, the Digital Education Department, Wellness Resource Center, Disability Resources and Services Center, Tuttleman Counseling Services and the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership.

 The 2018-2019 annual report notes that CAT reached faculty across Temple’s seven campuses with 940 faculty consultations. Faculty consultations offer personalized support, feedback, and encouragement to the faculty members. During the consultations, advisors collaborate with individual instructors to achieve their specific goals — they provide a fresh and independent perspective by drawing on their vast interdisciplinary knowledge and experience of pedagogical best practices, and by acting as active partners in brainstorming ideas for refinement of course objectives, assessments, as well as teaching and learning activities. The consultations also provide a highly effective means to interpret and discuss student feedback with a view to induce higher student engagement and performance as well as increased instructor satisfaction (Cook & Kaplan, 2011). It is especially noteworthy that all CAT consultations are strictly confidential conversations between the faculty and the advisors.

In the same academic year (2018-2019), 90 Teaching in Higher Education Certificates were issued by CAT and over 55 programs offered across a variety of subjects. 1,284 individuals visited exactly once and 1,446 individuals visited more than once, exemplifying the flexibility in choosing how often to engage in CAT’s program. An additional 350 individuals attended the Center’s regional two day conference on teaching excellence. 

Figure: Whatever be the level and type of interaction of faculty with CAT, there are opportunities to experience substantial growth and development.

How we engaged with CAT

Abha: It was during my interview process at CIS Temple that I first got to know of the Center for Advancement of Teaching and the programs and facilities it offers. The presence of these resources on campus has been an encouraging factor in my teaching journey.

The first resource I made use of was the teaching consultations. They have been a great platform to think aloud about my teaching. What I especially like about the idea of a consultation is how little of the instructor’s time it takes. The idea that one can get such personalized and meaningful feedback by simply investing an hour out of one’s schedule is exciting. It has also been really interesting to get insights and suggestions from more experienced faculty members who have very different approaches to teaching and advising and are helpful in their own unique ways.

This summer I completed the Teaching in Higher Education Certificate offered by CAT. It has been quite an instructive experience being introduced to the wide array of tools and techniques that teachers across the globe have been using for designing strong course objectives, interactive lectures, summative and formative assessments, feedback mechanisms, community-building activities, active and blended learning approaches, and so much more. An equally valuable factor in the program is the rich conversations that take place between an interdisciplinary community of teachers all of whom are committed to improving their teaching and creating more substantial and welcoming classroom experiences for their students.

Laurie: As an adjunct, I first engaged with CAT when I met with a faculty fellow who reviewed my SFFs and conducted a teaching observation to help me fulfill Bryn Mawr’s Teaching in Higher Ed Certificate requirements. I subsequently attended workshops, participated in faculty learning communities (i.e. Teaching Online) and book groups, and the Provost’s Teaching Academy. Last year, I had the privilege to join Temple as a faculty fellow, which led me to more opportunities to collaborate with CAT’s staff. In this role, I facilitated a book group related to online teaching, met with faculty for consultations and collated additional resources for their website. I also taught two sections of the Innovation, Technology, and Teaching in Higher Education, as part of their Teaching in Higher Education certificate. In fact, this is how Abha and I reunited this summer from our initial meeting in the fall semester during a consultation! Our subsequent conversations revealed the shared meaning CAT held for us in our roles at Temple.

Abha Belorkar is Assistant Professor at the College of Science and Technology: Computer and Information Sciences. Laurie Friedman is Associate Professor as well as Coordinator of Continuing Education and Professional Development for Temple’s School of Social Work. She also serves as Faculty Fellow at the Center for the Advancement of Teaching. 

Teaching International Students Abroad

Stephanie Fiore

Dymaxion Projection World Map

This fall, some of the international students in your classes may be located abroad in their native countries because travel restrictions have prevented them from coming to campus. Your international students are an asset to your class, bringing important diversity of experiences, cultural perspectives and learning methods. They are also eager to participate in the classes at Temple University despite the situation that has prevented them from coming to Philadelphia. Thinking intentionally about the barriers they may face and the contributions they may add to class can help all your students gain from this complex situation. Communication with your international students is key in helping them overcome challenges these conditions may pose to their learning. Here are some issues you may encounter and suggested strategies to overcome them. 

Time Differences

If your students are in a different country or some US states, they may be in another time zone, sometimes as much as 13 hours different from Philadelphia time. This difference may hinder their ability to feel engaged in your class, especially if you hold synchronous class sessions that meet when it is the middle of the night for them. How can you help them participate and engage with your class community? 

Strategies That Can Help:

  • Make sure you ask your students at the beginning of the semester if they are in a different time zone. We recommend administering a short ‘get to know you’ survey to the entire class in which you ask students where they are currently located. 
  • Solicit students’ ideas for how to participate effectively in class.
  • Record your synchronous Zoom classes to allow students to access your class content at a time that makes more sense for them. This strategy will also allow all of your students with technological access or illness issues to access your course content asynchronously.
  • Make sure to have all of your course materials (syllabus, assignments, required and additional reading) available in Canvas so that students can access them at any time.
  • If you are doing active learning activities during your class time, offer an alternative way to complete work for your students in a different time zone. This alternative may look different than the in-class work but should accomplish the same goals.
  • Consider time differences when setting deadlines for assignments or when setting up times for exams. If a specific deadline is important, make sure all of your students understand ahead of time how to plan, and check in individually with your international students to ensure deadlines make sense for them. 
  • If assigning group projects, determine if you can form a group of students who live in similar time zones in order to facilitate more seamless collaboration. If students in different time zones must work together, encourage them to use effective collaboration tools (such as Teams or Canvas Collaborations) in order to communicate without having to have in-person meetings.
  • If you have scheduled virtual office hours, provide alternatives that are convenient for students in different time zones, or provide an asynchronous way for them to reach you.

Inability to Access Technology

Internet connectivity and access to technology tools could be an issue for some students both in the US and abroad. Stable high-speed internet and access to equipment such as webcams or laptops may not be available to some students, which makes it difficult for them to participate fully in remote synchronous class sessions. For other students, the issue is not internet connectivity but internet restrictions. China, for example, has restricted access to websites and applications that include Zoom and all Google applications (including Gmail) that are widely used for teaching, as well as YouTube, Twitter, Dropbox, Skype and more.

Strategies That Can Help:

  • Remind students, especially new ones, to complete the TUID Photo Verification process in Portal Next Steps. Having a verified photo on file will allow IT Help Desk to provide expedient assistance. 
  • You can test to see if particular domains are blocked in China using a site like Comparitech. First, however, a simple conversation with your students to identify any barriers to learning they face can reveal sticking points and additional insights you might not otherwise have known. 
  • Zoom may not work in certain countries, which may make it impossible for students to attend your Zoom session and to watch your Zoom recordings. Teams, a collaboration software with similar capabilities, will also work in most countries and is available to the Temple community. However, remember that the most important thing, particularly during this time, is to make sure students can reach your course goals, not that they all reach those goals in the exact same way. Talk to your students with these issues and brainstorm together how to help them.
  • Some websites, social media, and streaming platforms are also blocked in other countries, and some sensitive content may also be blocked. Ask students to review class material and let you know which ones they cannot access. In some cases, you may be able to download content and post it directly to Canvas. Post videos to open directly in Canvas rather than requiring students to download videos.
  • If students need alternative methods for receiving and delivering materials and class assignments, consider whether email will help. ITS is working to migrate overseas students’ email accounts from Gmail to Outlook 365 in order to allow them access to email. Regardless, it is essential to communicate with them through your Canvas course announcements and messages.
  • Students with slow bandwidth or limited allowance of bandwidth are likely to experience slow logins, page loads and forced terminations. For synchronous online sessions, allow students to participate without video, which will increase their bandwidth, and remind them to be present through chat or voice participation. 
  • In certain cases, students may be able to join Zoom by phone if they are having connectivity issues. Be sure to provide the complete information for the Zoom session, including how to connect to your Zoom session by phone. Note that this may not be possible in some international sites, and the phone call may have a fee attached. Check with your students if calling into your class is a possibility.
  • Think about bandwidth when selecting course materials such as videos. Students with low or limited bandwidth, whether in the US or abroad, may not have easy access to this material, so consider alternative ways to deliver any essential video content (audio transcription, outline, key points). 
  • Check the technology needs for your assignments and assessments. For instance, if you use a proctoring solution that requires a webcam and a laptop, find out if your students have access to that equipment. If not, consider offering alternative assessments for those students or, better yet, provide alternatives for the entire class.

Sensitive Topics

Students may be in countries or communities where certain topics are not safe to discuss. Depending on the country, students may be reluctant to engage in conversation about topics that may be sensitive to their government or community for fear of retribution. 

Strategies That Can Help:

  • In the first week of class, invite students to review topics on the course syllabus and flag any topics that could potentially be sensitive. 
  • Remember that even writing to you about flagged content can prove unsafe, and students may also be reluctant to discuss any barriers publicly in class. Invite your students to speak with you privately (at a time that works for their time zone) to discuss any issues they might anticipate.  
  • Work with your students to find creative alternatives that allow students to engage with the class content without compromising their safety. You can still, of course, teach the content you were planning to teach in the class, but perhaps your student can write about less controversial topics that will not jeopardize their safety.

The essential key to helping your international students abroad or students in another time zone is communication. Talk to students and work together to find solutions. 

References:

Cox, Michelle. 2020. Guidance for Faculty: Getting and Staying Connected With Int’l Students. John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, Cornell University. Retrieved from: https://knight.as.cornell.edu/guidance-faculty-getting-staying-connected-intl-students

The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 2020. Teaching International Students Remotely [Blog post].  (n.d). Retrieved from https://writingcenter.unc.edu/faculty-resources/teaching-international-students-remotely/

Stephanie Fiore, Ph.D., is Assistant Vice Provost at Temple University and Senior Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

Dymaxion projection world map by Justin Kunimune published to Wikimedia Commons and released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Image resized and cropped.

Self Care for Faculty: Four Ways to Cope When Teaching in Hard Times

It has been a difficult challenge for faculty to convert their face-to-face courses to online instruction and begin preparing for a reality unlike any that have faced. An added burden is that faculty are doing so at a time of such strife, with a pandemic prompting an unprecedented global lockdown, and heightened frustration over injustice. The past few months have left many feeling anxious, stressed, and exhausted. As we look forward to the fall, here are four ways to cope:

1. Take care of yourself

You’ll know best what self-care looks like for you, but there are some steps that will benefit anyone. Get enough sleep. Make an effort to eat healthily. Go for walks, if you can find a route without too many other people. Take some time away from your laptop and phone (read a book, call a friend, meditate, bake something!); it’s important to unplug when you can.

2. Reach out to a colleague

One thing lost when campus closed has been regular contact with colleagues. Teaching can be lonely work in the best of times; it is really hard in isolation. A sense of community can help keep you afloat. Make the effort to get in touch with a fellow faculty member, see how they’re doing, and compare notes on how you’re weathering the crisis. 

3. Set clear work limits.

Remember to separate your work life from your personal life. End your day when you normally would. Don’t answer emails all day and night. Think about setting up a particular space in which to work and then walk away from it to play with the kids, walk the dog, or just kick back with Netflix. Working remotely does not mean working all the time!

4. Check in on your students.

It’s a good bet that your students may be feeling disconnected and worn-out too. Even a single email that expresses care for your students, and asks them how they’re doing, can signal to them that they’re not alone. Think about being flexible and responsive to their needs in whatever ways are possible. Show students that you care about them and that you understand that this disruption might have sent them for a loop.