Resources

While there are moments in the classroom in which trauma prevents learning, to suggest that a traumatized student cannot learn turns the classroom into a space that privileges students who are protected from trauma as a result of being rich, white, male, and heterosexual. Accommodating traumatized students is not just an accessibility issue, it is also about teaching and learning in and about the material worlds in which we live. Rather than thinking about how to get ill or traumatized students out of our classrooms, we need to think about how to make our classrooms more accessible not only for students with visible disabilities but also for students with illnesses, including psychological illness. What are some of the concrete actions faculty can take in order to make classroom spaces more accessible to students with illness, including those with PTSD? First, faculty members should create learning environments that are accessible to ill and/or traumatized students by, first, establishing clear deadlines well in advance of an assignment due date and, second, being flexible about those deadlines. Flexible deadlines do not change the learning outcomes of the classroom but, rather, offer students the opportunity to complete required work. Ellen Boucher describes how she gives students an automatic two-day grace period on any paper. If a student cannot complete the work by the end of that grace period, they must meet with her in order to review the assignment. Policies such as Boucher’s make learning spaces more accessible not only for students experiencing illness and/or trauma but also for students who have to juggle other life commitments and don’t have the privilege of being only a student. Second, in order to make the classroom more accessible for ill or traumatized students, I recommend that professors use some kind of content or trigger warning for classroom material. For me, this is easily incorporated into the last few minutes of class in which I preview the next class and any upcoming assignments. This preview gives students an opportunity to prepare for upcoming content. Previewing content prior to the class in which it will actually be discussed also gives students an opportunity to approach me individually if they have particular concerns. Trigger and content warnings are not about excusing students but, rather, about helping students prepare to engage difficult content.    Finally, faculty members can make classroom spaces more accessible to traumatized students by holding space during intense or emotional discussions. Stephanie Crumpton describes this method in “Trigger Warnings, Covenants of Presence, and More: Cultivating safe space for theological discussions about sexual trauma.” In this article, Crumpton argues that a trauma-sensitive pedagogical strategy includes having grounding exercises prepared. She states, “It is important to have a process in place if the classroom tilts out of balance as stories are shared” (145). Gently walking students back from a text, clip, or argument reminding them of where they are, and holding the space through practices such as asking students to take a deep breath are practices that can help ground students in the moment. This grounding not only enables traumatized students to continue participating in the learning process but also helps other students to realize the gravity of the material. This is not an exhaustive list of possibilities but incorporating these practices will create a classroom that is both more engaged with material realities and more accessible to students experiencing illness and/or trauma. All of these suggestions, of course, require work on the part of faculty members. This work is, to be frank, often unpaid. Different faculty will have to parse this out depending on institutional contexts and personal needs, but different institutional contexts and/or personal needs are not an excuse to maintain inaccessible classrooms. Making classrooms accessible to the illness and/or trauma already present in the learning experiences of students offers a direct route to “engaged” teaching.

Against the prevailing tide in higher education, Christine Harrington and Todd Zakrajsek argue that lectures, when prepared well and incorporated appropriately, are one of the most effective ways to enhance learning. The first part of their book is focused on making this case and on delineating the different forms a lecture can take. The second part of the book focuses on ways to make lectures more effective for learners. That second part takes up the bulk of the book (7 of the 11 chapters). The third part provides tools and resources for preparing and evaluating lectures. These final two chapters give helpful rubrics, charts, and questionnaires that can easily be adapted for one’s own lectures or for evaluating others’ lectures. This book would be a useful addition to an individual professor’s library and, most especially, to a center for teaching and learning library. Both authors of Dynamic Lecturing are trained in psychology and have experience in teaching and learning and faculty development centers, so the examples are often from social science or natural science classrooms. However, many of their suggestions could easily be adapted to theology and religious studies. Using research from the scholarship of teaching and learning, they argue that lectures are efficient and effective for novice learners but are less so for expert learners (by which they mean advanced undergraduates and graduate students). This book, therefore, would be most useful for faculty who frequently teach lower-division courses for undergraduates; it could still be quite useful for those wanting to make their lectures more effective, even if they work with other learner populations and use other kinds of teaching tools. This distinction between novice and expert learners is significant in the context of theology and religious studies: in certain courses, students may enter the classroom assuming they are the experts (for example, if the course focuses on their own religious tradition, especially if the professor is not another “insider”). Harrington and Zakrajsek’s discussion of techniques like pre-testing may be a way to address this unique dynamic: if a student took a pre-test and found that they did not know as much as they thought they knew, they might find themselves more open to learning from a professor’s lecture. As their title suggests, this is not a book about individual teaching choices, but rather is focused on research-based strategies: nearly every paragraph has multiple citations that refer the reader to studies done on teaching and learning. A bibliography accompanies each chapter, so references are easy to track down, if desired. The studies are often explained well, so the reader knows what the research suggests; there are times, however, when the conclusions seem overstated. For example, a study used to argue that lectures are more helpful than active learning sessions to novice learners is explained in a parenthetical note: 88% of students agreed or strongly agreed that a lecture helped them learn course content compared with 49% of students who agreed or strongly agreed that active learning sessions helped them learn course content (10). Self-reporting is not the same as demonstrating mastery of the content. In other places, the authors note that students are not always the best judges of their own learning (see, for example, studies on learners’ overconfidence [115]). The research cited throughout the book is not limited to self-reporting and includes very helpful data on what promotes student engagement and learning.

Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World Paul Hanstedt Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2018 (x + 180 pages, ISBN 978-1-62036-697-4, $24.95) One might assume that a text called Creating Wicked Students would discuss types of “wicked” problems – complex social-environmental issues that cannot be solved with existing modes of inquiry and decision-making – that instructors might address through a problem-based learning approach. However, this work actually is an introduction to course design most useful for beginning instructors or those redesigning their courses according to sound pedagogical principles. Situating himself against those who view higher education as solely preparing students for the workforce or transmitting content, Hanstedt emphasizes the importance of instilling a sense of authority in our students by helping them develop skills and attitudes that will empower them to make meaningful change in the world. Hanstedt’s holistic vision of education includes attitudes and dispositions alongside skills and content mastery, and will likely resonate with instructors in religious studies and theology. Although he does not explicitly refer to our disciplines, he does offer examples, anecdotes, and insights from colleagues in a variety of fields and institutions, which is a strength of the book. He references seminal work in the scholarship of teaching and learning – including that of: George Kuh (2008, High-Impact Educational Practices, AACU); James Zull (2002, The Art of Changing the Brain, Stylus); and David Krathwohl (2002, “A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy,” Theory into Practice 41) – but does not engage with previous scholarship on wicked problems. Readers interested in learning more about pedagogical approaches to wicked problems could consult the work of the work of: Brown et al. (2010, Tackling Wicked Problems, Routledge); Carcasson (2017, “Deliberative Pedagogy as Critical Connective” in Deliberative Pedagogy, Michigan State University); or Lee (2016, “Systems Thinking,” in Resilience by Design, Springer). This book could be useful as an introduction to course design for someone less familiar with the fundamentals, such as how to develop measurable learning outcomes, align course goals with institutional goals, nest content within higher-order goals, engage students’ prior knowledge, or incorporate applied learning. The structure of the book allows for one to follow it step-by-step as a course design manual, and it also includes recursive “intermissions” to encourage reflection along the way. In addition, his discussion of how to prompt critical thinking through multiple-choice exams offers helpful strategies for encouraging students to explain their thinking on ambiguous questions with follow-up questions that explain or justify their choice (92-98).

Teaching Interculturally: A Framework for Integrating Disciplinary Knowledge and Intercultural Development Amy Lee, Robert Poch, Mary Katherine O'Brien, and Catherine Solheim Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2017 (x + 137 pages, ISBN 978-1620363799, $27.50) This book is “for intercultural pedagogy” and the authors are clear about their goal: “to foster a deeper knowledge and skill base of pedagogical theory/practice and, in doing so, seek to advance a critical intercultural pedagogy that is capable of supporting a profound shift in daily practice” (3). In arguing the need for this work, they critique universities for undervaluing teaching and failing to engage doctoral candidates in programmatic teacher preparation (8). The authors provide this sobering take: “Centers for ‘teaching and learning’ have closed, merged, gone ‘online,’ and become centers for ‘educational innovation,’ a discursive marker of the emphasis being on research and not on the people or process of teaching and learning” (18). This is a bold claim to leave hanging. Less controversial is their assertion that “you are teaching in and experiencing intercultural classrooms regardless of whether you want to, whether you are aware of it, and whether you think it is your responsibility or relevant to your discipline” (15). Readers will be hard pressed to leave this book with any doubt concerning the importance and relevance of intercultural pedagogy. The authors strike an admirable and concise balance between theory and practice. They aim to “disrupt” current teaching norms with a “commitment to make intentional, informed decisions that enable our courses to engage and support diversity and inclusion” (15). In their second chapter, they emphasize three values toward this end: (1) the pursuit of equity and inclusion in classrooms, (2) pedagogical humility while recognizing the developmental nature of expertise, and (3) the importance of reflection and revision. These values are modeled through the rest of the book. In chapter 3 authors Robert (Bob) Poch and Catherine Solheim share critical self-reflections on how their cultural identities, academic formation, and scholarship shapes their teaching. In chapters 4 and 5, Catherine and Bob provide case studies with specific examples of how thinking interculturally has changed their teaching practice. Helpful descriptions of actual classroom discussions and examples of modified learning goals, assessments, student work, and student feedback appear in abundance. Bob shows how his explanation-heavy PowerPoint slides of 2011 transition to primary source quotes, open-ended questions, and historical images by 2015. His transformed teaching “facilitated much more intercultural interaction” and “developed the capacity for each student to be an interpretive historian” (59). Catherine shows how the hard work of reflecting on the goals and outcomes for her “Global and Diverse Families” course prompted students to engage more deeply with cultures other than their own. The risks and benefits of her shift from a final exam to a synthesis-based summative assessment drawing on an ethno-narrative interview assignment are described with careful attention to detail and deep reflection. Carrying the theme of disruption forward, this book does not shy away from challenges and pitfalls. The final chapter discusses “productive discomfort” by providing tips for facilitating difficult classroom conversations along with real-life examples. The memorable case of a teacher bringing a heated online exchange between students back to a place of respect and collegiality is examined with characteristic humility. With numerous case studies and bracketed “Invitations for Reflection,” this slim volume practices a pedagogy of its own and is well-suited for individuals and groups seeking opportunities for practical and meaningful reflection on intercultural pedagogy.

Classroom discussions are never to be used as therapy – by student or by teacher. While I believe teaching and learning has the capacity to summon the elements of healing, I do not subscribe to asking teacher or learner to participate in classroom sessions structured for therapy in any respect. The doing of therapy must be left to the psychological professionals. No assignment or classroom discussion should invite students into a therapeutic contract. I make this declaration because personal disclosures are often part of the teacher/learner relationship. Choosing authentic and healthy ways of revealing one’s self to students is a part of teaching, and it requires reflection, intention, planning, and great care. Parker Palmer has taught us, “we teach who we are,” so it behooves us to take great care that in sharing ourselves we do not share our craziness, our brokenness, our hot-mess-selves. We should resist any temptation or impulse to disclose personal, raw stories of pain, trauma, and personal wounding under the guise of providing conceptual examples or building trust with our students. Students do not deserve to be burdened by our emotional or psychological fragilities. Equally, we must take care not to coax students into personal disclosures that continue, or compound, their wounding. In other words, too much shared personal information is never a way to strengthen the dynamics of a classroom discussion, lesson plan, or teaching relationship. I have a colleague who does not subscribe to Palmer’s line of thinking about the teaching of one’s self. Instead, he subscribes to the notion that we teach through a series of personas that can be created, crafted, and honed. Then, over the years, by cultivating these personas, we can convey, portray, perform the self who is needed to be a good teaching presence in the classroom. This perspective reminds me of the poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The first stanza reads: We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. While I don’t think this is what my colleague intends, I suspect our adult learners are savvy enough that they recognize a good persona or a flimsy persona for just what it is - a persona. The irony is that even your choice of persona reveals a bit about who you are. Regardless of your philosophy of self-disclosure, the key is not to over-share. Only a few of us are reckless and blindly cross boundaries or wantonly choose to participate in inappropriate disclosures that lead to inappropriate behaviors. Most of us are not in danger of harming students. Most of us simply want to find ways of portraying our healthiest selves for the good of the learning ecology. The month when my mother was dying (2010), I was teaching as best I could - that is, only just barely. I thought I was doing an adequate job. One day during class my teaching assistant, Amy, pulled me aside and told me I had assigned the same small group exercise the week before. She looked at me with eyes afraid she had told me the wrong thing. I thanked her for her feedback. When I gathered the students back from the small groups, my first impulse was to explain myself, which would have meant telling the class I was distracted because my mother was dying. I recoiled from this disclosure feeling that it was too intimate, too raw, too much sharing. My next impulse was to continue with the planned discussion and end class a few minutes early. I went with my second impulse. Being authentic in classrooms does not mean telling all your business. Students are not in our classrooms to take care of us. Similar practices and sensitivities are needed for student disclosures. I have had moments when adult learners launch into telling very personal, sometimes painful stories, about family situations. In these moments I ask them to “STOP!” I try to be light-hearted in my command to cease, but I ask that traumatic experiences not be told, then I ask the student to tell us the point of the story, rather than the detailed story itself. If needed, I talk with the student after class in an effort to refer him/her to counseling. Referral is a needed skill in teaching. Additionally, I ask that in written assignments, care be taken not to disclose anything to me that they would not disclose to the entire class. Reading the stories of pain and trauma in assignment form can be worse than hearing the stories told in the classroom setting. I have a friend, brilliant scholar, who has chosen only to lecture in classroom sessions. Occasionally, she will turn to questions about the lecture in the last few minutes of the session. She has intentionally decided never to allow for student discussions. This strategy was deployed because she was weary of the personal stories of students that were nearly impossible to redirect toward the course agenda. She was unnerved by the disclosures of gossip which were used to thicken the discussion and entertain. She found it a waste of time to listen to students who had not done the readings and instead chose to filibuster by over-sharing. While I do not applaud her decision, I understand her decision. The best strategies I know for helping students and myself not to lapse into disconnected, personal storytelling is to be clear about my aims, objectives, and goals for each course, each session, each learning activity and then to keep those goals central to all discussions. It takes a precision of discipline to stay on-target with the aims and to train students to respect these parameters of disclosure and discussion. It takes a strong, even hand to set and maintain a climate that encourages strong discourse (even personal stories which are applicable to the conversation) and discourages over-sharing. I start the first day of the class with this kind of climate setting in mind. I tell students that we do NOT have a contract of confidentiality in our discussions and to consider anything said in this space as shareable with the world. I tell them that if they need to speak confidentially, then please see their therapist, spiritual director, or counselor, as I will be doing the same thing. I have gotten considerable feedback from students that they appreciate not to be asked to over-share in classrooms.

Trauma is like a mirror that we don’t want to look into. It captures us at our worst angles. It accentuates what we want minimized and overlooks what we wish to be prominent. In trauma, we see projected the unwanted aspects of our realities in such a startling way that we forget everything over which we might have control. Sometimes we don’t have control over a lot. And if we are lucky, we are graced with a reminder that less can be more. To be clear, I don’t mean to make asceticism a virtue. Rather, I want to honor the irrelevant revelation where many on the brink find humor and solace—the fleeting thought of how “it could be worse.” On the flip side of that sentiment is an appreciation for the chance to no longer take what one has for granted. It is this latter posture that I think we teachers should become more accustomed to inhabit. If you follow me on social media, then you know that half of my best pedagogy comes from lessons learned while parenting. As I write, my six-year-old is wrestling in his first tournament. Kid Newton loves the sport. I like that he loves it. But the anxiety in the gym is as airborne as the body odor. And as these children face off, I can read the look in their faces. They are not scared of each other. They are afraid of their own limitations. Throughout this tournament, I have seen a lot of different coaching styles. I don’t have the foggiest idea about wrestling technique, yet I do know enough about teaching-learning to see what isn’t working. And the number one way to fail seems to be throwing a lot of new information at a student/athlete in the midst of a stressful situation. This results in a lot of takedowns, tears, and tantrums. I’ve also picked up some practices that seem to work on the mat, if not in the classroom. When trauma finds your students, consider having them do the following: Breathe. At a Wabash consultation, my colleague Dr. Melanie Harris would frequently lead my cohort in a few moments of collective breathing before we dove into the topic of the day. This may have been the single greatest takeaway from these intensive professional development experiences. In just a few silent moments of respiration, I found assurance that I had survived the previous moment and could be present in the current one. My mind stopped wandering to the future. My thoughts stopped dwelling on the past. So when I sense that my students are stressed or at dis-ease, I push pause on whatever we are doing and have us breathe. When we reenter into the activity, we are so much more prepared for what may come. Have space to be heard, read, and seen. Just like athletes need to breathe, people in trauma need a moment to vent. This doesn’t necessarily involve conspicuous expression, but perhaps just a moment to acknowledge what one has observed can go a long way. If I have a sense that we are in the middle of a traumatic moment, I like to start punctually but give students a chance to release their thoughts within the formal classroom time. This gives them license to work through preoccupation rather than be consumed by the trauma occupying them. Sometimes I just quickly name the event and have students free-write individually as they see fit. Other times I announce that we’ll take three minutes to talk about (or not) whatever they think needs to be discussed. In this situation, I move to the side of the classroom so that students can relate to each other as peers instead of to me as their instructor. When we move to our next activity, students seem to be calmer and more collected. Relax in their strengths. The traumatic moment can be a teachable moment, but not for skill acquisition. This is not the time to trot out radically new content. Instead, consider how you can bring out the things students know. What are the things that have been practiced, drilled, and rehearsed? Giving students a chance to bring these out will orient them toward the “more” ahead. Leaving a little room for free association or creative application can even bring a little hope in the midst of despair. As students rise to the occasion of just one task, they can remember that they have risen before and will rise again. None of these activities are novel. In fact, if you incorporate them into your regular teaching practices, they’ll be that much more effective in moments of testing. At the end of the day, the challenge isn’t ending the trauma. It is dealing with it. Just remember that you, in fact, do have the tools to begin doing so.