As instructors and equity-minded practitioners, we strive to design courses and activities that support our students' learning and belonging. This workshop will consider the ways in which instructors can embrace trauma-aware teaching strategies that recognize and validate students’ lived experiences inside and outside of our classrooms. This workshop’s content will cover strategies within an instructor’s scope of practice and recognize that well-meaning efforts to learn students’ life stories to gauge the potential effects of traumatic events may cause retraumatization as well as instructors’ vicarious trauma.

Participants in the Trauma-Aware Teaching Strategies workshop are expected to:

• Bring a copy of a syllabus, lesson plan, or instructions for a class activity/assignment. This document may or may not be of your own authorship. You will not be asked to share this information.
• Watch the video recordings for two previous sessions offered by Dr. Toya Jones:
  • Trauma-Aware Pedagogy (1h 15m): Covers current definitions of trauma, its impact on cognitive function, and an overview of our brain’s response to traumatic events.
  • Applying Trauma-Aware Pedagogical Practices (1h 38m): Focuses on the effects of racial trauma, with case studies and a brief review of tools for self-awareness.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Define the “scope of practice” of a trauma-aware higher ed instructor.
• Identify trauma-aware pedagogy as a lens to enhance inclusivity and equity in their classrooms.
• Revise an existing teaching tool (syllabus, activity, assignment, etc.) to align with at least one of SAMHSA’s six principles (p. 10) that guide trauma-aware approaches.