EDCT 5801 - Post Pandemic Support for Students – Part 1 – Early Considerations

Course Description

The COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a health crisis. The severe disruption is felt by many families around the world and home schooling is not only a massive shock to parents’ productivity, but also to children’s social life and learning. The global lockdown of education institutions is going to cause major (and likely unequal) interruption in students’ learning. This course explores an urgent and growing issue--childhood trauma--and its current profound effect on learning and teaching. Grounded in research and the experience of working with trauma-affected students, this course will help you cultivate a trauma-sensitive learning environment for students across all content areas, grade levels, and educational settings. Within this course, you will begin to understand what trauma is and how it hinders the learning, motivation, and success of all students in the classroom. In addition, strategies will be offered that will help you to build strong relationships and create a safe space to enable students to assimilate back into learning once schools are back in session. There will also be some consideration in ways to deal with stress and burnout with essential self-care techniques that will help you and your students flourish. 

Learner Outcomes

The projected outcome of this course is to provide educators with the knowledge, understanding, and methodologies for creating trauma sensitive classrooms as we move through the pandemic, as well as offer ideas to help build relationships that allow students to grow, thrive, and learn at high levels once school is back in session. by the end of this course participants will be able to:

1. Examine the changes in the types of childhood trauma we see in schools today including the specific areas that contribute to trauma created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. Interpret the difference between emphasizing the details of a traumatic event and acknowledging its impact on an individual.
3. Investigate what ACE scores are and how they may be affecting their current situation.
4. Align universal language practices with current curriculum, staff evaluation practices, and social-emotional learning strategies.
5. Evaluate the school's mission statement via a trauma-sensitive lens.
6. Examine positive school-wide practices that are currently in place that help students get to a learning-ready state.
7. Design and implement effective opportunities within your school teams to problem-solve students’ needs ahead of time including looking at ways to interpret not only academic needs, but social and emotional needs as well.
8. Understand the positive reinforcement structures that are in place that motivate students to want to be at school.
9. Create and evaluate plans for students to return to school after the school closures in the area of academic, social, and emotional needs.
10. Design current interventions reflect trauma-informed practices.
11. Create programs that are specific to staff stress and burnout and incorporate essential self-care techniques.

Notes

This course is equivalent to EDCO 5277 'Book Study: Fostering Resilient Learners'. Students can only enroll in and receive credit for one of these courses.

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Participants do not necessarily need to be currently working in their own classroom to take this course. Other school personnel such as school counselors, SLPs, administrators, and other paraprofessionals can also find value in this course. Participants must hold a baccalaureate degree.