Table of Contents
Quick Overview:
Before 10/6:
- Explore Unit 5 materials below (we suggest you jot down a few things that stand out to you)
- Add pertinent info to your Padlet for your portfolio
- Don’t forget to comment on your colleagues’ posts and padlets Units 1-3 due 10/6
- Entry Ticket:Be prepared to write in the chat- 2 sentences from your “thinking homework” – connecting the discussion about Calling In/Calling Out to a classroom or workplace situation, conversation, or scenario.
- Class meets via Webex on 10/6 from 2-3pm JOIN ORT (Required)
Prior to and in the midst of the pandemic, much has been written about care. A pedagogy of care can help build a sense of belonging within our community of learners, which is always essential.
Questions to keep in mind
ORT discussions, WordPress (WP) post comment sections, and your proposal and presentation will require contemplation, which the following questions can facilitate:
- What have you already been doing regarding pedagogy of care and critical community?
- What could you implement to encourage pedagogy of care and critical community?
- What barriers or challenges might prevent you from implementing pedagogy of care and critical community?
LCC’s Chosen Name Initiative
Learning someone’s chosen name and using their correct personal pronouns is a way to respect them and create an inclusive environment. You may already be aware that LCC has a Chosen Name and Pronouns Initiative. Please have a look here for more information on personal pronouns.
Pedagogy of Kindness
Jeff Janowick’s video provides a faculty member’s journey with integrating a pedagogy of kindness (akin to care) into his classroom.
Pedagogy of Care with Social and Emotional Presence
Sarah Rose Cavanaugh, from Assumption University and author of Hive Mind and Joshua R. Eyler, from the University of Mississippi and author of How Humans Learn present at the University of West Virginia Press authors from the Teaching and Learning in Higher Education series.
Another Pedagogy of Care Approach
Finally, our January PA days keynote speaker’s perspective is essentially pedagogy of care, even though she didn’t specifically call it that. It is. The title of her book and approach is “Bandwidth Recovery”. She explains, “Bandwidth” is the word I’m using to describe the part of our brain activity over which we have conscious control (most of our brain activity is involuntary, keeping our physiological processes going). We could call bandwidth attentional resources or cognitive capacity; it’s not about how smart we are but about how much of our brain power we can bring to a task. When students’ bandwidth is being taken up by worries about money or feeling like they don’t belong or concerns about physical or psychological safety, it’s not available for learning (bandwidthrecovery.org). Please explore Dr. Verschelden’s LCC 2022 Professional Activity Days Keynote presentation.
Exploring the Conceptual and Philosophical Aspects of a Caring Pedagogy
Pedagogy of Care, as a philosophy and practical framework, has existed prior to the pandemic. Written before the pandemic (2019), this Walker-Gleaves article provides a deeper look at Exploring the Conceptual and Practical Impediments to Operationalizing Care in Higher Education in her article, Is Caring Pedagogy Really so Progressive?
Facilitating a Sense of Belonging
(Lisa) As I was completing my master’s in English Composition & Communication these past two years, I had to design a research proposal. I was interested in understanding more clearly to what extent does a course’s instructional material facilitate a sense of belonging in racial/ethnic minority students who are taking the course. In order to examine this, I developed a DEI Considerations for curricular/instructional materials checklist. A draft of this checklist has been shared a few times with LCC’s English faculty. While it focuses on sense of belonging for racial/ethnic minoritized groups, it can be applied/language tweaked to consider sense of belonging for other minoritized groups. I welcome feedback about how to improve it.
Building Community
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia has developed an overview of Strategies to Build a Community of Learners.
DePaul’s Teaching Commons provides a comprehensive overview of The First Day of class. For example, this webpage provides specific details about the types of information an instructor could collect in a student survey as well as providing example questions.
The tools and resources we are sharing here can facilitate an inclusive community of learners and sense of belonging, but are far from an exhaustive list. We encourage you to explore what tools and resources are out there specific to your discipline or subject area.
Supplemental Materials
Equitable Classroom Practices 27 Observable Behaviors Checklist from Louisiana State.
West Virginia University Press Teaching & Learning Series: Pedagogies of Care has an open resources page with many informative recordings.
I remember that session on pedagogy of care with Jeff Janowick and I believe there was also a panel of faculty presenting on this topic. The keynote address by Dr. Verschelden was particularly notable as well. I remember thinking that these were the most interesting presentations I have seen during professional activity days. In a way the pandemic situation helped us become more receptive because we (students, staff, faculty) were going through this shared experience of trying to struggle our way through the pandemic. Mental health became a focus. Faculty became kinder and more flexible. I appreciate the practices described in the above sources from different institutions. We were reactive during the pandemic, and now we can be more intentional and proactive in cultivating pedagogy of care.
I like this week’s topic best, because it’s probably the one that comes the most easily to me. I was happy to find that I already do implement several of the strategies/tips that are presented in this week’s materials. What I found most interesting was a quote from the Pedagogy of Care with Social and Emotional Presence video that reads:
“The student is infinitely more important than the subject matter.”
-Nel Noddings, Caring: A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (p. 185).
There are times, that even though I consider myself to be a very caring person/instructor, I find myself feeling frustrated with students that don’t come to class, or that don’t do the work with much effort, and I think this quote is a good reminder for myself when I start to feel that way.
Hi Susie,
I agree – this is a topic that especially speaks to me. I’ve heard this called “Pedagogy of Kindness” as well – unless that’s something different?! – and I really relate to that name, as kindness (even just the word) is a reminder for me to actually be kind (I always think of my grandmother haha…). It’s a good pause for me to say – what is the kind thing to do here? How can I put the student first – as you mentioned. I also feel frustrated with students who don’t complete the work (and then email at the end of the course, like in the LCC prof video mentions) wanting to make up EVERYTHING in the last week of class…. To me, this isn’t fair or feasible for anyone; but I’ve found something that works better I think – I email about halfway through the semester, and also around the last three week mark of class – to check in with all students, but particularly to any that are behind. I ask: how they are doing, what their struggles are, how can I help them, and then also specifically say “what 2-3 assignments can you complete between now and [deadline] that you could feasibly make up” – if the student responds, is enthusiastic, and actually does the 2-3 assignments, I then have them complete the rest of the assignments they missed (again on a deadline, wayyyy before my grades are due). The students that don’t, like the LCC prof suggests, probably weren’t really interested in making up assignments anyways. This has worked wonders – it is a culture of care/kindness practice, it gets both myself and the students ahead of the game/deadline, and everyone is (mostly) happy. Excited to chat about this today!
~Kate
I appreciated the ideas in creating a classroom community resource. I meet online via WebEx at least 3 times a semester with students and let them select the time that works for them, I have AM, Mid Day and PM time slots that they book under appointments. These 1 on 1 meetings are to review activities and are a wonderful way to build relationships with students. I also include many small group activities for students to discuss course content and I have a goal to also include more of these to simply let students talk to each other about the course or other topics to build connections with peers.
I also love a good checklist :). Equitable Classroom Practices 27 Observable Behaviors Checklist. This was affirming as many of these concepts are taught in my class in relation to building an Emotionally Supportive Environment in the early childhood classroom, intentionally constructing the verbal environment, and more.
I love the meeting idea – I think I will do this with my asynch course – giving them options and time slots! Great idea!
Kate
This unit has me thinking a lot about what I miss in teaching. When I started out as a teacher first in a high school and then at LCC I had a lot of rules and a lot of hard deadlines. I wasn’t always comfortable with this, but I didn’t understand that I had a choice. I think I learned a lot from my students and through them I started to understand that I could be the kind of teacher I wanted to have for myself and everything wouldn’t fall apart. For example, I started allowing make-up tests for any reason at all and they didn’t all start missing every test. 😊
I found several parts of Lisa’s “DEI Considerations for curricular/instructional materials checklist” useful in examining different aspects of my courses (syllabus language, images used, references to contributions to physics by diverse individuals/groups, etc.). I am thinking of modifying the checklist to better “fit” physics teaching materials, as I plan to share what I have learned in this course with my colleagues.