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Trauma-Informed Teaching Workshop Guide

This document provides a summary of a CAP project workshop on creating a trauma-informed classroom. The workshop was created and will be facilitated by Heather Reinholt, Kailee Kotilla & Jenny Rhodes. The workshop aims to teach educators about trauma-informed practices using a four pillar approach of personal wellness, relationships, predictability, and co-regulation. The goals are to implement these practices in their own classrooms and share the knowledge with colleagues to better support all students, especially those with trauma, autism, or FASD.

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73 views2 pages

Trauma-Informed Teaching Workshop Guide

This document provides a summary of a CAP project workshop on creating a trauma-informed classroom. The workshop was created and will be facilitated by Heather Reinholt, Kailee Kotilla & Jenny Rhodes. The workshop aims to teach educators about trauma-informed practices using a four pillar approach of personal wellness, relationships, predictability, and co-regulation. The goals are to implement these practices in their own classrooms and share the knowledge with colleagues to better support all students, especially those with trauma, autism, or FASD.

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api-504109603
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Thursday October 8th 2020

Breaking Barriers
CAP Project - ​Workshop: Creating a Trauma-Informed Classroom
Heather Reinholt, Kailee Kotilla & Jenny Rhodes

Part I: Description

As we move along our journeys to becoming educators, we keep considering the

ways in which we can meet the needs of our students. Between the pandemic and

countless other challenges, from societal pressures and trauma at home to different

learning abilities, never before have children been faced with so much stress. In an

effort to not only create inclusive classrooms, but to teach to diversity (Shelley Moore),

we looked to trauma-informed teaching practices as a way of meeting the needs of

students on many different levels. We began learning about trauma-informed teaching

last year during a professional development session during which we looked at

strategies to support students with trauma in the classroom. During this process, a

connection was made between learning differences of students with trauma, as well as

other conditions such as ASD and later FASD. Some of the most notable common

characteristics between students with trauma, ASD and FASD include: unexpected

behaviours/responses, difficulty in emotional self-regulation, inappropriate social

interactions, trouble expressing emotions (affression, avoidance, shutting down…),

difficulty controlling body, difficulty with executive function (​planning, working memory,

attention, problem solving, verbal reasoning, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, initiation of

actions and monitoring of actions). Given these similarities in characteristics, a trauma

informed approach in the classroom would not only support students with trauma, but

also students with ASD and FASD.


We recently had the opportunity to engage in a webinar called ​Weathering the

Storm: A Trauma-Informed Approach to the Return to School​ with Dr. Will Henson

(​[Link] While the context of this webinar is more geared

toward our students’ experiences in the time of a pandemic, the strategies are relevant

to anyone who has experienced trauma. It begins by identifying what trauma can look

like by looking at ACEs (adverse childhood experiences), and provides some statistical

data which highlights the prevalence of ACEs among students, and boy does it run

rampant in our children and youth. Henson then proposes an accessible four pillar

approach to creating a trauma-informed classroom; Personal Wellness, Creating

Relationships, Creating Predictability, and Co-Regulation.

This webinar provided the inspiration and framework for our CAP. Together, we

created a two part professional development workshop on trauma-informed teaching.

This CAP Project is designed in such a way that we have two goals. First, to implement

trauma-informed teaching practices outlined in this workshop in our own classrooms,

and second, to also share this knowledge by facilitating the workshop in our respective

professional learning communities. If we can share this knowledge in a simple way,

while providing our colleagues all of the tools they need to be successful, we will better

be able to collectively support all of our students. The key here is that trauma-informed

practice doesn’t only support students with trauma, but has positive implications for all

students. Engaging in this practice, and sharing it with colleagues, means that together

we will be working towards the ultimate goal of teaching to diversity.

Part II: The Project

Part III: One Page Synthesis

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