Stressed Out, Mears, Fall 2024

Course Description

Students will learn how adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress effect students, teaching, learning, and the  profession. Students will understand the stress continuum and how this affects many aspects of teaching and learning.  Students will gain knowledge on how to think about student behavior and the language we use to define the behavior.  Lastly, students will learn about secondary traumatic stress, how stress effects our health and wellbeing, the impact our stress has on our students and instruction, and simple everyday strategies to help reduce stress.  Students will leave this course understanding how trauma informed practices can combat toxic stress and change the trajectory of a child’s life.

Audience: All educators who hold a Bachelors Degree

Course Goals & Objectives

Course Goals: Students will leave this class with a deeper understanding of how adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress can affect a person over a lifetime, they will understand what toxic stress can look like in the classroom and in their personal lives, and finally, they will learn stress reduction strategies and self-reflection in order to mitigate stress.

Course Objectives:

1. Define the term ACE and its connection to stress.
2. Understand core components of the stress continuum.
3. Compare and contrast a stress continuum of a typically developing person vs a person exposed to chronic stress.
4. Understand the difference between misbehavior and stress behavior.
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of various stress reduction techniques.
6. Develop a personal stress profile with aligned strategies for stress management.
7. Explore the application of trauma sensitive and stress reduction strategies in the workplace.
8. Identify chronic stress in the classroom and workplace.
9. Define secondary traumatic stress.
10. Understand how teacher stress impacts students.