| Course Number: | EDX 5710 S21 |
| Instructor: | Erin Mears, M.S. |
| Location: | Online |
| Dates and Times: | Jan 19, 2025 - Feb 23, 2025. January 22, 2025 video meeting from 3:30-5:30 pm. There will be a second 2-hour video meeting and a final hour-long meeting at dates/times set by the group. |
| Credits: | 3 Graduate Credits |
| Tuition: | $1,195 |
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: 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:
Erin Mears, M.S.
This year is Erin's 15th year in education, mostly working in programs for kids with social/emotional needs, both as a special education teacher and a counselor. Erin completed her Trauma and Resilience Certificate through Wilmington University. She began teaching adults in her district through workshops and wants to share her passion about trauma informed practices that will support all children, especially students who struggle with emotional regulation due to trauma and/or chronic stress. At the same time, she sees the constant stress staff in this profession are going through on a daily basis and believes it's so important to learn how to take care of yourself so you can provide the most support to your students.
Course Schedule and Assignments:
Week 1: ACE and Stress Continuum
Week 2: Behavior in the classroom - stress behavior vs misbehavior
Week 3: Stress in the profession - chronic stress & secondary traumatic stress
Week 4: Trauma sensitive and stress reduction strategies
Week 5: Final Project
Projects:
Final Project:
Take time to think about “stress” in your day to day life. Please include examples from your professional and personal life. Please give examples of students and/or adults that you see at school possibly exhibiting signs of chronic stress or that could be exhibiting signs of developmental trauma. Reflect on if you exhibit secondary traumatic stress or compassion fatigue? In what ways is stress effecting your health and well being? Part one should be broken up into two parts: professional and personal.
This final assignment asks you to create a plan of action for the stress you see in your classroom/school environment while also including steps to improve your health and
manage stress, based on all you have learned in this course about what stress is and its effects on all dimensions of health.
Students can be creative in how they present their information in their final project. It can be presented in a paper format, powerpoint, podcast, video recording, etc.
Perry, Bruce D., Winfrey, Oprah. (2021). What happened to you? : conversations on trauma, resilience, and healing,: Flatiron Books.
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