Pedagogies of Care & Kindness

“Some­times the most valu­able thing we can offer our stu­dents is gen­uine care for them, their well-being, their hap­pi­ness. Not just their grades. Not just their learn­ing. But their whole selves.” Mahi Bali, April 20, 2015

Look­ing to learn more about ped­a­go­gies of care or ped­a­go­gies of kind­ness? Here is a curat­ed list of some excel­lent per­spec­tives on con­sid­er­a­tions for care in our cours­es and class­es.

Facil­i­ta­tion – pres­ence, empa­thy, aware­ness

Pres­ence: cre­ate a short wel­come video; add week­ly announce­ments and ‘check-ins’ in Bright­space or via email; pro­vide audio / video feed­back; offer syn­chro­nous meet­ing options

Empa­thy: check in indi­vid­u­al­ly with stu­dents; offer sup­port (and direct stu­dents to oth­er sup­ports) to stu­dents who are strug­gling; be approach­able

Aware­ness: sur­vey stu­dents in first week (e.g., to find out what tech they have or what chal­lenges they might be fac­ing in online learn­ing) use low-risk ice break­er activ­i­ties to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ty; build in reg­u­lar for­ma­tive feed­back options to ‘check-in’ on how stu­dents are doing

Course design – choice & chal­lenge; con­trol & col­lab­o­ra­tion; con­struct­ing mean­ing & con­se­quences

Choice: pro­vide dif­fer­ent options for engag­ing in course con­tent and for assess­ment

Chal­lenge: encour­age stu­dents to try new things and to stretch them­selves; show you believe in them; assess learn­ing through con­tent cre­ation

Con­trol: allow stu­dents to cre­ate a por­tion of the class con­tent, sug­gest ideas for assess­ment, and co-cre­ate grad­ing rubrics

Col­lab­o­ra­tion: give stu­dents oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn from each oth­er

Con­struct­ing mean­ing: use video as a start­ing point for dis­cus­sion; invite stu­dents to add videos, images and oth­er con­tent they can find to demon­strate con­cepts

Con­se­quences: have stu­dents share their work; use peer assess­ment

Learn­ing domains – affec­tive & cog­ni­tive — cre­ate learn­ing activ­i­ties and oppor­tu­ni­ties that tap into both affec­tive and cog­ni­tive learn­ing domains (e.g., per­son­al reflec­tions, opin­ion pieces)

              Affec­tive: Receiv­ing, respond­ing, valu­ing, orga­niz­ing, inter­nal­iz­ing

              Cog­ni­tive: Remem­ber­ing, under­stand­ing, apply­ing, ana­lyz­ing, eval­u­at­ing, cre­at­ing

Com­mu­ni­ty of Inquiry – social pres­ence, cog­ni­tive pres­ence, teach­ing pres­ence

Social pres­ence: iden­ti­fy­ing with com­mu­ni­ty, com­mu­ni­cat­ing in a safe space, devel­op­ing rela­tion­ships

Cog­ni­tive pres­ence: mean­ing mak­ing through com­mu­ni­ca­tion in a com­mu­ni­ty of inquiry

Teach­ing pres­ence: design­ing, facil­i­tat­ing and orga­niz­ing inter­ac­tion to meet learn­ing out­comes

Cre­ate learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that acti­vate all three aspects of pres­ence (e.g., ice­break­er, group/pair activ­i­ties based on course con­tent that build com­mu­ni­ty and engage in meet­ing the learn­ing out­comes, such as ask­ing stu­dents to co-cre­ate con­tent through web­sites, blogs/wikis, pre­sen­ta­tions etc.)

Web­sites

• Ped­a­go­gies of Care: Open Resources for Stu­dent-Cen­tred and Adap­tive Strate­gies in the New High­er-Ed Land­scape | Web­site by Con­tribut­ing Authors of the West Vir­ginia Uni­ver­si­ty Press (2020)

Pre­sen­ta­tions and Posts

• A Ped­a­gogy of Kind­ness | Blog post by Cate Denial (August 2019) — this is an excel­lent arti­cle to start with around ped­a­go­gies of care and kind­ness. Cate writes about her expe­ri­ences as an edu­ca­tor chang­ing her prac­tices and see­ing the out­comes of such changes.
• Design­ing for Care: Inclu­sive Ped­a­go­gies for Online Learn­ing | Pre­sen­ta­tion Text and Slideck by Jesse Stom­mel (June 2020)
• Fos­ter­ing Care and Com­mu­ni­ty at a Dis­tance | Blog Post as Advance Read­ing for a Pre­sen­ta­tion at QAA Scot­land’s Online Enhance­ment Con­fer­ence  by Sean Michael Mor­ris (May 2020)
• Ped­a­go­gies of Care | Video (3 min) by Dave Cormi­er, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wind­sor (May 2020)
• Ped­a­gogy of Care — Gone Mas­sive | Blog Post by Maha Bali, Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty in Cairo (April 2015)
• Ped­a­gogy of Care — COVID-19 Edi­tion | Blog Post by Maha Bali, Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty in Cairo (May 2020)

Pod­casts from Ped­a­go­gies of Care

• An Online Ped­a­gogy of Kind­ness with Cate Denial | Pod­cast for Think UDL (Sum­mer 2020)
• Ped­a­go­gies of Care — Dig­i­tal Read­ing | Pod­cast by tea for teach­ing — Rebec­ca Mushtare and John KaneS­tate Uni­ver­si­ty of New York with Dr. Jenae Cohn (June 2020)
• Ped­a­go­gies of Care — Uni­ver­sal Design for Learn­ing | Pod­cast by tea for teach­ing — Rebec­ca Mushtare and John KaneS­tate Uni­ver­si­ty of New York with Thomas J. Tobin (June 2020)
• Ped­a­go­gies of Care — Nerd Edi­tion | Pod­cast by tea for teach­ing — Rebec­ca Mushtare and John KaneS­tate Uni­ver­si­ty of New York with Dr. Jes­samyn Neuhaus (June 2020)
• Ped­a­go­gies of Care — Stu­dents as Humans | Pod­cast by tea for teach­ing — Rebec­ca Mushtare and John KaneS­tate Uni­ver­si­ty of New York with Sarah Rose Cavanagh and Josh Eyler (June 2020)
• Ped­a­go­gies of Care — Equi­ty and Inclu­sion | Pod­cast by tea for teach­ing — Rebec­ca Mushtare and John Kane State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York­with Dr. Cyn­di Ker­na­han and Dr. Kevin Gan­non (July 2020)