5288: Trauma-Informed Teaching in Early Childhood

Speaker: Susanne Leslie, Professional Learning Specialist

Susanne Leslie: Hi, I'm Susanne. I'm the course designer for course 5288: Trauma-Informed Teaching in Early Childhood. What we hope teachers will take away from the course is a depth in their understanding of how cognitive language, physical, and social emotional development are impacted by trauma. Also, we hope to create a sense of empathy for students who have experienced trauma in a way to understand their perspective and be empathetic. And that you'll also leave the course with some whole classroom strategies to help you work with those students. And then lastly, the underlying foundation of the course is really to create a depth of understanding in the importance of students feeling both safe and loved before they can learn. So without those two things, they're not going to be ready to learn. So you'll learn some ways to ensure that students feel that way.

Susanne Leslie: Hi, what we love about this course. Well, the first thing that we love is that, in the discussion of this delicate topic of early childhood trauma, the authors of the course textbook take a very gentle approach and lead us through the course text in a way that feels very gentle and nurturing and soft because the topic is so challenging. Another thing that we like is that it explores ways we can create trauma informed schools and trauma-informed colleagues and share this knowledge with one another. And then lastly, the recognition that we are building the next generation of students that we want to have good mental health and have strong social emotional skills and well being.