Whether local, national, or international in scope, times of crisis can have a significant impact on the college classroom. The students need not be directly related or personally involved to experience anxiety or trauma. While proximity (a local event) may lead to a more obvious impact on your students, the effects can be just as difficult based on "the sheer magnitude and scale (national events with wide media coverage)" and "the degree to which students are likely to identify with the victim(s) of the tragedy and feel like 'vicarious victims'" (fellow students, fellow women, fellow members of a group targeted by a hate crime, fellow Americans) (Huston & DiPietro, 2007, p. 219).
The resulting anxieties students—and teachers—bring into the classroom in response to a crisis can affect student learning, as documented by psychological, cognitive, and neuroscience research. Individual crises, such as coping with the loss of a family member or recovering from a difficult break-up with a significant other, can affect an individual class member’s learning and performance. However, communal crises can affect everyone's well-being—personal and academic.
A 2007 survey by Therese A. Huston and Michelle DiPietro (2007) reveals that "from the students' perspective, it is best to do something. Students often complained when faculty did not mention the attacks at all, and they expressed gratitude when faculty acknowledged that something awful had occurred" (p. 219). Students report that "just about anything" is helpful, "regardless of whether the instructor's response required relatively little effort, such as asking for one minute of silence…, or a great deal of effort and preparation, such as incorporating the event into the lesson plan or topics for the course" (p. 216). The exception, the least helpful and even most problematic responses are a "lack of response" and "acknowledging that [the crisis] had occurred and saying that the class needs to go on" (p. 218).
"The general conclusion, from the students' perspective, appears to be 'do something, just about anything'" (Huston & DiPietro, 2007, p. 216).
There are many possibilities for how to address a crisis in class, from activities that take only a moment to restructuring your entire course, and plenty in between. Again, consider that students appreciate any action, no matter how small.
Taking a moment of silence interrupts a course very little but gives everyone a chance to reflect as a part of a community and demonstrates the instructor's sense of humanity.
Such events affect students' cognitive load, as "working memory capacity is reduced immediately following an acutely stressful experience" (p. 218). This awareness may lead you to be lenient with due dates or adapt your syllabus to accommodate a reduced workload, both in terms of introducing new concepts and expecting students to exercise typical study habits. Holding a review session for material covered during the crisis may also be helpful.
Consider how you may "use the lens of [your] discipline to examine the events surrounding the tragedy," such as assigning a relevant poem, connecting it to a similar historical moment, or examining the engineering concepts involved in a relevant structure (p. 219).
If you would like to talk directly with your students about the crisis, you might consider contacting Counseling and Consultation Services for ideas on how to approach such a conversation. Additionally, the information below may also be useful in discussing a tragedy with your students. There are a number of factors that can affect how a conversation about a crisis might go. As Deborah Shmueli (2003), a professor at Haifa University in Israel, has suggested, some things to take into consideration are as follows:
Taking these factors into account, researchers and practitioners who study communication make the following suggestions for difficult conversations (Chaitlin 2003):
You may even want to identify or even facilitate a way to help those most affected by the crisis, such as collecting money, donating goods, volunteering, or other ways of supporting relief efforts. Such "problem-focused coping" is among the most helpful responses identified by students (Huston & DiPietro, 2007, p. 216-218).
Remember that it is not necessarily your role to help students through the crisis, and, in fact, it may be counter-productive for the students if you bring up emotionally difficult issues without providing appropriate support and assistance.
Chaitin, J. "Creating Safe Spaces for Communication." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: July 2003.
Huston, T. A., & DiPietro, M. (2007). In the eye of the storm: Students perceptions of helpful faculty actions following a collective tragedy. In D. R. Robertson & L. B. Nilson (Eds.) To Improve the Academy: Vol 25. Resources for faculty, instructional, and organizational development. Bolton, MA: Anker. pp. 207-224.
Shmueli, D. "Conflict Assessment." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: October 2003.
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