Adopting Trauma-Informed Approaches to Teaching & Learning in Health & Exercise Sciences: a Case Study

Abstract

The School of Health & Exercise Sciences at the University of British Columbia Okanagan offers a competency-based undergraduate program that prepares students for professional practice in kinesiology and allied health, clinical exercise physiology, and/or health behaviour change. In delivering this program, we aim to 1) provide a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students, and 2) intentionally prepare students for equity-minded and anti-oppressive professional practice. To support both of these goals, we have recently embarked on a multipronged initiative to implement trauma-informed approaches to teaching and learning across our program. Trauma-informed approaches are critical due to the high prevalence of trauma exposure in both the university student and general adult population. Since people from historically, persistently or systemically marginalized groups are more likely to have experienced trauma, trauma-informed approaches should be considered an essential tool for supporting equity and inclusion in higher education. Finally, trauma-informed practice is especially relevant in a discipline like ours, where learning activities and professional practice commonly involve close examination of the body, touching, and other potentially triggering interactions and events. We have taken several steps to support the adoption of trauma-informed teaching practices in our School. These include characterizing the need for trauma-informed approaches in our laboratory courses, selecting an appropriate framework to guide our recommendations, creating an educator guide for designing and facilitating trauma-informed learning experiences, and developing and launching a training program for instructors and teaching assistants. We have also made progress with integrating learning about trauma-informed approaches into our curriculum. To support backward design, we defined one program-level competency related to trauma-informed practice, with five associated learning outcomes. These learning outcomes have been mapped across the curriculum to support mastery of the competency by graduation. This year, we employed two different instructional approaches (large vs. small group and instructor-led vs. guest expert-led sessions) in one first- and fourth-year course (n=209 and 100 students, respectively). Formative assessments indicate that individual learning outcomes were attained by 72-91% of students. Summative assessments of learning and student evaluations of instruction and perceived learning are forthcoming. Here we describe a comprehensive effort to revise both pedagogy and curriculum in support of trauma-informed teaching and learning in health and exercise sciences. By sharing our process, early successes, and lessons learned, we offer a valuable example for educators and educational designers across disciplines related to human anatomy, physiology, and health. This work is happening on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan people and is supported by the UBCO School of Health & Exercise Sciences and the UBCO Sexual Violence Prevention & Response Offce. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.