Pedagogies of Kindness

 

What is kindness?  It's a term that's used a lot these days and I'm not sure everyone has an agreed understanding of what it means.  In doing some research I can see that it's something of an umbrella term, a collection of behaviours and attitudes that are perceived as kind by others.  In learning and educational settings this is closely linked with Social and Emtional Learning (SEL) and Binfet et al. (2016) highlights that such SEL strategies are shown to not only improve student behaviour, but also has a positive effect on student academic achievements too.  

("Have you ever taken the time to notice that when you expect something to have a positive outcome that your effort goes up significantly that you put into the project? ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Our expectations have an enormous influence on what we achieve and t" by GrindingForSuccess is licensed under CC BY 2.0)

If you read my previous recent blog post, I do believe that it's an issue that teachers must embrace going forward with a digital/hybrid curriculum.  Some of the behaviours I've seen and experienced during the online pivot have been nothing short of brutal in my opinion and, going forward, I really hope that we've all learned enough from our collective journey to make positive changes for the benefit of our learners.  But how do we enact a kinder approach to learning and teaching in a digital space (or indeed in any learning space, face to face or otherwise)?  I know what some of you must be thinking - I don't have time for this kind of wishy washy new age thinking.  So let me be clear, I believe that it's important for educators to base their practice on the principles of good pedagogy.  So that raises the question, "Does good pedagogy allow room for kindness in the curriculum?"

In studying educational leadership one of the most interesting discoveries for me was in the work of Leithwood (2013) who highlights that leadership indirectly influences the students learning through four paths:  the rational path, the emotional path, the organisation path and the family path.  While not all of the variables along these paths are within the control of the teacher, some variables are very much within our reach.  As my own learning has progressed I have come to realise that good pedagogy is the ultimate tool that teachers can rely on in order to influence the learners experience along the rational, emotional and organisational paths.

So there's our first learning point - as leaders in our classrooms we can:

• apply reasoning and good pedagogy to improve outcomes,  
• acknowledge that our emotions and the emotions of our students also affect outcomes.
• apply what influence we can to policies and systems which also affect outcomes.

("What interferes with your learning?" by pipcleaves is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Turning to the rational path for a moment, let's consider good pedagogy.  I would argue that whether we are operating an a face to face, online or hybrid capacity, one of the best tools we can use to influence outcomes for our students is that of good pedagogy.  So, what are the key features of good pedagogy?

Constructivism is a  strategy whereby students construct knowledge on the basis of direct experience.  This is a strategy that many teachers rely on in face to face education.  However, some struggle to adapting this strategy for online education.  Social constructivism is an adaptation to the constructivist approach where by learner experience (and thereby, knowledge) is generated through interaction with other learners.  This strategy has been used to great effect in the rise of Massive Open Online Courses and has given rise to the availability of breakout rooms in the prevalent online conferencing systems that have gained significant attention during the online pivot.

Many educators are intimidated by the use of social constructivism in online learning because it necessitates open sharing and exchange of information.  However, although successful implementation of such open pedagogies and open educational practices requires fostering a sense of community, inclusion, mutual respect and transparency, successful implimentation of such strategies can help to generate a sense of trust and co-operation (Hoy and Tschannen-moran, 1999).    

Other pedagogies such as conversational learning are strategies whereby students construct knowledge through iterative interactions and conversations with others enabling a mutual understanding to be achieved.  Serialism enables learners to construct knowledge by progression through a logical sequence of steps.  

("Alternative Pedagogies, hosted by Barry Joe & Jill Grose" by giulia.forsythe is marked with CC0 1.0)

All of these strategies are common in online and in face to face learning.  Although the online pivot has been challenging for educators worldwide, in my own scholarship practice recently I have noticed that a criticality has emerged in the teaching community whereby some benefits of online education have become clear, not least the ability to accommodate personal issues and the ability to operate in a caring and responsive way to the unique context that learners face in their daily lives.

Most of this will be of no surprise to educators.  However, what was a surprise to me was discovering the work of Haskins and Gill (2018 as cited by Miller, 2020).  In researching the psychology of kindness, the results of their survey showed that kindness involves a number of actions including:

• fostering a sense of inclusion
• accommodating personal issues
• treating others respectfully
• generosity in giving and receiving
• caring and being responsive
• communicating with a personal touch
• being transparent
• explaining information logically
• giving time and active listening
• valuing differing perspectives
• giving honest and constructive feedback
• counseling and mentoring
• embracing diversity and tolerance

This brings me to my second learning point - with a focus on good pedagogical practice, it is not only possible to model kindness, but to promote kind behaviour in our students too.  By acting as agents of change, educators can make rational pedagogical choices that impact outcomes for learners via both the rational and emotional path.  

("...change..." by ĐāżŦ {mostly absent} is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

There are very concrete ways in which we can model and develop a kinder curriculum:

1.  Try encouraging your students to map their social media activity highlighting positive activites in one colour and negative activities in another.  Perhaps you and/or your students could make a plan to increase your positive social media activity for the week ahead.  

2.  Perhaps you could think about posting/sharing a few experiences of your own which might be helpful to people looking for support, help or encouragement.  Reflect on the act of sharing - how did it make you feel? what responses did you get?

3.  Maybe you could try blogging - allow your students to open a window on their personal experiences.  Moreover, by blogging ourselves, we can model digital literacy and digital kindness.  I discovered myself that this is a very effective practice in my recent project for module #H818 in my MA degree in Online and Distance Education. 

Lauren Hug presents these and lots of other practical ideas for modelling kindness in digital spaces in her book entitled Digital Kindness:  Being Human in a Hyper-Connected world.  I would definitely recommend this as a teaching resource for educators dealing with the issue of digital literacy.  If anyone has any additional strategies that you have implemented with your students which have helped model kindness and/or digital kindness then please do share in the comments below.

However, as a third and final learning point, I want to return to the rational and the work of Binfet et al (2016).  Their extensive study of perceptions of kindness in schools highlighted a number of key factors which influence the perceptions of the kindness of the school environment.  Interestingly one of strongest indicators as to the perception of kindness was that of Community.  When learners felt that they were part of a caring and supportive learning community, the perception of kindness increased.  Salmon (2013) in her five stage model of online learning highlights the importance of online socialisation in the early stages of online learning.  Yet repeatedly educators choose not to bother with icebreaker exercises or other forms of bonding/co-operative activites because there isn't time.  The curriculum doesn't allow time for such wishy washy nonsense - just let me get on with the teaching.  

Right there - that's something concrete we can do to improve kindness in our education system!  We can take the time to get to know our students, and encourage them to get to know each other.  Even in online spaces we probably have contacts with people on various online platforms, people we're never likely to meet in real life.  I know through involvement with the Open University in the UK that's most definitely true.  But to be part of that is an honour - it's a community like no other.  A simple tweet, facebook message or post in an online discussion forum and help is never far away.  So it can be done if we invest the time in community building.

But how do I assess whether or not my learners feel like they're part of a community?  Ask them!  Rovai (2002) even provides a questionnaire tool that has been shown to provide reliable responses to that very question.  You can access it in the references below.  

So what is my third learning point?  It's simple and I say this in the kindest possible sense.  Make the time to build a community - no excuses and no cop outs!  

("Hippo-Excuse" by Wonderlane is marked with CC0 1.0)

References

Binfet, J. T., Gadermann, A. M. and Schonert-Reichl, K. A. (2016)  Measuring Kindness at School: Psychometric properties of a chool kindness scale for children and adolescents [Online].  Available at:  https://education.ok.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/96/2019/07/School_Kindness_Scale_for_Children_201653376.pdf (Accessed 30th March 2021).

Hoy, K. and Tschannen-Moran, M. (1999) An empirical confirmation in urban elementary schools [Online].  Available at:  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/105268469900900301 (Accessed 22nd January 2021).

Hug, L M.. (2019)  Digital Kindness:  Being human in a hyper-connected world [ebook reader], Colorado Springs, Lauren Collier. 

Leithwood, K. (2013) ‘Leadership and student learning: what works and how’, in Wise, C., Bradshaw, P. and Cartwright, M. (eds) Leading Professional Practice in Education, Sage, London/The Open University, Milton Keynes, pp. 25–37.

Miller, K. D. (2020)  What is Kindness in Psychology?  (Incl. Activities and Quotes) [Online].  Available at:  https://positivepsychology.com/character-strength-kindness/#:~:text=According%20to%20them%2C%20research%20supports,significant%20effect%20on%20well%2Dbeing.&text=Kindness%20can%20lower%20the%20effects,reduce%20state%2Dlevel%20social%20anxiety (Accessed 19th March 2021).  

Rovai, A. P. (2002)  Development of an instrument to measure classroom community [Online].  Available at:  http://debdavis.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/91768740/Rovai-2002-classroom%20community.pdf (Accessed 30th March 2021).  

Salmon (2013)  E-tivities:  The Key to Active Online Learning [ebook reader],  Oxon, Routledge.