Trauma-Informed Pedagogy

Elena Lesley, Dean's Teaching Fellow, CFDE & PhD Candidate, Anthropology 

In this remote training session for faculty, graduate students and all other instructors, Dean’s Teaching Fellow Elena Lesley discussed how educators can use a “trauma-informed” lens when approaching their classrooms and students in difficult times. “Trauma-informed” teaching strategies have emerged from the shift in public health to trauma-informed care and emphasize trying to create academic environments that minimize the risk for students of retraumatization, vicarious trauma and new trauma exposure. Given the immense social and political upheaval engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a critical need to provide graduate student instructors with training in such sensitive and adaptable pedagogical methods. 

Elena Lesley is a PhD candidate in Emory’s Department of Anthropology and a Dean’s Teaching Fellow at the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence. Her dissertation work focuses on mental health interventions among survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Findings from her research have been published in Ethos: Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology and Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, and are forthcoming in Memory Studies and Challenging Conceptions: Children born of wartime rape and sexual exploitation. She has a BA from Brown University and an MS from Rutgers University.