Research Agenda: Learner Profiles, Trauma Recovery, Adverse Childhood Experiences
Learner Profiles
Learning and Self-Development together form the construct of wisdom. We want learners to apply wisdom in their decision-making with an autonomous, creative, and authentic sense of self. We want learners to demonstrate excellence by optimizing their intelligence, exploring novel approaches, and exemplifying originality. We achieve these goals the same way we address every social challenge. We create profiles of desired characteristics and map those from a starting point of each student. This requires an assessment of students that provides a clear picture of their context, preferences, tendencies, and capacity.
Competency-based training is a suitable framework for structuring the system. What is needed is a framework for organizing and interpreting student profiles so that the individuality of students is maintained while managing the complexity into a useful construct. The solution is Genius ID--a set of four learner profiles from which to scaffold student learning systems and interaction. Genius ID categorizes learners as Brilliant, Diligent, and Creative toward empathy, wisdom, balance, and openness that is Genius. The result is a system mechanism that supports intentional inspiration and production among students. The model is complete with a survey and implementation guide.
Trauma Recovery
The study on adverse childhood experiences has provided valuable insights into the prevalence of trauma in the lives of children and the impact of those experiences on adulthood. The focus on childhood trauma and the need for trauma-informed care has contributed to emerging discourse related to instructional practices, social climate, policy, technology, and health. Resources emphasize the importance of maintaining self-awareness about assumptions, symptoms of trauma, and self-care practices.
Educators and coaches must move beyond learning about trauma-informed approaches to deliberately developing and cultivating an overall strategy to promote a trauma-informed climate. Because many communities experience high rates of trauma, institutions must be aware of the potential effects of trauma and ensure that the environments and policies are constructed to address the results of traumatic experiences. Effective trauma prevention and intervention will include mental health services. Trauma-informed education emphasizes self-awareness through targeted and supported reflection and value integration exercises.
ACE Response Strategies
A trauma-informed approach is a process, not a product. The process hinges upon the decision point after the ACE trauma incorporating disrupted neurodevelopment, and leading to social, emotional, and cognitive impairment. These result in a diminished choice set. Disrupted neurodevelopment & social, emotional, and cognitive impairment results in a Diminished Choice Set. Any ACE Response Strategy seeking to arrest the inevitability of unsustainable choice must address the diminished choice set. Yet, humans, as we have learned, justify those choices. They make them appear more certain, less changeable through the creation of narratives that justify the choice. Each of us creates a story that confirms that the choice was the best choice possible given the circumstances.
The primary solution structure must address the narrative each of us creates and reinforces. Understandably, this process is fraught with anxiety and challenge. The role of the educator or coach is to inject information and perspective into this process through motivational interviewing and other nudge techniques that mitigate the resistance. The construction of a new narrative that supports sustainable choice behavior is the goal. The process for this anxiety mitigation and narrative construction is scripted and available for review and implementation.
