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Kindness in the Classroom

Creating Supportive Learning Spaces

  • Higher Education
  • Event
  • On-demand
  • English – First-Year Composition
  • Student Success
  • First Year Experience
  • Composition Lunch & Learn
  • 40 Minutes
  • On-Demand Video

Description

Psychological research shows how even small acts of kindness can positively affect both those who perform those acts and those who receive them. Research also indicates that we underestimate the impact that kindness can have. In this workshop, we discuss acts of kindness that we have witnessed and participated in our classrooms.  We consider why and how we and our students have engaged in acts of kindness and how those acts have helped to make our classrooms supportive places to learn and write.

About Your Speaker

  • Sherry Rankins-Robertson -

    Sherry Rankins-Robertson

    Sherry Rankins-Robertson is Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Central Florida where she serves as department chair. Her research has appeared in Kairos: Computers and Composition, and the Journal of Writing Assessment along with diverse edited collections. She has served as co-editor of the WPA journal. With Nicholas Behm and Duane Roen, she edited The Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing: Scholarship and Applications. Her recent co-edited collection is titled Prison Pedagogies: Learning and Teaching with Imprisoned Writers. She is an officer for the Council of Writing Program Administrators and serves as a member of the executive committee of the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

  • Duane Roen -

    Duane Roen

    Duane Roen is Professor of English at Arizona State University, where he serves as Coordinator for the Project for Writing and Recording Family History.  At ASU, he has also served as Dean of the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts; Dean of University College; Vice Provost; Head of Interdisciplinary Studies; Head of Humanities and Arts; Director of Composition; Co-director of the graduate program in Rhetoric, Composition, and Linguistics; Director of the Center for Learning and Teaching Excellence; and President of the Academic Senate. At Syracuse University, he served as Director of the Writing Program. At the University of Arizona, he was Founding Director of the graduate program in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English, as well as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of English. He has served as Secretary of the Conference on College Composition and Communication and President of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. Throughout his career, he has written extensively about writing instruction.