As part of Domains21, Lee Skallerup Bessette and Susannah McGowan presented on Taking Care and affective or emotional labor. Skallerup Bessette described the history of the term “emotional labor” and explained how even in academia there is a need to manage emotions. McGowan talked about how they looked into emotional labor as part of faculty development and that this took them down the path of publishing a peer-reviewed article. They talked about the importance of language to mitigate and manage difficult situations during the pandemic. During the pandemic, faculty became vulnerable trying new pedagogies and having to self-reflect in addition to the anxiety of the situation and using new technologies. I certainly had a difficult time dealing with anxiety, stress, and my emotions when interacting with colleagues! The presenters spoke about how they because essential in their role of supporting faculty. The challenges of working from home and the toll of a blurred work/home life was discussed by both presenters. Skallerup Bessette talked about the inequities in workload especially for women and the lack of spaces to openly discuss these issues. McGowan talked about the “pockets of recognition” around campus for conversations, acknowledging the uncertainty of the fall (2021), and self-care instead of just barreling forward. The presenters asked: how do we integrate units, faculty, staff, in conversations about student success? Skallerup Bessette talked about the danger of dismissing conversations about emotion as gendered or stereotyped. They also talked about how this year should focus on healing and being open about the challenges and the emotional consequences of the work we have done and continue to do! What really resonated with me was that the speakers mentioned that revealing emotion and openly discussing managing emotional labor should be incentivized. I had never thought about this and think this is so important. I have felt isolated for being more emotional than others, and I have not spoken about it as openly as I would have liked to…
In another session in OERxDomains21 entitled “Careful Practice: Extending a Framework for Valuing Care in the Open” by Caroline Sinkinson and Merinda Mclure from the University of Colorado Boulder. The presenters started with a land acknowledgement and shared a document for collaborative note taking. Using AnswerGraden, they asked “What comes to mind when you think about educator care for students when designing and implementing open education learning experiences” and gave the audience some time to reflect. I have never used AnswerGarden, and the platform seemed to work well for this session. They displayed quotes about care and the phases of care: caring about, taking care of, care giving, care receiving, and caring with. The last phase emphasizes that both the care giver and the receiver benefit. Sinkinson and McIure used this theory as a foundation to ask: how can we center, communicate, and realize an ethic of care in our open education work? The presenters shared quotes and research highlighting how to value care in the open. The framework they designed includes attentiveness, responsibility, competency, responsiveness, and integrity values they decided to focus on. For each value, they added a question. I love this! The prompts are designed to encourage reflection. One example they shared of an educator reflection is reproduced below:
How might you support learners in seeing themselves as valued voices in the commons and as creators and co-creators of knowledge?
Caroline Sinkinson and Merinda Mclure, OER x Domains 21
Caroline Sinkinson and Merinda Mclure mentioned that the framework continues to be developed. I want to learn more about it! I agree with some of the attendees and feel it is important that students are able to reflect and belong to this community. Sinkinson explained how listening to and providing space to learn who our learners are critical. Attentiveness and moral obligation to learning from students were also mentioned as important components. I do believe being attentive is not only good pedagogy, but also an opportunity to learn and create with participants in a way that meets their needs. We can only do this by gathering information from students in the courses we teach! I used to feel reflections were not that important. I now learn more from student notes and reflections than some assessments I use.
