Trauma-informed teaching integrates awareness of trauma’s impact into educational practices to foster safety, trust, and empowerment among learners (SAMHSA, 2014; Pink, 2024). 

Note. Created with AI using Gemini Advanced (Google, 2025) with the prompt “the 4Rs of Trauma Informed Teaching.” 

Realize the widespread impact of trauma

• Affects individuals across all demographics  & care settings. 

**Teaching parallel: Nurse Educators must realize that many students carry trauma histories: personal, professional, systemic. Learning environments must be built with this awareness in mind.

Recognize signs and symptoms in learners

• Understand the signs and symptoms of trauma, which may manifest as behavioral, emotional, or physical responses.

**Teaching Parallel: Recognize that disengagement, perfectionism or emotional withdrawal may be trauma responses, not a lack of motivation. These behaviours require curiosity, not correction. 

Respond with trauma-informed practices

• Use trauma-informed teaching principles to shape interactions, policies & environments.

**Teaching parallel: Respond by embedding safety, trust, flexibility, and choice into curriculum design, feedback practices, and classroom norms.

Resist Re-traumatization 

• Avoid actions or environments that may re-trigger trauma, whether intentional or not. 

**Teaching parallel: Resist re-traumatization by eliminating punitive grading, public shaming, or rigid expectations. Create space for mistakes, reflection, and repair.

(SAMHSA, 2014; Pink, 2024)

Graduate nursing students are at high risk for trauma exposure due to clinical demands and personal stressors (Aktan et al., 2023).

• Trauma-informed education improves retention, engagement, and well-being (Aktan et al., 2023).

• Over 50% of U.S. adults report childhood trauma; rates are higher among marginalized groups (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2021).

• Nearly half of college students experience a potentially traumatizing event in their first year (Galatzer-Levy et al., 2012).

• Trauma-informed practice benefits all learners by fostering inclusive, flexible, and emotionally safe learning environments (Gunderson et al., 2023).

Learners thrive when expectations are clear, autonomy is respected, and feedback is constructive (McClintock et al., 2021).

• Unsafe environments, dismissed questions, and unclear roles are rarely repaired without intentional action (McClintock et al., 2021).

• Educators must model relational, inclusive, and emotionally attuned teaching practices.

• Safety, trust, and transparency are foundational to trauma-informed classrooms (CDC, n.d.).

• Pre-semester surveys and regular check-ins help educators understand learners’ needs and foster connection (Gunderson et al., 2023).

• Offering choices in assignments, flexible deadlines, and trigger warnings signals care and empowers learners (Gunderson et al., 2023).

• Instructor vulnerability: sharing challenges or emotions can build trust and model emotional regulation (Gunderson et al., 2023).