LEARNING OUTCOMES
- Define and differentiate between trust and psychological safety.
- Explain student-related factors that promote a sense of psychological safety.
- Describe steps that can be taken by teachers to promote psychological safety in the classroom.
- Describe school policies that promote psychological safety.
Module introductiON
It is crucial that all levels of the school community work together to create a mutual sense of trust and psychological safety. This means that these qualities should exist both between teachers and students in the classroom and between teachers and their school leaders including the principal, assistant principal, and head teachers [1, 2]. When all school community members feel supported and safe, they are more likely to work collaboratively towards common goals and contribute to a healthy and productive learning environment. Additionally, when there is a shared sense of trust and psychological safety, conflicts can be resolved more effectively, and communication is improved [3]. Students are also more likely to feel comfortable expressing themselves and taking positive risks in their learning [4].
For children who are exposed to high levels of adversity, trust and psychological safety are a priority [5]. Refugee children, for example, often have difficulties feeling safe and secure in their daily lives. Where children’s lives outside of school are marked by great uncertainty, it is essential that their school community can be regarded as a safe space for them. Building trust and psychological safety in the classroom can help these children feel more secure and supported, thus positively impacting their academic and personal success [6].
Trust and psychological safety are also essential in maintaining relationships between teachers and school leaders, particularly in high-stress environments. In these situations, it can be easy for tension and conflicts to arise, which can have a negative impact on the entire school community. When teachers and school leaders have a shared sense of trust and psychological safety, they are better equipped to work together to find solutions to problems and promote a positive school culture. By creating an environment of trust and psychological safety, teachers and school leaders can model healthy communication, problem-solving, and conflict resolution, which can have a positive impact on the entire school community [7, 8].
References
1. Shahid, S. & Din, M. Fostering psychological safety in teachers: The role of school leadership, team effectiveness & organizational culture. International Journal of Educational Leadership and Management [Internet]. 2021 Jul [cited 2023 Apr 5];9(2):122-49. Available from:
https://www.hipatiapress.com/hpjournals/index.php/ijelm/article/view/6317 DOI: 10.17583/ijelm.2021.6317
2. Wanless, SB. The role of psychological safety in human development. Res Hum Dev [Internet]. 2016 Mar [cited 2023 Apr 5];13(1):6-14. Available from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15427609.2016.1141283
DOI: 10.1080/15427609.2016.1141283
3. Newman A, Donohue R, Eva N. Psychological safety: A systematic review of the literature. Hum Resour Manag Rev [Internet]. 2017 Sep [cited 2023 Apr 5];27(3):521-35. Available from:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053482217300013 DOI: 10.1016/j.hrmr.2017.01.001
4. Tu X. The role of classroom culture and psychological safety in EFL students’ engagement. Front Psychol [Internet]. 2021 Sep [cited 2023 Apr 5];12:1-5. Available from:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.760903
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.760903
5. Veck W, Wharton J. Refugee children, trust and inclusive school cultures. Int J Incl Educ [Internet]. 2021 [cited 2023 Apr 5];25(2):210-23. Available from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13603116.2019.1707304?journalCode=tied20 DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2019.1707304
6. Borsch AS, Vitus K, Skovdal M. School caringscapes: Understanding how time and space shape refugee and immigrant adolescents’ caring practices and wellbeing in Danish schools. Wellbeing Space Soc [Internet]. 2021 [cited 2023 Apr 5];2:1-11. Available from:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666558120300014 DOI: 10.1016/j.wss.2020.100001
7. Dollard MF, Tuckey MR, Dormann C. Psychosocial safety climate moderates the job demand–resource interaction in predicting workgroup distress. Accid Anal Prev [Internet]. 2012 Mar [cited 2023 Apr 5];45:694-704. Available from:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000145751100279X DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2011.09.042
8. Kim S, Lee H, Connerton TP. How psychological safety affects team performance: Mediating role of efficacy and learning behavior. Front Psychol [Internet]. 2020 Jul [cited 2023 Apr 5];11:1-15. Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01581
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01581
KEY CONCEPTs
5.1 What Are Trust and Psychological Safety?
Trust and psychological safety are important concepts that are fundamental to building a healthy and effective learning environment. To start, we will watch two videos that delve into these concepts. The first video will differentiate between trust and psychological safety and explain how they are related. The second video will focus more on the concept of psychological safety and highlight the value that it can add to classrooms by illustrating what happens when psychological safety is high or low.
Now that you have watched the videos on trust and psychological safety, it's time to consolidate your new knowledge with a short quiz. Don't worry if you need time to grasp these concepts, as the purpose of the quiz is to help you recall and review the key concepts covered in the videos. Good luck, and let's get started!
Great job! You have completed the quiz on trust and psychological safety. We hope it helped you to reinforce your understanding of these concepts. Remember that trust and psychological safety are crucial in building healthy and productive relationships in personal, educational, and professional settings. By cultivating these qualities, you can create an environment where people feel comfortable expressing themselves and taking risks, which can lead to better communication and more positive outcomes.
5.2 How Can Psychological Safety Be Promoted?
Now that we have explored the concepts of trust and psychological safety, we will focus on how these qualities can be fostered in the classroom. In the following four short videos, we will examine factors that promote students' psychological safety, as well as explore how teachers can promote psychological safety through physical settings, emotional climate, and psychological culture. By the end of this section, you will have a better understanding of how to create a classroom environment where students feel safe to express themselves and take risks.
Promoting Trust and Psychological Safety In Action
In this section, we will explore dialog cards that illustrate how trust and psychological safety can look like in action in the classroom. Each card features a specific scenario that highlights how trust and psychological safety can be fostered in a classroom environment. Flip them around to better understand how each example can promote trust or psychological safety among children!
We hope that these dialog cards have provided you with practical examples of how to promote trust and psychological safety in your classroom. By implementing strategies such as providing a safe physical environment, creating a supportive emotional climate, and establishing a positive psychological culture, you can create a learning environment where students feel comfortable expressing themselves and taking risks. Remember that building trust and psychological safety takes time and effort, but the benefits of doing so are well worth it. By fostering a sense of trust and psychological safety in your classroom, you can help your students to develop a love of learning and reach their full potential.
5.3 What Can Schools Do To Promote Psychological Safety?
In addition to promoting psychological safety for students, it's important to create a psychologically safe work environment for teachers as well. In this video, we will explore what schools can do to promote psychological safety for their teachers. We will examine the impact of a psychologically safe work environment on teachers' well-being, job satisfaction, and performance, and explore specific strategies that schools can implement to create such an environment.
5.4 Learning Together: Promoting Psychological Safety For Students and Teachers
To conclude this module, our team has designed two group learning activities that will allow participants to engage with the content we have covered and reflect on how they can apply these concepts to their own teaching practice. These activities are designed to help them understand psychological safety and discuss steps that they can take as teachers and school leaders to promote psychological safety for the whole school community. We hope that these activities will inspire your participants to create a learning environment that is safe, supportive, and empowering for all students and teachers.
Activity 1: Can I Do It?
In ‘Can I Do It?’ participants will have the opportunity to practise responding to scenarios that reflect real-life situations that students may experience in the classroom. Through roleplay, they will explore the different ways that a teacher’s response can impact a student’s sense of psychological safety. Afterward, they will engage in a group discussion to reflect on their experience as a student and teacher and explore steps for promoting psychological safety in the classroom. This activity is designed to help participants deepen their understanding of psychological safety and develop practical skills for creating a safe and supportive learning environment for all students.
CAN I DO IT?
As a facilitator, your role in this activity is to guide participants through a roleplay exercise in which they try different ways of responding to students. You will help participants explore how a teacher's response can impact a student's sense of psychological safety. After the roleplay, you will lead a group discussion to help participants reflect on their experiences as both students and teachers and work together to identify strategies for promoting psychological safety in the classroom.
1. Divide your participants into pairs and explain that they will be roleplaying two different ways of responding to a student who is feeling distressed. One participant will roleplay as the teacher, and the other will roleplay as the distressed student.
2. Divide your participants into pairs and explain that they will be roleplaying two different ways of responding to a student who is feeling distressed. One participant will roleplay as the teacher, and the other will roleplay as the distressed student.
3. Present the scenario in the image slider below and the two ways of responding to the student. Scenario A will be a response that is unlikely to create a sense of trust and psychological safety, while Scenario B will be a response that will. Each pair will roleplay both ways of responding to the scenario, but they will switch roles when they move on to the next option.
4. Facilitate a post-roleplay discussion. Help participants reflect on their experience during the roleplay activity and identify effective strategies for promoting psychological safety for their students.
● How did you feel when you roleplayed Scenario A and Scenario B?
● Did you have similar experiences when you were a student? What responses from your teacher did you find helpful or not helpful?
● Have you practised any methods to promote psychological safety in your class? What was the outcome?
●Based on the videos earlier, what other ways can you promote psychological safety in your classroom?
Activity 2: Creating Psychological Safety From Dream to Reality
In ‘Creating Psychological Safety From Dream to Reality’, participants will collaborate to create a list of strategies for promoting psychological safety in the school community. Through small group discussions, participants will map potential strategies and resources required to promote psychological safety. In a follow-up plenary discussion, participants will evaluate the feasibility of each strategy and work towards a collective commitment to implement them. By the end of the activity, participants will have an actionable plan for promoting psychological safety in their school community.
CREATING PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY FROM DREAM TO REALITY
As a facilitator, you will first guide participants through a strategy mapping exercise in small groups. You will help participants identify potential strategies for creating a psychologically safe school environment for both teachers and students and discuss what resources are needed for implementation. You will encourage participants to share their input and document the strategies discussed. Afterwards, you will facilitate a plenary discussion to prioritise and refine their suggested strategies and determine what is feasible for implementation. Your role is to create a safe and inclusive space for participants to share their ideas and opinions, and to help guide the group towards actionable solutions that will promote psychological safety in their school.
1. Divide participants into groups of three to four participants. Explain to your participants that the aim of this activity is to create a list of potential strategies for promoting psychological safety in their school - either in terms of what they can do individually or collectively as a school community.
2. With the following prompts, encourage your participants to share their ideas for potential strategies that can be used to promote psychological safety in their school. Write down each idea on its own piece of coloured paper.
● What can the school do to promote teachers’ psychological wellbeing timely and constructively? What resources does this require from the teachers, school, and others?
● What can I do to promote psychological safety in my classroom? What resources does this require from the teachers, school, and others?
3. Once everyone has shared, regroup in the plenary with all participants at the end of this discussion.
1. Explain that as a follow-up to the strategy-mapping exercise, you will now guide them in assessing the feasibility of their ideas in order to change their dream list into a realistic list of strategies to promote psychological safety.
2. Inform your participants that you will be going through each idea of theirs that was written on coloured paper. Encourage your participants to think from the perspective of school administrators, school leaders, and teachers when they are assessing the feasibility of each strategy. As you go through each idea individually, ask your participants to determine how possible it is. They should say 'possible' or 'not possible' to indicate their opinion. If they feel strongly about their opinion, they can say so louder.
3. Based on the responses, stick the coloured paper on the whiteboard prepared, higher up on the board if it's more possible, and lower down on the board if it's less possible. Ensure that different parts of the board are labelled accordingly, for example, “Most possible/Most realistic” and “Least possible/Least realistic.”
4. Discuss each idea in more detail, and ask participants to explain their reasoning.
5. Encourage participants to work together to refine the strategies. For example, if a strategy is initially considered not possible, ask if there are ways to make it more feasible. After discussing all the ideas, encourage participants to identify the top strategies that they feel are most feasible and will have the most significant impact on creating a psychologically safe environment for the school.
6. Conclude the activity by sharing the final list of strategies with the participants and encouraging them to implement them. Remind them that the team will check in after a month to see whether there are any barriers to implementation.
At the end of the training session...
Demonstrate care for your participants’ views
Your participants’ views about the topic and training are valuable and can inform how future training modules are delivered. Conclude the training session by gathering verbal feedback – don’t forget to record these in writing!
● What new information did they learn during the training that they did not know before?
● In what ways do they think this topic will be useful for them in their work with students?
● What is their most valuable takeaway from the training?
Be sure to also collect your participants’ responses to the post-test and training evaluation form for more structured monitoring and evaluation!