Responding with empathy Think of listening as a whole body response: not just hearing, but reading non-verbal cues and responding with empathy.

What is empathy? Sensing other people s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.

To be empathic, you have to try to see a situation from another person s viewpoint. Some students may appear unreasonable but they re probably just reacting to the situation with the knowledge and experience they have.

Once you ve seen this, acknowledge it even if you don t agree with it, you can accept their right to feel the way that they do.

Watch It

Click here to see a video of a UEL staff member demonstrating empathy in a 1:1 discussion with a student.

Click here for some examples of how to respond with empathy.Read It

Behaviours to avoid

By offering students choices and giving them active control in making decisions that affect them, we can encourage them to move from passive to active learning. We can support their reflections in making their own decisions and setting their own goals.

Sometimes experiences of trauma can make people feel that they have been robbed of their own power. Some come to believe that they have little control over their own lives, and can lose the motivation to try to change things. Therefore, this can be a barrier to some students accessing the support they need.

Choice and Control: To have the power to make their own decisions,manage and determine their own lives.

Ask yourself: How can you enable students to make choices and exercise control over their studies?Try it

The term learned helplessness is credited to Prof Martin Seligman. Click here to read his original 1972 paper.Read It

Learned helplessness can create a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop that can inhibit achievement

in education and across life.

This feeling of being stuck can be conceptualised as learned

helplessness . Steps to

take

Click here to listen to one student s experience of choice and control Listen