Culture of Care in Teaching

The culture of care is a self-assessment survey designed by educational developers at the IU Indianapolis Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) with initial input from more than two hundred faculty members. It is a survey that is organized into five sections that correspond with the cadence of the semester. There are 38-Likert-style questions designed for college-level teachers to document current teaching practices and use as a reflective survey to consider new practices to try. Completing the survey takes approximately 10 minutes. 

College students succeed and thrive in supportive learning environments (Kuh et al., 2005; Felten & Lambert, 2020). Scholarship across higher education, educational psychology, and critical pedagogical traditions emphasizes that relational, caring, and student-centered approaches support learning and well‑being (e.g., Noddings, 1988; Denial, 2024). Shifts in higher education and how teaching and learning is delivered, including the increasing presence of generative AI and online and asynchronous teaching modalities, have weakened the relational components of college classrooms (Borup et al., 2020; Hodges et al., 2020). At the same time, increasing patterns of isolation and mental health struggles among college students can impede their capacity to be successful within and outside the classroom (American College Health Association, 2023; CDC, 2023). The Culture of Care in Teaching framework and its accompanying self‑reflection survey provides an inventory of evidence‑based practices designed to help instructors reflect on the relational elements of their teaching with the goal of enhancing connection and student success. 

Scholarship in higher education, educational psychology, feminist philosophy, and race and resistance studies argues that building relationships is key for student success (Felten & Lambert, 2020), community-responsive education centers relationships, relevance, and responsibility as domains that build and sustain individual well-being of learners (Duncan-Andrade, 2022), and individual educators have an ethical responsibility to create a “climate of care” to promote student belongingness and success (Noddings, 1988). 

More publications that support these ideas have emerged since the onset of this project, inviting faculty to address reflect on kindness for themselves (Denial, 2024) and address their own internal struggles (Norell, 2024), allowing faculty to foster an environment that students can learn in. 

The instrument was piloted in spring 2024 with a group of fifteen instructors from a range of disciplines who were optimistic about the potential of this approach. Since then, approximately seven hundred instructors have completed the survey. 

This IRB-approved research project is being conducted by the Center for Teaching and Learning at IU Indianapolis. The project PI is Marie Brown, Director, Center for Teaching and Learning. Project Co-PI’s are Anusha Rao, Assistant Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, and Christina Downey, Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education.

Faculty and instructional staff who have completed the survey have reported the process of self-reflection to be illuminating. Some have expressed appreciation for the opportunity to reflect upon their teaching practices and to gain new ideas and insights for ongoing improvement. In one exit ticket, respondents were asked to “share 1-2 enhancements that you commit to incorporating into your teaching practice this semester.” Across the qualitative feedback gathered from 37 respondents, the following themes emerged: (1) instructors committed to gathering mid-semester feedback to build trust, improve instruction, and center student voices; (2) instructors sought to incorporate "letters to future students" or "how to succeed" notes to foster metacognitive reflection and offer peer-to-peer advice; and (3) instructors expressed intentions to enhance transparency, accessibility, and communication norms, especially through early course activities and clearly structured check-ins after major assignments or exams.

Regarding the survey itself, faculty have offered the following testimonials:

• Culture of Care Teaching Survey ... made me reflect on my own practices and how to improve.
• I liked the emphasis on caring for students, and how can they present in different ways.
• Really liked the questionnaire that helped provide specificity of strategies and tactics.
• I enjoyed the Culture of Care Teaching Survey, please continue this!
• We want to see our students succeed and one way for that to happen is to make sure that we are constantly reflecting on our teaching practices and resurveying ourselves so that we can be better at our practice.

The “Culture of Care in Teaching” Canvas course is now available through IU Expand. The course delves deeper into the framework and survey and promotes critical reflection about current teaching practices while also validating instructors’ use of teaching practices that are evidence-based. The interactive course provides a framework, strategies, and resources to help instructors make small adjustments to that are likely to enhance the learning experience and promote student engagement and success. The Canvas course also features student and instructor scenarios and includes suggestions for applying the framework in a variety of teaching contexts such as large classroom settings and online teaching. The course takes 2-3 hours to complete. 

Please contact the PI, Marie Brown, for more information about the research project, survey items, and attribution.