A Welcome Space For Taking Risks

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A welcome space for taking risks

Psychological safety creates a positive climate for learning

By Shannon Wanless and Dana Winters

August 2018

Vol. 39 No. 4

Have you noticed that the same professional learning can be transformative in one school yet have seemingly no impact in another? There are a lot of reasons for that difference, and many of them have to do with the climate for teacher learning in the school. Just as a teacher creates a classroom learning climate that can promote student learning, a school leader can create a climate for teacher learning. Some of the social and emotional components of that adult learning climate are strikingly similar to key components of the classroom learning climate. Warm and authentic relationships with others, access to trusted peers to scaffold and validate learning, and opportunities to take risks and make mistakes without ridicule help us all learn, no matter whether

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Authors

Shannon Wanless and Dana Winters

Shannon Wanless (swanless@pitt.edu) is director of the Office of Child Development and associate professor of psychology in education at the University of Pittsburgh School of Education.
Dana Winters (dana.winters@stvincent.edu) is director of Simple Interactions and academic programs at Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media and assistant professor of child and family studies at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATORS LEARN ABOUT MATH

In a National Science Foundation-funded project, early education teachers used Simple Interactions to improve their teaching of math and social-emotional skills. The teachers learned to engage with children using Peg + Cat, an animated math-based PBS television show accompanied by games and resources. They also participated in Simple Interactions learning sessions that included video clips of them working with children on the math resources.

Reflecting on the experience, one teacher said, “I learned from seeing myself up there that what I am doing is what I am supposed to be doing. It’s so different to see yourself doing something positive. It’s a good thing.”

A school director said, “It was so nice to know that what we do is validated. … What we do does matter.” This group of educators, from four different schools, did not know each other before the project but were able to use the safety and trust built within the group to explore practices and learn from one another.

References

Akiva, T., Li, J., Martin, K.M., Horner, C.G., & McNamara, A.R. (2016). Simple Interactions: Piloting a strengths-based and interaction-based professional development intervention for out-of-school time programs. Child & Youth Care Forum, 46(30), 285-305.

Coyle, D. (2018). The culture code: The secrets of highly successful groups. New York, NY: Bantam.

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Edmondson, A.C. & Roloff, K.S. (2009). Overcoming barriers to collaboration: Psychological safety and learning in diverse teams. In E. Salas, G.F. Goodwin, & C.S. Burke, Team effectiveness in complex organizations: Cross-disciplinary perspectives and approaches. New York, NY: Routledge.

Foldy, E.G., Rivard, P., & Buckley, T.R. (2009). Power, safety, and learning in racially diverse groups. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 8(1), 25-41.

Pascale, R., Sternin, J., & Sternin, M. (2010). The power of positive deviance: How unlikely innovators solve the world’s toughest problems. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.

Wanless, S.B. (2018, June). Psychological safety as an element of readiness to implement. In K. Maxwell (Chair), “Readiness for Change” in early learning: What is it? How do we measure it? And what are we learning? Symposium at the National Research Conference in Early Childhood, Washington, D.C.

Wanless, S.B. (2016). The role of psychological safety in human development. Research in Human Development, 13(1), 6-14.

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