Affiliation:
1. The University of Akron, USA
Abstract
The changing dynamics of higher education and societal experiences overall make it critical that higher education faculty and staff understand and embrace the importance of relationship-building and the social emotional needs of their students. The chapter begins by making the argument that teaching—particularly in higher education—should be embraced as a helping profession. A review of the literature on caring and mattering is provided, and social emotional learning strategies are presented to operationalize the constructs of caring and mattering. Five instructional teaching practices and four social teaching practices are described. An overview of the contemporary research about the strategies is presented, and a practical example of how each strategy can be implemented in the college classroom is offered.