ABSTRACT

Tutors provide sound feedback, but students sometimes struggle to comprehend or retain it due to nervous system dysregulation and challenges with executive function. This module introduces nine coregulatory methods to help students access best learning states and improve sessions. Coregulatory tutoring is a framework that integrates nervous system regulation into writing center pedagogy to support student comprehension and engagement by fostering safety and playfulness. 

Tutors begin by reflecting on how their own writing changes when they are calm versus stressed, and they identify personal regulation strategies like music, lighting, or movement. In the PowerPoint pre-reading, tutors learn the theory of coregulation, with opportunities to explore the concepts more thoroughly in “Deeper Dive” slides, including limits and cautions. Then tutors learn to recognize dysregulation in students and practice using corresponding interventions—for example, mirroring a student’s expression to attune; labeling emotions (“Is that confusion I see?”); or reframing through humor (“Don’t worry—you’re not the worst writer; that’s my title”). Training concludes with another discussion and opportunities for ongoing practice such as roleplay.

CONTENTS

TRAINING DETAILS

LESSON OVERVIEW

Major breakthroughs in resilience studies on coregulation and Nervous System Regulation (NSR) have revolutionized education practices. Writing centers are well positioned to benefit because their pedagogical models already rely on coregulatory interactions. Although writing center administrators may not know the science behind what we do, our best models intuitively begin with building a rapport, one of the most important tools of coregulation. 

This lesson unites the basics of coregulation (Crouch et al. 2018; Flory et al. 2023) with writing center literature (Costello 2021; Giaimo 2021; Mack 2012; Manon 2021; Mattingly et al. 2021), then adds and categorizes additional coregulatory tools in a practical, usable way. In short, this module gives recognition and vocabulary for the labor our tutors are already doing in sessions—specifically, emotional labor.

This lesson also provides scientific grounding to help tutors support students in reaching a parasympathetic nervous system state so that (1) they are receptive to constructive feedback and (2) they can access the executive function to comprehend the feedback and apply it.

Training includes a pre-read (30 minutes) and a discussion during orientation (30-60 minutes), and tutors are expected to practice these skills in their tutoring and with each other throughout the academic term. Optional components include a quiz, a feedback challenge, and a roleplay exercise. Tutors typically receive the lesson with great interest and become reflective about their own nervous system states. This lesson is especially helpful for tutors new to U.S. culture and academic norms, tutors who are neurodivergent, tutors with a background of trauma, and tutors who simply feel socially awkward or struggle to regulate their own mental states.

LEARNING OUTCOMES/OBJECTIVES

Tutors will be able to

1. explain how nervous system regulation relates to executive function, particularly comprehension; 
2. identify the best states for learning and writing;
3. define and describe coregulation;
4. recognize signs of dysregulation in students;
5. apply methods (tools) for coregulating a student’s mental state and comprehension; and
6. understand when directness or indirectness is effective for students with neurodivergence, history of trauma, and various cultural backgrounds

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN

PRE-WORK

INTRODUCTION

Assess and engage prior knowledge (2 minutes)

Begin by asking tutors how many have heard of terms like regulation, coregulation, ACES, sympathetic and parasympathetic modes, and so on. Invite tutors to share their personal strategies for regulation. Most are slightly familiar and will volunteer ways they pay attention to these things for themselves. This discussion anchors the lesson with their lived experience and their uses of nervous system regulation across a spectrum of daily systems.

If tutors need clarification of definitions, encourage them to look up information and crowdsource a list of definitions. When tutors are involved in constructing your center’s knowledge base, they learn it better. Here is a “cheat sheet” for you:

• Nervous system regulation: the appropriate physical and emotional state to match one’s surroundings (whether it’s an emergency state or a calm state)
• Dysregulation: unconsciously engaging a nervous system state that is inappropriate for the situation—for example, a fight or flight response while writing a paper
• Sympathetic mode: an autonomic physical and emotional response to threat (fight, flight, freeze, fawn)
• Parasympathetic mode: an autonomic physical and emotional response to safety
• Coregulation: synchronizing nervous systems and bringing a dysregulated system into regulation
• ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences Study): a long-term study by the Center for Disease Control tracking the impact of trauma on lifelong health and learning outcomes
• Directness/indirectness: different levels of politeness and ambiguity that may prompt uneasiness or safety, depending on the learner’s background

BODY OF LESSON

Discussion (20-40 minutes)

Startup

Nervous System Regulation

Emotional Regulation

Conclusion 

Summary (1 minute)

Tell the tutors, “Comprehension is an important executive function that diminishes under dysregulation, so a major part of our job is keeping our students regulated to make sure they’re getting the most out of their tutoring sessions.”

Application (10-20 minutes)

Invite tutors to think about how they can begin to implement this kind of model for themselves by checking in on their own nervous systems. Write their answers on the board. Next, pose a challenge to make the whole writing center more conducive for nervous system regulation. For my writing center, at the start of every meeting, I give a quick “brain function” check where tutors assess how regulated they are (using a simple thumbs-up or down system). We engage in mirroring and validating each of the responses that come up so that it is a center-wide practice. For example, if someone gives a thumbs-down (or a half-thumbs-down), I pause and ask if they are ok sharing. When they explain their stressors, the rest of the tutors and I empathize and validate. This regular practice sets the tone for all the interactions in the center, and the grad students tell me they carry the “brain function” check over to the classes they teach as well. 

I’ve designed my entire management model on these principles (tutors and I hope to co-write an article on it this year). Tutors also begin to track how their own nervous system dysregulation impedes their own comprehension levels and speak openly about it in meetings. They are encouraged to pick their favorite seating and sensory fidgets during meetings to optimize their calm and focus. 

As they adjust to this kind of meta-cognition regarding their own regulation and mental state, they automatically come to provide it for learners who visit for tutoring. Realistically, I expect that this carries over into their personal relationships as well.

ASSESSING FOR UNDERSTANDING

Assessment Option 1: Quiz (10 minutes)

"Coregulatory Tutoring and Comprehension" quiz

Check mastery of these concepts with the attached quiz. The answer key is included in the PDF.

Assessment Option 2 (Advanced): New Application Challenge (20 minutes)

Evaluate learning by having tutors apply the framework they just learned to a new context or topic. 

Ask, “Having learned about nervous system regulation, safety and playfulness, and directness/indirectness, what are different ways you might handle giving feedback to students?” Have them work in groups for 10 minutes to create suggestions, then report back to the whole group. Write answers on the board and engage with their ideas (10 minutes).

Here are some examples from my last training of the kind of answers tutors volunteered, and then we ranked them from indirect to indirect. These tutors have been using the NSR model for a few years, so their answers may be a little advanced:

Feedback (ranked from indirect to direct)

Connect to lesson (2 minutes)

Ask them how they know which method to go with. Good answers might include these:

• Start indirect and work up to being more direct.
• Pay attention to how the student has been interacting to know how direct or playful they should be.
• Consider offering kind and gentle directness to students with neurodivergence, traumatic histories, or different cultural backgrounds. 
• Encourage tutors to use their judgment when deciding how playful or how safe they should make it.

Costello, K. M. (2021). Naming and negotiating the emotional labors of writing center tutoring. In G. N. Giaimo (Ed.), Wellness and care in writing center work: A WLN digital edited collection (Chapter 2). WLN.

Crouch, E., Radcliff, E., Strompolis, M., & Srivastav, A. (2018). Safe, stable, and nurtured: Protective factors against poor physical and mental health outcomes following exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 12(2), 165–173.

Flory, S., Guglielmini, S., Scholkmann, F., Marcar, V. L., & Wolf, M. (2023). How our hearts beat together: A study on physiological synchronization based on a self-paced joint motor task. Scientific Reports, 13(1), Article 11987.

Giaimo, G. N. (Ed.). (2021). Wellness and care in writing center work: A WLN digital edited collection. Pressbooks. https://ship.pressbooks.pub/writingcentersandwellness/front-matter/table-of-contents/

Mack, E. (2012). Emotion and affect in writing centers. In M. Nicholas & R. W. H. Simpson (Eds.), Theories and methods of writing center studies (pp. 43–60). Utah State University Press.

Mannon, B. (2021). Centering the emotional labor of writing tutors. The Writing Center Journal, 39(1-2), 143–168.

Mattingly, M., Helakoski, C., Lundberg, C., & Walz, K. (2021). Cultivating an emotionally intelligent writing center culture online. In G. N. Giaimo (Ed.), Wellness and care in writing center work: A WLN digital edited collection. Pressbooks.

FURTHER READING

Stanford, N. E. (in press). In Prometheus’ lab: Designing a writing center visual/spatial layout for nervous system regulation. WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship. 

This exercise would fit in CRLA Level 1 certification training. Ideally, this would take place as part of the required tutor-trainer led, interactive, synchronous (TIS) component in combination with discussion or even role-play. It may, however, also be administered asynchronously including the required reflection piece.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To the tutors at the UL Writing Lab—thank you for coregulating me every time I walk in those glass doors.

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Nichole E. Stanford

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Nichole E. Stanford, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of English in Rhetoric and Composition and director of the Writing Lab at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Having served on the board of a brain health organization, Stanford studies nervous system dysregulation issues in composition. Other research areas include theories of dissent, linguistic justice, and Cajun English. Stanford examines the linguicism built into the U.S. education system in Good God but You Smart! Language Prejudice and Upwardly Mobile Cajuns. Connecting with her community’s history, Stanford takes Acadian post-deportation linguicide as a case study of U.S. colonial classroom practices, concluding that the victors wrote the history books, then wrote the grammar books.

Stanford, Center Moves, no. 5, 2026.