We found 976 results that contain "student wellness"

The context of today... Pandemic + Social Justice Crisis 
this means.. Greater Inequity in the Classroom such as:

access to adequate technology
financial impacts
health and safety concerns
emotional impacts

in turn impacting: belonging, ability to focus, balancing responsibilities, etc.



We are all feeling the weight of inconsistency and uncertainty. We must acknowledge what this means for our students, and particularly our students who hold marginalized identities.  What is "diversity, equity, and inclusion"?

Diversity is a characteristic of a group of people where differences exist on one or more relevant dimensions

this means respecting and valuing people’s differences and treating them with the appropriate respect and dignity.




Equity is the quality of being fair and impartial

meaning everyone has the opportunity to be successful




Inclusion is a measure of culture that enables diversity to thrive


making sure people feel comfortable being themselves in the space, their identity is honored, they feel like they belong and do not have to assimilate in order to achieve this




Why should I care about DEI? The impact of belonging is linked to increased persistence, student satisfaction, and well-being. In our context, a student’s sense of belonging is related to improved retention, graduation rates, etc. 

building belonging how?

Positive interactions with diverse peers
Peer mentoring, staff care & support
Attention to campus climate

read "How Colleges Can Cultivate Students’ Sense of Belonging" by Becki Supiano from The Chronicle of Higher Education for more

Take some time to reflect on your educator identity. What groups are you a part of? What identities do you think about most often? How about those you think about the least? Why might you think more about some of your group identities than others? What experiences lead you to think about the identities that are most salient for you? Which of these identities show up most often when you teach? Least often?
Source: Borkoski, C., Prosser, S.K., (2020) Engaging faculty in service-learning: opportunities and barriers to promoting our public mission. Tert Educ Manag 26, 39–55.
Cover Photo by Sam Balye on Unsplash

This resource provides a comprehensive list of benefits for MSU employees and students.

Shivam Bajaj conducted a survey with graduate students regarding their recycling habits and attitudes towards sustainable behavior that individuals can take part in. Shivam's presentation gives a valuable insight into how he approached, planned, and executed his project within the context of the Leadership Academy and within the eight-week timeframe. In addition to covering the stakeholders involved in MSU's recycling infrastructure, Shivam discusses the steps he took to spread awareness about the benefits of recycling as well as helpful tips for utilizing MSU's recycling services. 
 

 
“It’s not what you know, but who you know.” is one of the largest colloquialisms when it comes to career trajectory. In addition, a big part of attending higher education is to help propel student careers. While we may want to prepare students by just giving them the necessary knowledge for their future endeavors, we should also strive to take this time to help establish connections and reasonable paths forward for them as well.   
 
Engagement/Participation:
Student engagement is defined by how actively and enthusiastically students are involved in the learning process during class.  Meanwhile, participation refers to actual involvement of the students. So, it is possible for:  

A student may participate and not be engaged,
Or a student to be engaged but not participate.

This is important to consider when defining your pedagogical approach to classroom engagement and participation, and how you define it within your class. If you plan to award student participation, or your class heavily relies on discussion and active student engagement, you may even want to provide these definitions in the syllabus.
 
However, you may not directly explain these ideas and instead focus on whether ask these questions of your syllabus:

Does your teaching style facilitate your views of participation/engagement?
Is your syllabus communicating whether you want students to participate?
Is the syllabus itself engaging for students?
Do your assessments reflect your goals for participation/engagement?
In what ways is your syllabus contributing to student participation and engagement?

 
Peer-to-peer Interaction 
Students working together is crucial for learning and development. It helps students build necessary social skills, establish relationships between current/future colleagues, increases active participation and engagement and often increases student self-efficacy towards the course topic.
 
Therefore, it is encouraged that you construct course materials that facilitate peer-to-peer interactions and foster some sense of community within your classroom. As far as what to include in the syllabus, you should specify what types of activities you will hold that require peer-to-peer interactions, and what expectations you have of students during these interactions.
 
For example, the syllabus may contain:

A list of classroom rules that you or your class develops:

Developing them yourself lets you be in control of exactly what values you want accentuated in your class.  
Developing them as a class can communicate that students have autonomy over their learning and increase classroom engagement.  


Examples of peer-discussion techniques you use:

Whole Group Discussions:  

Ask your class to consider a question/topic and facilitate a group discussion on the topic, allowing students to speak freely and challenge one another.


Think-Pair-Share:

Ask students to individually consider a question/topic, discuss it with a partner, then share their insights with the whole class.


Mingle-Pair-Share:

Similar to think-pair-share, except students can move freely about the class and have discussions with multiple students.


Discussion Groups:

Breaking students into smaller groups to hold discussions on a question/topic, which can then be brought into larger group discussions.


Jigsaw:

Break down a larger topic into smaller pieces and allow each group to focus on an individual piece to share out in a whole class discussion.


Collaborative Assignments:

Students work together in small groups to develop material specified by a rubric or find solutions to laid out problems.


Socratic Seminar:

This is an open discussion based on an assigned set of readings. Instead of generating a question or specific topic you want students to consider, just allow them to openly discuss the material and explore at their own pace.





                               
There are numerous other ways you may facilitate peer-to-peer relationships and communication, but however you choose to do so, it is helpful to communicate that to students upfront and through the syllabus.
 
 
Instructor-Student Interaction:
Fair or not, how students reflect on course material, or a specific subject, largely depends on their (impression of)/ (relationship with) their teacher. For this reason, it’s important to have a positive relationship between an instructor and their student. The syllabus, again especially as a first impression, can help facilitate this relationship and help an instructor feel more approachable. For this reason, it’s important that your syllabus:

Sets a welcoming/positive tone:

Clearly communicate your enthusiasm for the course and the students participating.
Set expectations but don’t dictate them.
Include words with positive connotations

As an example, instead of describing student work as “acceptable” consider saying it is “valid” or “commendable”


Avoid negatives (such as “do not” or “unable to” as much as possible)


Encourages engagement:

You’ve explained what types of engagement you’re looking for, but now it is important to encourage that from students. To do so:

Give examples of your interactive content.
Engage in storytelling by sharing personal details you feel comfortable sharing.
Ask for and encourage student feedback.
Be authentic.




Promotes your own availability:

One of the leading reasons students don’t attend office hours is because they feel they are “awkward.” To break through this barrier, you might:

Explain the value office hours provide students:

Promote the benefits such as improved understanding and better test scores.
Highlight success stories


Offer flexible scheduling for office hours.
Consider Location/Modality:

Are you available via video or only in-person?
If in-person, where are you available to meet and how accessible is that to the students?


Set one-on-one meetings during the semester.

These can be informal and short to get students familiar with the process, or perhaps there is a specific purpose tied to the meeting.







 
Students who feel more comfortable with their instructor tend to perform significantly better in a course and have a stronger sense of confidence in their own ability. Fostering this relationship is one of the most crucial for the educator to create a positive classroom environment.
 
Provide Connections:
With the goal in mind that students attend college to increase career success, it is important to use our abilities and connections to help them achieve it. This will appear vastly different depending on the field of study, and possible career paths, but here are some forms this may take:
 
Connect students with other faculty: Perhaps another member of the department or institution you know has better connections that align with a student’s career aims, or areas of interest.
 
Have guest speakers: You can’t know everything, and having a guest speaker can help students gain exposure to the community around the topic they’re studying and form meaningful connections with them.
 
Utilize connections in the field: You more than likely studied this material at your own university/had a job in the field. Consider connecting students to relevant contacts or having them be a guest speaker.
 
Ask Alumni: If you’ve had students who have gone into the field, especially if you’ve stayed in contact with them, consider having them be a guest speaker or asking them to explain how your class helped prepare them for industry. What types of things could you change in your class to help make this transition more effective?
 

When I first started teaching high school, a student in my school was found dead, a suspected victim of suicide  We were given a letter to read to the students that detailed who had passed away and what had happened. The student who had died had not been one of my students, nor were any of my students’ particularly close with them, yet this incident affected me deeply. I was powerfully reminded that my students had just as many challenges as I did; likely, they had many more than I was even vaguely aware of. Throughout the rest of that school year, I continued to learn, at different points, about not only students’ academic but also non-academic struggles. Student challenges ranged from heartbreak and self-esteem issues to serious mental health issues and difficult home lives.
 
I don’t teach high school anymore, and thankfully I haven’t faced any more student deaths, but my students here at Michigan State still have challenges. They’re just different ones. Since I teach a math class commonly taken by freshmen and sophomores, I encounter students that are often in the middle of the difficult transition from high school to college and are dealing with the personal problems associated with this new phase in life. I have often felt a responsibility to do what I can to help my students with their challenges. My ability to help is limited (for example, I am not a counselor or social worker), but I have found there are some things I can do.  In this post, I’ll share some reasons I’ve found to care about student challenges and why colleges and universities nationwide are recognizing the importance of supporting teachers and academic staff in providing a safer, more welcoming environment for students. I will share some ways you can  recognize and respond to challenges that your students face, and will share some resources available to you to help students at Michigan State.
Why Do We Care?
With the ever-increasing educational demands on the American workforce, colleges and universities, including Michigan State, are taking more of an interest in students’ non-academic challenges. These challenges often affect students’ academic performance, and influence graduation and retention rates. Some may ask, though, why we should even care about our students’ challenges. Our students are adults and the final responsibility for their well-being rests with them. They have advisers and friends and roommates to help them. We have our own difficulties and demands in our life that can overwhelm us at times. Why do we need to care about our students’ personal issues?
 
We need to help because our students are people, just like us. One of my favorite parts of the Graduate Employees Union is their frequent use of the word “solidarity.” When there is solidarity in a group, the members of the group recognize a need to help each other, to stand up for each other as best they can. I have always believed in and sought for solidarity with the human race.
Every single one of my students is a person, a human, a fellow Spartan, and deserves the respect each of those titles entails. Yes, my students are not always responsible human beings, and sometimes they try to take advantage of me, and yes, they often frustrate me. But they are still human beings, still people, and when I recognize that, I feel a responsibility to do what I can to help them.
 
As teachers, we have especial opportunities to help our students. We are scheduled to see them at certain times each week. We have a responsibility to educate them and help them succeed in our classes. More often than not, a student’s personal challenges will make it more difficult for them to succeed academically. I see no reason why we cannot extend our academic responsibility for our students a little bit farther to caring for their personal success.
Providing a Safer, Welcoming Environment
My classroom environment is based on my belief in common humanity. All of my students are worth caring about because they are human, just like me. Because of that, I try to provide a safer environment for them. There may be no perfect way to make our students feel safe and supported in our classrooms, but there are some things I have done that have yielded success. I try get to class a little early to I can talk to my students as they come in. I learn as many names as I can, and try to call on students by name during class. If I see my students outside of class, I try to make sure they know I recognize them, either by saying, “Hi!” or just making eye contact and smiling. I talk to my students, I ask about them, and try to remember what they tell me. I try to make them feel recognized and known to me. I want my students to know that they are more than just the human aspect of my paycheck.
 
Doing these sociable things that make for a safer classroom environment are not always easy. We as graduate students sometimes end up in charge of large lectures where learning the names of all our students may not be as feasible. Sometimes talking and interacting with students is not something that comes easily to us. Our students themselves may at times be rude, shy, or closed to us. But that should not dissuade us from recognizing our students as human beings and then pushing ourselves further to reach out to them.
Recognizing and Responding to Student Challenges
One way or another, we know some things about our students. We may not know everything about them, but we get to know what “normal” looks like for them. Because of that, deviations from this “normal” can be an indicator of student issues. For example, I once had a student who was normally one of my most frequent participators spend most of class staring at her desk. After class, I talked to her and she shared with me that she was having troubles with a roommate. While teaching high school, I had a student who had started out as one of my highest achieving students, but started skipping class because he had developed severe difficulties with depression. I unfortunately did not realize this until another high school teacher made me aware of the situation. Other times I have had students who have disappeared from class after having almost perfect attendance for the semester, or have seen grades inexplicably drop. These are all warning signs that something is going on, and that we should do something to help these students.
 
As teachers, our options for helping students are limited. It is good for us to be aware of student challenges , but getting too involved in student problems is often a less than ideal solution, since we may not have the professional training to fully support them. If I notice a student is acting differently  or if their attendance or grades have changed abruptly, I’ll simply talk to them briefly before or after class to check in and see how they are doing. If I’m unable to catch them in class, a simple email expressing concern works well. I’ve found that, in addressing students’ personal problems, sometimes my students need a listening ear more than anything. They just need someone to recognize that they’re struggling and let them know that it is okay to struggle.
Resources Available for Struggling Students
As teachers, the help we can personally offer students doesn’t extend much past providing a listening ear and perhaps making accommodations in class during difficult times.If students need extra help, there are many on and off campus resources available. Students may need professional help with emotional problems, or perhaps need help external help resolving a conflict. Some international students may be struggling with the transition to living in a different nation and culture. In more serious cases, students may need help dealing with discrimination, relationship violence, or sexual assault. Michigan State has many on-campus resources available to help these students (see links listed under “Additional Resources”). And many of our students live on campus, and thus have access to the Neighborhood Engagement Centers. In addition to providing academic services, these Engagement Centers provide health and wellness services, intercultural engagement, and residential support for students. More information about these services can be found at http://www.neighborhoods.msu.edu/.  Also, you can share specific concerns about students with staff in the Neighborhoods by sending an email to nhds@msu.edu.  
More than anything, make sure your students know there is help available to them and that there is nothing wrong with seeking help. As a mathematics teacher, I am overjoyed when my students ask me questions. I don’t always know the answers, and sometimes I push the students to find the answers themselves, but I am always happy that they asked. As TAs and instructors, we can help students feel comfortable asking for help, both academically and personally. And that is a skill more valuable than perhaps any of us realize.
Additional Resources at Michigan State University:

Counseling Center
Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution
LGBT Resource Center
Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities
Office for International Students and Scholars
Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives
Office of the Ombudsperson
Campus Police
Office of Institutional Equity

 

 
Originally posted at “Inside Teaching MSU” (site no longer live): Gundlach, M. Students are People, Too: Supporting Students Academically and Personally. inside teaching.grad.msu.edu

This article from Inside Higher Education offers a first-person perspective on the transition from graduate school to faculty, with emphasis on leadership, responsibility, balance, and collegiality.

Final Report: https://iteach.msu.edu/posts/preview_attachments?post_id=1491 

Final Report: https://iteach.msu.edu/posts/preview_attachments?post_id=1499