Pedagogical Wellness

What is Pedagogical Wellness?

Pedagogical wellness is the practice of integrating evidence-based teaching and wellness strategies into the educational space to promote both student and instructor well-being and success in the classroom. Furthermore, pedagogical wellness fosters space for creating a culture of mutual care, compassion, and respect among instructors and students.

Student Pedagogical Wellness

Syllabus 

  • Add a welcome letter to your syllabus to introduce yourself and that you care for your students.
  • Transparency: Tell your students what type of pedagogical approach you are taking whether it be inclusive, trauma-informed, and/or contemplative pedagogy. 
  • Send out the syllabus prior to the first day.
  • Make sure it has an inviting tone. 
  • Add a visual pattern of assignments of what is due each week.

Assessment and Grading style 

  • Rethink high-stakes exams. Include both formative and summative assessments.
  • Consider flexible weighting strategies
  • Specifications grading can alleviate stress for instructors and students.

Assignments 

  • Consider revise and resubmit options.
  • Assess course workload. Remember that students have competing demands like other courses, work, and lives beyond the classroom. 
  • Give students choices for projects and/or submission format.
  • Make sure assignments allow for reflection and connection to life, other students, and the world.
  • Allow students a soft deadline and a hard deadline to give some space for flexibility. 
  • Consider project-based learning.

Class Environment/ Participation

  • Ice breakers and brain breaks: mindfulness activities, stretch breaks, dance breaks, class outdoors.
  • Consider not having an attendance policy or at least some flexibility (for example: allow 2 missed classes)
  • Give content/trigger warnings when teaching about sensitive topics like violence, sexual assault, racism, or traumatic events.
  • Give alternatives or an opt out option.
  • Have multiple forms of participation and integrate digital technology in the classroom. 
  • Use reflections, mindfulness activities, and gratitude journals to allow students to deepen their appreciation of class content.
  • Use either structured or unstructured brain breaks every 30 minutes to get students to refocus their attention.
  • Encourage self-care such as eating, sleeping, exercising.

Communication with students 

Instructor Pedagogical Wellness

Course Design

  • Set manageable grading deadlines for yourself.
  • Use grading strategies (e.g., setting a timer, peer reviews, contract grading) that help you keep track of your time and workload.
  • Incorporate assignments that require less grading time. Give options for assignments that may take less grading time (e.g., infographics, videos, modeling vs. long paper submissions). 
  • Break up large project assignments in the short, weekly assignments to allow students to  gauge their progress and allow you to avoid long hours grading toward the end of the quarter 
  • Use technology that you are comfortable with while seeking to expand your capacity as well over time.
  • Use support resources like DTEI’s consultation services to help with designing and implementing your course.
  • If you build in wellness exercises or activities, participate in the exercises or activities alongside students to normalize well-being in the classroom.

Course Policies

  • Allow students to drop 1 or 2 assignments/quizzes “no questions asked.” This saves time and energy negotiating over emails.
  • Avoid attendance policies or build in attendance flexibility (e.g., 2-3 free sick days). Avoid asking for proof as this increases the burden on you as the instructor to verify.
  • Structure assignment deadlines either with a soft/hard deadline or allow a grace period. (e.g., set deadline at 10 pm, but allow additional 24 hours in case anything arises) to avoid student extension requests

Communication

  • Set email boundaries (e.g., 24 hours to respond and longer on weekends)
  • Use the syllabus to communicate with your students about expectations, deadlines, assignments, and communicate how to avoid needing to discuss individually with your students you plan to communicate with your students.
  • Including assignment expectations in multiple places may also help to decrease confusion about assignments. 
  • Consider hosting group office hours instead of one-on-one office hours.
  • Faculty are human too! Communicate that illness, family issues, disabilities affect us as well sometimes.

Support

Current Programs

Faculty Learning Community: Burnout and Resilience in Academia

Faculty from all departments are invited to join our pilot faculty learning community (FLC) focused on building resilience in teaching and coping with burnout. Participants will co-construct the topics we cover throughout the duration of the FLC. We will explore aspects of the book Unraveling Faculty Burnout by Rebecca Pope Ruark, Ph.D., and offer space for faculty to share their own experiences with peers. Some sessions will also be dedicated to pedagogical strategies that will help us move toward a culture of care at our institution. We plan to host two meetings in Fall 2023 and two to three meetings in Winter 2024. This FLC will be co-led by Theresa Duong (DTEI Pedagogical Wellness Specialist) and Janet DiVincenzo (DTEI Instructional Designer).

Register here.

Institute for Pedagogical Wellness

The Institute for Pedagogical Wellness (IPW) is a collaborative program intended to equip faculty and graduate students with pedagogical wellness knowledge and skills to implement in their classrooms. It also provides a space for participants to support each other in teaching and professional development. The IPW participants will then adapt the IPW curriculum and co-create a brief workshop series or learning community meetings tailored to their specific school. Through IPW, we aim to create more healthy and welcoming instructional spaces for our students while supporting the mental health of our faculty and instructional teams.

Contact

Do you have questions, an idea for collaboration, or want to make some wellness changes to your course? Contact Theresa Duong, Ph.D., our Pedagogical Wellness Specialist.

Schedule a meeting/consultation by emailing Theresa Duong at huongd@uci.edu.