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Facilitators’ Instructions: “Considering the Whole Self in Teaching and Learning”

Layout

This workshop is structured as a “Learning Community” split between two synchronous sessions. Asynchronous prep modules are designed to enrich the synchronous sessions. The rest of this page will detail how we implemented the workshop, but feel free to adapt to your purposes.

Workshop prep

We put a few things together beforehand:

  1. Our sample community agreement, slides and collaborative document over to your Google drive:

  2. Set up an online discussion board of some type. Possible platforms include:

    More informal social platforms could also probably be adapted, like Keybase Teams/Slack, Signal/WhatsApp, etc.

  3. Install the course website (https://github.com/massma/teacher-learner-wellbeing) to a public (or private) website. If you have any questions about how to do that please reach out to Adam at [email protected].

Workshop description and blurb

This is what we used for advertising the workshop:

"It is no secret that stress, anxiety, and other mental health challenges are prevalent in higher education. In fact, in recent years, more students have reported experiencing negative academic impacts from stress than from the common cold and flu (c.f., NCHA, 2019). Yet the standard mental health policies we include in our syllabi often frame these experiences as something to be addressed solely outside of the classroom. This two-part workshop takes a different approach, recognizing that instructors and TAs have the power to support and prioritize students’ (and our own) physical and mental wellbeing in the classroom, and that doing so can foster student learning. This re-centering of health and wellbeing is crucial now more than ever, as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic intersect with and amplify pre-existing stressors for teachers and learners, including but not limited to anti-Black racism, political turmoil, and increasingly common climate disasters.

In this two-part workshop, participants will explore the relationships between mental and emotional health, the human body, and learning. Through a combination of asynchronous modules and synchronous workshop and discussion sessions, participants will frame the literature of mental health and bodily awareness in the classroom with their lived experience and leave with concrete methods of incorporating new insights into their own practice, with a particular focus on creating learning objectives and designing assessments that consider and support the whole student. These novel approaches will help students and teachers to experience more positive, rewarding, and healthy class spaces, and to support each other in working toward this vision."

Intro & instruction email

Our initial contact with registrants was through email:

"Welcome to the Learning Community, Considering the Whole Self in Teaching and Learning: Mental and Physical Wellbeing in the Classroom! We are really looking forward to seeing you all at DATE OF WORKSHOP PART 1 at LOCATION, and we wanted to reach out about some prep for our first get-together:

This session is part of a two-part Learning Community, and the Learning Community is greater than the sum of its parts. Attendance across both sessions yields a much richer experience, while also putting the “community” in “Learning Community.” We hope to see you all a the second session as well!

In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to reach out (FACILITATORS' EMAIL)."

Synchronous Session 1

Sample slides are available in Google slide format; but most of session focuses around discussion and the collaborative document (example doc available here).

Here is the breakdown of the session, which is about 75 minutes long:

Instruction email between synchronous session 1 and 2

We wrote:

"To those that attended DAY OF WORKSHOP PART 1’s Learning Community: thank you again for such an engaging and enriching session. Here is a link to the collaborative document with all of the beautiful insights generated from that session:

LINK TO COLLABORATIVE DOC 1

To those that could not make it but are joining us for the second session on DATE OF WORKSHOP PART 2 - welcome! We are really looking forward to DAY OF WORKSHOP PART 2 and exploring the possibilities of embodied pedagogy in the classroom! A few points before next session:

In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to reach out (FACILITATORS' EMAIL).

Most importantly, have a great weekend!"

Synchronous Session 2

Sample slides are available in Google slide format; but most of session focuses around discussion and the collaborative document (example available here).

Here is the breakdown of the session, which is about 75 minutes long:

Follow up email

The following email was sent to wrap up the learning community:

"Thank you all so much for your participation in this learning community. It was a true pleasure working with and learning from everyone. Below, please find the links to the two collaborative documents we worked with for your reference.

And, if you didn’t get a chance, please take a moment to give us your feedback on this learning community by filling out this survey LINK TO FEEDBACK SURVEY.

We also welcome more detailed feedback, if you care to share it, via email at FACILITATORS' EMAIL.

Many thanks and see you soon!"

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