It’s been a while, but we are still working hard to get the word out about how teaching practices can and will affect student wellbeing, and what we can do to promote student wellbeing. Check out this Student Opinions video and hear what students have to say about how teaching affects their wellbeing!
Special thanks to the student volunteers who participated in the video:
Christina Campbell
Sanah Ali
Shelby Marozoff
Katherine Moore
A blog post was recently published on the UBC Centre of Teaching, Learning and Technology’s Indigenous Initiatives website as a follow-up to the session our principle investigators (Michael and Patty) did earlier this term.
Check out the blog post here:
http://indigenousinitiatives.ctlt.ubc.ca/2017/05/03/student-wellbeing-and-classroom-climate/
Instructors who are invested in the success of their students support both student learning and student wellbeing. Fostering a relationship with students, as described previously, promotes student learning because students feel more comfortable approaching someone they know for help. While a personal relationship is beneficial, students and instructors both indicated that even without this personal connection, there are other ways instructors can support student learning. For example, connecting students to learning resources, suggesting that students form study groups, and sharing effective study strategies are all effective ways instructors can connect students to their peers or to campus resources.
Connecting students to learning resources seems to be particularly helpful for students who are struggling with the pace of the course, either in their first year as they adjust to university or as a student taking a course outside their major. Due to the large volume of resources on campus, students may not be aware of supports that could help them in a particular course. As an Arts student indicated during student focus groups, “it’s kind of nice when the prof is like oh don’t forget this – maybe you guys can go if you need help with writing or any such things, it’s helpful”.
Participants indicated that it is important for instructors to be available to answer questions. Inviting questions during lecture makes it easier for students to put their hand up in a large lecture hall. Instructors who check in with each group during an in-class activity provide students the opportunity to ask questions without having to speak up in front of the entire class. Instructors who are accessible outside of class are seen as being more supportive of student learning. Participants identified a number of ways the instructor can increase his or her accessibility: asking the class to vote on when office hours should be held, scheduling office hours by appointment, offering additional office hours prior to exams, holding office hours online, sticking around for a few minutes after class, and being responsive to email. Encouraging students to visit during office hours reduces the intimidation factor and makes it more likely that students will seek help.
Here are a few more tips on how you can support learning outside the classroom:
Do you have other strategies you use to help students with their learning outside the classroom? When you were a student, did you attend office hours? Did you find office hours helpful? We would love to hear your story! Let’s start a dialogue on how to support our students outside of the classroom, as well as within.
In some courses, students expend a significant amount of mental energy on the mechanics of the course; this takes away from the time and energy students are able to spend on learning the course content. Instructors can support student learning by ensuring that the course is organized and that expectations and objectives are communicated clearly. Having an organized instructor helps students manage their time, while having an unorganized instructor create stress and anxiety, and hinders student learning. Students perceive instructors as organized when they set key dates (exams and due dates) at the outset, ensure that all course-related information is shared in one place, and verify that all information is correct before posting it. Having a detailed syllabus appears to be especially important for students, as articulated by an Arts student:
“I also feel that giving the students a well, very detailed syllabus is very useful because then I know exactly what is expected of me what I need to know what I should spend most of my time on and that gives me less stress and then if I know that if I work for this then that will be reflected in my grade.”
Having clear expectations seems to refer to students’ understanding of the mechanics of a course and how much effort is required to receive a particular grade. Knowing what to expect on an exam reduces anxiety. A science student described how having a consistent exam format and practice problems reduced his exam stress: “if you kind of know at least the format of the exam, what to expect, that kind of gets rid of the anxiousness associated with just like the unknown”. Using the same format for assessment throughout the term helps students understand what to expect and learn how to best prepare. Instructors can further reduce stress around exams by highlighting key information in class (i.e. with iClicker questions or lecture recaps), offering review sessions, or outlining which chapters students should focus on while studying. A Science student articulated frustration prior to exams due to “Not knowing what to study for a midterm is just really stressful because you feel like you have to study everything. But you can’t study everything in detail so you kind of have to pick and choose but you don’t know what and I think that can be”.
Students also seem to benefit from understanding what it takes to receive a desired grade. Participants suggested that instructors should provide detailed grading rubrics. One participant felt that instructors should should provide actual grade breakdown showing how many people in a course typically receive each grade and by providing samples of what each grade looks like. “I don’t think a rubric explaining … and 2.5 out of 5 means this. That doesn’t tell me anything, I actually need to see an example that received 5 in that category so I can understand what do they mean” (Arts student).
Clear expectations matter. A lot. And contrary to popular belief, having clear expectations doesn’t mean spoon feeding students the answer. Most students are at university to learn! They understand that just being able to follow instructions and memorize information won’t prepare them for the type of career they want. They actually want to learn how to think critically…
Having clear expectations means students know what to expect, and it pertains mostly to the mechanics of the course. Students have a limited amount of time and energy to devote to each course. They want to devote as much of this time and energy as possible to engaging with the subject matter, and spend as little time and energy as possible figuring out the mechanics of the course. Let’s say students spend 10 hours per week on each course. 3 of that might be in class, with 7 hours spent on course related activities outside of class. Ideally, most of those 7 hours are spent reading, studying or doing assignments. But sometimes, a significant portion might be spent trying to figure out where the course readings are on connect… or how to use the APA style correctly… or figuring out how a literary essay differs from the 5-paragraph essay they were taught in high school… or which of the 3 due dates is the actual one (since the prof posted different dates in different spots, and said something different again in class).
Having clear expectations means that students know what type of support an instructor will provide. They understand the instructors’ practices around grading (i.e. if they give extensions and when). They know exactly when their quizzes and exams will take place and when their assignments are due so that they can plan their lives. They know what they need to do to achieve their desired grade. And they really do appreciate knowing what topics will be on the exam. Here are some tips on how you can structure your courses effectively:
What are your thoughts on this topic? Thinking back to the time when you were a student, did your instructors provide clear outlines of what to expect on exams? We would love to hear your ideas and thoughts. Feel free to comment below!
Students indicated that their wellbeing was supported when they were learning the course material effectively. Students expressed their frustration when teaching was perceived as ineffective: “They know a lot of stuff but a lot of profs that I have had, they cannot like teach well at all. So like knowing something very well and teaching it to other people are like two different things to me” (Arts Student). If a student is unable to learn effectively in class, they “don’t feel like [they] retained anything, and so if a midterm or final comes along, it’s a lot more me prepping myself” (Arts Student).
In addition to enhancing student motivation to learn, active teaching practices also help students learn the course material effectively. Instructors can enhance teaching effectiveness by incorporating a variety of teaching practices such as doing demonstrations, showing videos, balancing active and passive teaching practices, using multiple examples, and connecting students to extra resources when appropriate. Participants indicated that effective teachers are able to explain concepts in different ways. As Student 20 puts it, if one explanation “didn’t work the first time so second time it’s probably not going to work either.” Finding alternative ways to explain one concept may help students understand the material better.
Participants also indicated that lecture outlines, lecture recaps and review sessions help them organize and solidify their learning. Lecture outlines help students see how different topics fit together, which makes learning easier and helps students to organize their notes. Lecture recaps help students retain the information by reiterating concepts at the end of the lecture and helping students identify gaps in their knowledge. One Arts student finds recapping “important because maybe you missed something or you didn’t understand something so in a recap of that class you get a brief description of what happened [so] you may understand better. Or because of that recap you then could have a question to ask the prof”. Review sessions seem to fulfill a similar function to lecture recaps, but on a larger scale.
Students in this project shared that teaching practices that are most effective for first-year students may not be the most effective for upper year students. First-year students may feel overwhelmed by the pace of learning and may need additional supports built into the courses. For example, first-year students may benefit from having tutorial sections, but “by the time you’re in fourth or fifth year, I feel like if you want smaller classes you are looking for seminars” (Arts student). Another Arts student described having first-year instructors who “would do like mini workshops for like whenever they introduced certain assignments they’d be like hey this is like roughly how you write an essay… things were more laid out in first year”. Students also recognized the importance that “as [they] continue university there [should be] less spoon feeding.”
Several instructors indicated that undergraduates are still learning how to learn, and that they can provide additional support during this stage of students’ lives. Instructor 11 (Science) lets students know that they are “still learning how to learn and I view my role as helping them do that” while Instructor 9 (Arts) “make[s] it very clear that I think they are all very smart. They all deserve to be here. They can all succeed.”
Here is a list of teaching strategies that students shared in this project as ones that supported their learning through effective delivery of course content:
Do you have other ways of helping students understand a difficult concept? We would love to hear from you!
In addition to finding value in the course material, students can find value in the learning process itself. Students are more motivated to attend classes if the instructor engages ‘fun’ and ‘interesting’ teaching practices. During one of our student focus group sessions, one of the Arts students mentioned that “especially in [subjects where] I find the material less interesting, when the prof seems excited or engaged or like like they want to be there and they try to make it fun and interesting that really helps me like show up to class because it’s just a nice environment to learn in”. In addition to being more motivating, most students find that engaging and interactive teaching methods improve their learning.
Discussions were the most frequently mentioned teaching practice. Students seem to value discussions because they have the opportunity to actively participate in the learning process and hear new perspectives. One Science student describes how discussions enhance motivation to attend class because they foster a sense of connection with the professor: “[discussions] kinda break the wall between you and the prof as well. [Whereas] I feel like if it’s a prof that only stands there and only talks to the class without interacting, … [I’d be] be less motivated to come”. Similarly, an Arts student describes how discussion enhances motivation to attend by forming social connections: “you kind of have more investment in that class because you have… [you] know other people”. Some students prefer small group or partner discussions as they provide more opportunities to for individual involvement than in larger discussions. In addition to discussions, students described a wide variety of interactive or otherwise engaging teaching practices instructors could incorporate in their classes to enhance student motivation to learn.
In addition to describing a number of ways that instructors can promote engagement in the learning process with active learning techniques, participants described how passive teaching practices tend to have the opposite effect. Dim lighting, speaking in a monotone voice and reading from the slides make it difficult for students to stay alert. One student describes this experience as “you may go to a lecture hall and then just sleep and then you know, not engaged and you feel like you’re wasting your time” (Science student). Taking the slides directly out of the textbook is equally demotivating: “it was honestly like word for word and like the exact examples were scanned in from the textbook so it’s really discouraging if you come to class and you’re like I could do this on my own” (Arts student). Students indicated that even within a passive learning environment – such as a traditional lecture – instructors can promote engagement by showing their passion and excitement for the course, by using humour or sharing anecdotes when appropriate.
It is worth noting that while most students prefer interactive teaching practices, there is a small minority of students who prefer more passive learning environments.
Although employing an interactive and entertaining teaching style may sound appealing, one instructor noted the challenge of keeping students interested throughout a class during the instructor focus group: “the problem is that students are busy and … I am competing with Hollywood, with Facebook, with Snapchat … I am competing with that because the students are overwhelmed with information, entertainment, news, all kinds of product and I’m just another channel.” (Instructor 10, Arts). Even though it may not be easy to compete with other channels that are vying for students’ attention, the teaching practice ideas below may help you create a more engaging learning experience for students.
Teaching Practices that Create an engaging learning process
Alright! It’s that time again. Students are not the only people who enjoy discussions – we do too! We’d love to engage in a dialogue with you about the above teaching practices! Do you see yourself implementing any of the above? Do you foresee any barriers in doing so? If so, what are some ways you can facilitate engagement despite these barriers?
Students indicated that they find the course material more interesting when it is relevant or meaningful to them in some way. Students expressed a number of different reasons for attending university, ranging from learning and personal growth, to getting into graduate school and preparing for a career. With such a wide variety of reasons for attending university, different students are motivated by different things.
When the course content is meaningful and relevant to the student – that is, when the content helps them achieve their goals for university or when it is applicable to their lives or future careers – students find value in learning it. Participants indicated that content is more meaningful when they understand why a topic is important and how it connects to other topics. Offering students choice allows them to explore areas of interest and creates a sense of ownership.
Explaining why the course is important for a field of study and highlighting how a topic connects to another topic within the course or in another course helps students find value in the course material.
It is valuable to have opportunities for students to be outside of the classroom environment, so they can use theories learned in the classroom and apply them into the real world. Students seem to feel more fulfilled when their education is not just abstract concepts, but rather knowledge that can be transferred in real working experiences. As one Arts student suggested during our student focus group, “I did my internship <not-for-profit>, and I’m still volunteering with them today. It just, it was such a nice learning experience to be out there on the field and actually using that knowledge and manipulating in a way that it’s not just a textbook, it’s wow I’m doing it”. When students find value in the subject matter, it increases their motivation to learn. As wellbeing is defined as a “state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy”, the increase in motivation thereby increases student wellbeing as well.
Here are some ways you can enhance students’ motivation to learn!
We would love to hear what your opinion is on this topic! Please share with us your thoughts below. We look forward to journeying with you on the path to employing teaching practices that promote student wellbeing!
One of the important concepts that emerged during our study was how having a safe classroom climate contributes to student wellbeing. It is likely that a safe classroom climate means different things to different people; however, there seemed to be consensus among student focus group participants around two main ideas:
“He [the prof] doesn’t really believe in participation marks because that really hits a student on whether they’re an outgoing person or whether they just don’t wanna speak up right and I really respected him for that because it allowed everyone to feel safe as well knowing that they’re not there’s not going to be pressure put on them in a negative or disrespectful way and the sense that he respects that as well and that he acknowledges and understands that even if you don’t speak up it doesn’t mean you don’t engaged it’s just it could just totally be your personality. And I think that made people want to participate a little bit because they felt more safe and they could like trust him or whatever” (Science student)
The concept of a safe classroom environment seems to be closely aligned with the instructor-student relationship and peer-relationships; a safe classroom climate promotes relationship building, however, establishing relationships also helps create a safe classroom climate. Further, a safe classroom climate seems to support student learning, in particular, by supporting student engagement and participation in interactive learning activities.
Teaching Strategies that Create a Safe Classroom environment
What is your idea of a “safe” classroom? We’d love to hear what you think! Please share your thoughts with us below in the Comments section and start a dialogue about safe classroom and its impact on student wellbeing!
Students and instructors alike noted that everyone experiences mental health and wellbeing challenges periodically. Openly acknowledging this, and talking about this either as a class or one-on-one appears to promote student wellbeing. From our student focus group interviews, one student mentioned that “everybody experiences crisis at some point in their time, like this is not unusual. So just creating that environment of … talking about mental health is really key for me.” Another student expressed sincere appreciation for an instructor who acknowledged that “if you break up with somebody, or like, you know, if something is really stressing you out … it’s like okay to have these things come up … he was really the only professor that acknowledged that these things are gonna happen” (Student 11). This student described how the instructor invited students to come talk to him/her when they were stressed so that they could find ways to accommodate the student’s situations.
Several of the instructors interviewed during our study openly invited students to come talk with them if they were struggling. Openly discussing mental health and wellbeing in the classroom may make it more likely for a student to approach an instructor if they are struggling with a serious concern. Instructors need to be prepared to respond appropriately. Instructors described how many situations can be responded to at the level of the course. For example, with academic accommodations or simply by being “someone friendly to talk to” (Instructor 7). In more serious situations, “it’s a balance of not trying to become a counselor myself ‘cause I’m not qualified to do that, but … making sure that they don’t feel like I’m rejecting them, in order to sort of pass them off to someone else” (Instructor 3). Demonstrating openness to discussing mental health and wellbeing challenges builds an environment where students feel supported, which contributes to student wellbeing.
Check out the following teaching practices that helps to discuss mental health and wellbeing openly with your students!
Thinking back to the time when you were a student yourself. Have you had an instructor who openly discussed mental health and wellbeing issues with your class? If yes, please share your experience below! If not, what do you think would be the impact of employing this teaching strategy? Let’s start a dialogue about student wellbeing here and now!
Learning takes place in the context of a student’s life. Students have indicated that instructors who acknowledge, respect and support these other aspects of their lives promote wellbeing. The instructors we interviewed – all of whom students nominated as promoting student wellbeing – seemed to be well aware of student stressors, which can range from every-day stresses (i.e. commuting, working, adjusting to life away from home, making new friends) to coping with extreme circumstances such as a severe illness or a death in the family. Several instructors commented that students are coming of age in an increasingly complex world: Instructor 1 (Arts) noted that “the worlds of students today are much more complicated and stressed and demanding.” Students experience high levels of competition in all aspects of their lives. A generation ago, a university degree basically guaranteed a good job. Today, “You have to have a university degree that is in a major that is in demand and you have to have extracurricular activities and you have to have volunteered in four different countries” (Instructor 10, Arts).
With so much going on in their lives, students described the importance of knowing key dates (exams and assignment due dates) and the instructors’ grading practices (i.e. do they offer extensions) at the start of term so that they can plan. Students also described the importance of having reasonable workloads and expressed appreciation for instructors who made efforts to accommodate student schedules when setting office hours.
Students also discussed how instructors respond to unexpected situations. As one Arts student put it, “Everybody experiences crisis at some point in their time”. Students expressed appreciation for instructors who invited students to approach them if they were having a hard time or were stressed out by something that was happening in their life. This appears to be particularly important for situations where students may not be able to get “proof” of their situation (e.g. breakups). In some situations, getting proof of a crisis (in order to obtain accommodations) can become a “whole other crisis on its own” (Arts student).
Teaching Practices that Recognize students have lives outside academics
Thinking back to the time when you were a student, did you appreciate if your instructor employed the above strategies? Do you have other strategies that you use? We’d love to hear your feedback on this topic!