Welcome to the Tuesday Teaching Tip, an easy-to-implement tool that you can use immediately in your classroom teaching. 

TUESDAY TEACHING TIP: Integrating Wellness into Teaching 

As we return to classes next week, hopefully you were able to get some much-deserved time for rest and wellness in your own lives. We invite you to think about how to center wellness for yourself and your students throughout the quarter as well. 

Studies indicate that mental health and well-being are connected to a student’s ability to learn. As a Jesuit institution, one of SCU’s leading values is Cura Personalis - “care of the whole person.” Specifically, SCU’s Wellness Model has eight dimensions: spiritual, emotional, financial, environmental, vocational, physical, communal, and intellectual.  Research shows that there are a variety of practical ways to integrate attention to student wellness from curriculum design to pedagogical practices, such as: providing timely feedback and helpful advice so that students can improve throughout the course, encouraging connection in your class by having students develop collaborative relationships working together in teams, and acknowledging that college can be stressful.

This week, we challenge you to integrate attention to health and wellness into your course(s) to help foster a positive learning environment and culture of care. Specifically, explore the 8 dimensions of the SCU Wellness Model that all of our undergraduate students encounter in the Residential Learning Communities (RLCs) and think about one practical way that you can integrate health and wellness concepts or practices into one of your courses. 

Here’s a few ways to do it 

• Include the SCU Wellness statement in your syllabus (Did you know that faculty can import the SCU Student Wellbeing Resources page from Canvas Commons and add it directly to the welcome module in your Camino courses).
• Provide a course orientation that includes specific attention to the SCU Wellness statement. Read the statement together as a class, and then walk-through each of the associated resources (CAPS, Wellness Center), so that students know what is available and how to access each resource. For example, did you know that SCU offers students individualized wellness coaching? 
• Include an overview of the Basic Needs Program, so that students are aware of the diverse supports available to help access food, housing, and other vital needs.  
• Consider integrating a workshop or presentation from a Violence Prevention Educator (VPE) or Peer Health Educator (PHE) to support your course content. VPEs and PHEs are two student-based health promotion and education organizations that operate out of the SCU Wellness Center.

DID YOU DO IT?

Let us know how it went. We would love to hear your feedback about how you implemented today’s Tuesday Teaching Tip in your classroom. Click here to fill out our 3-question survey.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Come to our first CAFE of the winter quarter on Monday, January 6th from 11:45-12:45 at Varsi 222 to learn more about the 8 Dimensions of Wellness from the perspective of faculty and students who have worked with it, and stay for an Implementation Hour to get support in designing an activity or class session integrating wellness into your courses. 

WANT TO READ A LITTLE MORE?

• Check out these Digital Resources for Teaching (DRT) pages
• Supporting Student Wellbeing
• Inclusive Teaching
• Ignatian Pedagogy
• Building a Classroom Community
• Teaching First Gen Students & Fostering Belonging
• Syllabus Design
• Faculty Guide to Student Support
• Mental Health First Aid
• Eisenberg, D., Hunt, J., & Speer, N. (2013). Mental health in American colleges and universities: Variation across student subgroups and across campuses. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 201(1), 6067.
• Keyes, C. L., Eisenberg, D., Perry, G. S., Dube, S. R., Kroenke, K., & Dhingra, S. S. (2012). The relationship of level of positive mental health with current mental disorders in predicting suicidal behavior and academic impairment in college students. Journal of American College Health, 60(2),126:133.
• Martin, J. M. (2010). Stigma and student mental health in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 29(3), 259274. 
• Wiggins, G. (2012) Seven Keys to Effective Feedback. Feedback for Learning. 70(1), p.10-16 What are the benefits of group work? Eberly Center. Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation. Carnegie Mellon University.

This week’s Tuesday Teaching Tip was prepared by Cara Chiaraluce & Sofia Kotsiri on behalf of the Faculty Collaborative.

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And check out our full calendar of CAFEs and other Faculty Development and Faculty Collaborative events.