The Pedagogy and Wellness in the Classroom program offers multifaceted professional development in teaching practices that enhance student wellness.
Participants will become informed about neurodevelopmental, psychological and social factors that impact student wellness, learn evidence-based pedagogical strategies that also support student wellness, identify wellness practices they already use as well as areas of expansion, and will become prepared to employ new pedagogical practices in their classrooms. Participants will also become more effective at having conversations with their students in situations in which more targeted support for wellness is necessary (e.g., support for mental health, learning disabilities, or other needs), and will become aware of resources around campus that they can tap. Finally, we aim to create a community of scholars who can support each other as they improve the climate in their own classrooms and beyond.
This micro-credential is open to graduate and professional students, postdoctoral fellows, teaching staff, and faculty of all ranks as well as staff who interact with students (e.g., academic advisors).
Eligibility
CU Boulder Employees
Delivery Mode
Credit Status
Noncredit
Academic Level
Professional
Time to Completion
Hours
Fee
No
Requirements
Participants will watch a number of short, asynchronous lectures spread over five modules, will complete reflection-based assignments and will participate in two 3-hour class meetings to propose, review and receive feedback on how they will use the course material to improve their teaching, for example, specific pedagogical approaches, wellness strategies and/or communication skills.
Criteria
Learners will work their way through asynchronous modules on the following:
- Campus mental health.
- Faculty wellness.
- The EPICC (Engagement, Prioritizing purpose, Inclusivity, Compassion and Connection) model of pedagogy—an evidence-based model developed here at CU that includes components that enhance learning and support wellness—as well as a plethora of specific pedagogical strategies that accompany each component.
- Communication strategies to use with students in distress, in difficult conversations in the classroom and in interactions with colleagues.
- Resources on campus.
Learners will demonstrate that they have completed online activities and handouts when they attend two community meetings. At these meetings, learners will additionally engage in discussion/reflection of what they have learned, will identify pedagogical, communication, wellness skills and strategies they wish to integrate into their classes/syllabi/class policies/assignments going forward, will develop a written draft of these goals and objectives, will receive feedback from their peers and instructors that they will then integrate into a final proposal.
The final proposal may take the form of new syllabus statements, assignments, class policies or it may be a written description of the learner's goals, depending on which new strategies the learner wishes to focus on. In any case, a review of each learner's proposals will evidence understanding of micro-credential content and commitment to deploy new strategies in interactions with students.
Skills
- Communicate skillfully with students and colleagues
- Employ wellness strategies
- Know and refer to campus resources
- Teach to promote learning and support wellness
- Understand campus mental health issues